Senju at Edsa Shangri-La, Manila — Restaurant in Mandaluyong

As the sort of unofficial successor to the dearly departed Inagiku of Makati Shangrila, Senju does a good job of filling the shoes of the go to japanese Sunday brunch in the metro despite fierce competition from newer places. If you've ever been to Inagiku before, you can see shades of their offerings here, and in general it's quite good and good value for money compared to other comparable buffets.

Their sushi station is quite nice, with both regular sushi rolls, aburi ones, and even a soft shelled crab roll. Of course you'll have the expected tuna and salmon sashimi, though they weren't particularly fatty or otherwise notable.

The other main attraction is of course the teppanyaki station, which has beef tenderloin, shrimp, chicken, and salmon. All the items there are great, with the beef being particularly tender.

They had a sukiyaki station but the sukiyaki broth was a little too sweet.

They had some fried items out also like the usual tonkatsu, but also something quite special, fried soft shelled crab.

For dessert they have the usual items such as ice cream and coffee jelly.

I'm not quite sure it hits the same highs as Inagiku did, but it's worthy of being a top consideration when looking for...

The waiter that was taking our order was condescending towards me and my family.

A few members were early and already ordered. When we came, I was asked to order for the group. We were ordering for a group of 13, so we were taking a bit longer than expected.

While we were choosing what we wanted, we’re talking amongst ourselves about the which items we wanted. We chose 2 of each chicken teriyaki, ebi tempura and steak. During this, the waiter kept commenting “Baka di niyo maubos”. I’m not sure if he knew that our group was not complete yet at this time, we were still missing 3 people at this point. I was also ordering for them.

While we were choosing which steak we wanted, the waiter asked the doneness of our steak, and quickly interjected “kung paano lulutuin”, implying that we don’t know what doneness means.

The food was ok. The chicken was ok, but had a bit of a fishy taste The ebi tempura was crunchy. 10/10 The US Rib Eye Prime steak was chewy but tasted good with the sauce.

We paid 28k for the dinner, which I think is a bit overpriced for what we ordered. Left the 2 star rating just because of the experience...

Celebrated my mother-in-law's 71st birthday here. We were supposedly going to Shangri-la Mall for dinner but to the Japanese restaurant there was fully booked with no guarantee for seating. We wanted an alternative nearby and thought of Edsa Shang. Summer Palace? Not in the mood for Chinese. Heat? Buffet may be too heavy. Then Senju came up when I searched on the website. I immediately rang to reserve for 8 pax. I was able to connect via the trunkline but the restaurant number was busy. I tried again early in the afternoon. The restaurant was closed until dinner but the customer service rep asked if I wanted to reserve with them instead. They would just advise Senju to call us for confirmation. So here we were, completely enjoying our meal. I ordered a bento set with tempura, gindara, sashimi and beef. Exceptional! The service was good too! Thankfully, we were not able to get a table at our original choice, and glad to have ended up at our...