Katsura Japanese Cuisine — Restaurant in Waitematā

Dear Hotel Team,

I am writing to express my disappointment and frustration with my recent experience at your restaurant. I made an online reservation and noticed a discount available for both online payment and reservation. However, when it came time to make the payment, I was advised by the system to make the payment at the restaurant. This discrepancy should have been communicated beforehand, even though the email displayed the discounted price.

I noticed an error with the payment during the payment process and promptly informed the on-duty manager. However, her attitude and response were aggressive, rude, discriminatory and extremely unsettling. She insisted that I needed to pay the full price as per your business procedures, disregarding the fact that I had repeatedly explained and provided evidence of the system error preventing me from making the payment online. The email clearly stated the discounted price, substantiating that this issue was a fault in your system, not mine. From a customer's perspective, receiving the discount as advertised is only fair for me.

Furthermore, if I were required to call your restaurant to obtain the discount, what is the purpose of online payment and reservation options? It defeats the purpose of online convenience, as the whole intention was to avail of the discount through online means. So, this is false advertising plus sending misleading emails to scam customers out of the discount offered.

On the contrary, as a five-star restaurant within a hotel, it should have been your responsibility to reach out to me upon realising that my online reservation did not receive the discount and payment confirmation. Why was it expected of me to call your establishment? Moreover, throughout this week, I have received multiple email reminders about attending the dinner but nothing about not being able to get the discount if I didn't pay online beforehand. Didn’t any staff member not notice my online reservation before? It is disheartening to witness the lack of attention to detail and rudeness of the restaurant staff. And, subsequently shifting the blame onto me as the customer. This made me feel discriminated and looked down upon as if I couldn’t afford the extra $60.

The manager's continuous insistence on this being my problem, rather than acknowledging any fault in your system, is both disconcerting and disrespectful. Shouldn't it be your responsibility to rectify issues within your system when your online system was to blame instead of burdening the customer?

To clarify my stance, I refused to pay the extra $60 as I am entitled to the advertised discount. However, I was willing to pay the discounted price of $500+ as promised in the email, as I believe in fairness and integrity.

The on-duty manager then escalated the situation unnecessarily by calling the hotel security on my family and me and threatened to call the police as well. I had my parents with me and my two sons who are aged 12 and 7. My younger son was traumatized and thought we were going to jail.

The manager repeatedly emphasised that I was the first customer ever who was unable to make the online payment. However, I found cases online where customers faced similar issues and were offered the discount on the dinner day. Some were rejected and paid the full price (probably by this on-duty manager as well). I even had friends with similar experiences at your restaurant and was able to use the discount when they showed up to dinner. This implies that I was NOT the only one but one of many customers who had problems with the restaurant’s online payment system. Moreover, the manager's disrespectful, discriminatory, and insulting behaviour towards me was completely unacceptable especially in front of my kids and so many customers. This is a restaurant within a five-star hotel! I expected top-level customer service. The lack of professionalism is appalling and needs to be addressed.

I hope to hear from you soon regarding the actions taken to address and...

TLDR - Awesome Japanese all you can eat buffet, especially if you LOVE seafood.

Comparison - Better than Fortuna or Valentines. For seafood options, even better than Stratosphere. But for overall variety, Stratosphere is better. Haven't tried Eight yet, so can't give a comparison there.

Cost - We went on a Saturday night for the 5pm session. Total cost $240 for 2 people. Buffet - $115 and drink $5. We got until 7pm to enjoy the food. The other session starts at 7.30pm and ends at 9.30pm.

If you arrive early, there is plenty of seating infront of the restaurant and bar to spend your time. Our dinner started about a 5mins before 5pm. The wait staff who took us to our table gave us a mini tour of the buffet as well. Drink orders were taken immediately.

We got a table for 2 and their tables are good sized. While the plates are smaller than the standard size dinner plates, we could arrange 5-6 plates full of food on the table even with other variety of items on the table. Water bottle/ glasses and sauce pot/ dipping dishes are available at your table. More are available at a buffet table. They also give you a large bowl to discard any food scraps and will clear and replace it as it gets full during the dinner. We ate a whole lot of seafood and ours got replaced 5-6 times. Wait staff are very friendly and attentive. Empty plates, bowls, cups and what not will get taken from the table as soon as possible.

☆Menu☆ ♡ Variety of drinks ♡

● A lot of alcoholic options and some non alcoholic options including tea and soft drinks.

♡ Variety of food ♡

● Seafood table - Steamed and raw seafood section full of crabs, prawns, scampi, crawfish, mussels and oyster.

● Salad table - Various yummy seafood and vegetable options.

● Sashimi, sushi and nigiri

● Teppanyaki - Prawns, salmon, mussels, squid, beef, chicken, courgette, mushroom, onion, bell peppers..etc to choose from and hand over to the chef. He will make a yummy plate of roasted garlic teppanyaki meal from the items you choose.

● Soup section - Ramen and miso soup with top ups like ramen noodles, seaweed, scallions, tofu and wakame to choose from.

● Sandwich section - Brioche bread with beef cheek and some other veggies

● Hot food section - Fried rice, Japanese ratatouille, salmon wings, takoyaki, salmon croquets, KFC (Katsura Fried chicken), saucy crabs, tempura prawns and veggies, japanese savoury custard, prawn curry dish,...etc.

● Desserts - Sake creme brulee, assorted cakes and cheese cakes, fruit, panna cotta, tiramisu...etc. Staff will also serve you ice cream when the dinner is closer to the end. Their choccy ice cream is so good. We went there for our anniversary and got a cheesecake with a congratulatory message written on it. That was a pleasant surprise and a nice gesture from them.

● Tea table

All the food was fresh and yum. Seafood table was so good, so I mainly ate seafood. Ramen soup base was surprisingly good as well. Try their savoury egg custard in that soup. That was a winning combo for me to the point I drank soup instead of water to wash down the food. Sake creme brulee was ah-mazing.

What I would do next time - Take gloves with me. So I can eat all the messy seafood with my hands without any worries. Staff will give you a small bowl with a lemon slice in it to wash hands upon request. That was helpful but not as good as cleaning hands in a sink. I wish there is a small sink inside the restaurant to wash hands, because eating seafood like scampi, crawfish, crabs..etc is very messy and need hands. The bathrooms are across the floor and are nearby but have to walk out of the restaurant to wash hands which is what I did at the end of our dinner but is a hassle to do so time to time during the dinner.

P. S. - I forgot to take photos before the dinner.🙈 So mine are hastily taken photos of leftovers after all the...

We booked for 8 adults and 3 children for a family dinner. We had 2 babies also attend with us, aged 1 month and 7months (not eating as breastfed). When booking online the option for children was aged 0-4 years and no explanation what the $20 charge would be for, so one would assume for those children that would be dining. At the restaurant we asked for a high chair for the 7mo and the other baby lay in their pram next to their Mum at the table. The food was good, reasonable selection and was fresh. What our 2 star (or even 1 star but i’m being generous) review was due to them charging us for our 7mo and 1mo baby ‘taking up a seat in the restaurant’. We got charged the full price of $30 each. We were told that the space they took up could have been sold on for a full adult seating. The restaurant was not fully booked on the night and we were seated at the large table in the middle. They failed to tell us this charge would be added when we arrived. The waitress also stated we ‘would have paid this amount for a baby sitter anyway’ to which I replied was absolutely outrageous as it was a family dinner and we were not hiring baby sitters for a dinner as a family! These babies were also reliant on their mothers to breastfeed so a babysitter was NOT an option. There was also another family dining on the night that had a new born baby, approx 1 week old and we were told they were charged for bringing this baby to the restaurant too. I have emailed the restaurant manager twice and have had insufficient response and denial that the charge is unfair. They state it is hotel policy. So be warned, if you are bringing children that are not eating they will be charged for the seat they sit in!! Completely unfair and discriminatory against mothers needing to bring their...