Dozo Asia Food & Bar — Restaurant in Krakow

So, on my search for a great place to have Japanese food. I’ve to try this new restaurant in Fabryczna 13, named Dozo Asia Food & Bar. In this review, I’m only able to try out 2 Japanese staple dishes. Dozo have other Asian food like Thai and Chinese which might be convenient if you are in a group eat out.

Now, let’s start about the ambiance. I intended to go after lunch in this place to make sure I can see the interior of the restaurant better as there was less people. The place was good. Spacious tables and seats. Very good for group eat out. Lighting is decent. You’ll feel like you’re in a night street of Asia (Thailand/Taiwan) eating Asian foods. I like it. Feels homy for me as an Asian.

Now, the food. Let’s check their ebi tempura first. The reason I gave them 4 stars is because the ebi tempura does not come with a dashi based tempura sauce/dip. It comes with a mayonnaise based dip, but when I asked for a dashi based sauce and unfortunately they don’t have it. They offered me a ponzo sauce with radish which worked fine so far. The batter of the tempura was 👌🏽 great! Not a bready and thick. It has the thin-crispy texture which is a good tempura batter. The shrimp was not gummy, another point for Dozo! The last and not the least. Since there is no dashi tempura sauce. You may also do this hack. Order a Tokyo Ramen and make the ebi tempura as your additional toppings for the ramen. The ramen broth when soaked on the tempura batter creates a new flavour! Very nice hehehe!

Now for the ramen. I ordered Tokyo Ramen, a chicken based ramen with shoyu tare. In a way, the soup is decent. 😅 I might have high standards a bit regarding ramen broth, but again it is decent. I’m just lacking a little more of umami taste. The broth was close to rosol, but shoyu tare have elevated the taste to a ramen like one. Noodles were springy and soft. However, there were only few noodles in the bowl. I haven’t asked if you can order ala carte noodles for the ramen, but I wish there were more noodles in the bowl 😅. The chicken slices in the bowl of ramen was good, but I just don’t like the marinate of the chicken. There was an after taste of a strong spice. If I’m not mistaken, it was rubbed with Chinese 5 spices. I’m not a fan of that strong spice tbh. Overall, ramen was good. Pair it with the ebi tempura!!!

Now the server. The waitress accommodated me on my visit was nice and polite. Very helpful and, yes, she speaks English very well. So, it was easy for me to say what I need and want for my meal. Hahaha! I hope she got the tip I left in the bill canister.

Overall, I like this place. I’ll go back here for those tempura...

A solid pan-Asian restaurant in an otherwise fairly empty complex.

Located inside Fabryczna 13, there are a small number of restaurants and after our visit to the Vodka Museum, we were starving and chose this place to grab a quick bite.

There is a lot of very bad Asian food in Europe, and it can be quite hard to find halfway decent restaurants that aren't extremely expensive or fancy. Most "Asian" food is for white European tastes, and not Asian people. So, we did not have high hopes for this spot but there wasn't much else to choose from.

It was actually pretty okay. It was basically what I would expect from any midrange Japanese eatery. Unfortunately, like most of Europe, the raw fish offerings were slim. But they balanced the lack of sushi/sashimi with pan-Asian options like laksa. (Some Malay, Chinese, Korean, and Thai.) I didn't try any of those, but it's interesting.

Tempura vegetables were actually perfectly done. The tataki was flavourful and punchy, and well-presented with care. The sushi roll was garnished a bit strangely, but again, the right flavour was there. And they had Japanese green tea.

It was not out of this world, but it was a lot better than either of us expected.

Service was fine too. Food takes a while however. At one point, we were waiting and waiting for a server, and a floor manager (I think) got up from where she was having her break to assist us personally, and that was incredibly nice of her. She didn't need to interrupt her break for us, but it was amazing that she did. Thank you!

The restaurant is nicely decorated like you are on the street at an outdoor street market. Typical Japanese restaurant sort of style with paper lights, etc. It is also huge! Lots of seating. It wasn't very busy, but everyone who was there seemed pleased and having...

It would've been a 5 star review if the restaurant worked out their customization model. So with regret I need to cut 2 stars.

Here's why.

We had a wish to replace one variety of fish in a meal with another one (already present in that dish) while agreeing to pay the cost difference. Our waitress was eager to help with that and she went back to the kitchen and the manager to check whether that was possible (why not?). Twice! Ultimately she came back without any viable options due to 'system limitations',and that the manager refused to offer any constructive way of pricing the set. I tried to help with the math but that wasn't accepted either.

Not being able to customise a simple sashimi plate? In a sushi place? At this price point? That's is not something a customer should accept. And I have not experienced anything like this before in even the cheapest sushi places.

And I don't blame the waitress since she was really trying hard, but the then manager on duty would definitely benefit from some customer service and numbers training. Additionally, not letting the server make any decisions on the spot regarding such simple stuff is an absurd seen only in Polish restaurants. Everywhere else, the waitress would be able to accept my requests and price them accordingly. But here, she lost like 10 minutes running back and forth. And if the owner is too scared to give any freedom to their floor staff, then I guess a proper thing would be if the manager on duty showed up at the table herself and explain or discuss...