Wa Zen Japanese Cuisine Kyalami — Restaurant in Gauteng

What a shocker My wife went there and we also got a take away for our son. We went there because takeaway previously ordered had been good. Firstly the place was empty bar one table of three people. That should have been a warning! The waiter was pleasant and attended to use in an above average manner. The place was clean with some interesting pictures. Several drinks and food on the menu were not available. For example no Japanese beer on a Japanese restaurant. Ok not a big problem issue We started with dim sum. Actually very pleasant but the smallest dim sum I have ever seen. Then we had two types of sushi. Oh my gosh. The rice was soggy and tasteless. The interior and exterior were thin, minimal and tasteless. I would say that some of the food had been frozen and was not fresh. To cap it the sushi looked anaemic with no colour.

I had ordered donburi mono guy don as my main. I cannot recall in my life not eating the food. It was absolutely horrendous. Firstly there was a bowl of absolutely tasteless dry rice that needed chewing. There was some sort of meet and onions on the top that I could not describe it was so bad. Thankfully it made up less than 5% of the total bowl. I had about four mouthfuls before planting my chop sticks in it upright in surrender. There was a miso soup accompanying this culinary delight. Wow dish water probably is more palatable than that. My wife had salmon on a rice dish. Her rice did taste better than mine but again she could not eat her meal it was so awful. My sons meal was a lamb and noodle dish. Again the meat was an after thought on a dish of noodles. At least his food could be eaten. The waiter informed us that there was a new chef. The previous one had been moved to their Midsteam branch. My suggestion to the owner is that this new chef should be banned from even making toast. He or she probably qualifies for the worst chef on the entire planet. Well that was an expensive lesson and we...

I was so excited to order food from Wa Zen and decided to go for the dim sum (Pork Siumai and Pork Gyoza) and the pork bowl (Cha-Shu Don), which unfortunately all turned out to be absolutely lazy cooking with little to no flavour and the pork bowl being made up of three pork rashers (whole) and a whole lot of rice! If I wanted to pay such a high price for a bowl of rice and pork rashers, I would have cooked the meal myself. This is supposed to be Japanese cooking which one would imagine has all the luxurious flavour but clearly not. The dim sum don't even come with a dipping sauce, which I then had to make for myself and the Pork BBQ Buns are so thick and so dry, with a dollop of something dark in the centre, not texture and definitely no pork filling. What a joke, very disappointed! Super expensive for lack of care given or respect...

We went to Wa Zen for a birthday lunch and it's was some of the best Japanese food we've eaten in a long time.

We started with the tempura calamari, tempura prawns, tempura vegetable and chicken wings. These were all excellent. The vegetable tempura and calamari tempura were particularly good.

For our mains we had a selection of beef teriyaki, lamb with black pepper, chicken teriyaki, ramen and tuna poke bowl. Again the food was excellent. Everything was perfectly cooked and the flavours were well balanced.

Mary, our waitress, was friendly and helpful throughout our meal. She was also well versed in the menu and was able to make some good recommendations.

I highly recommend Wa Zen if you like great Japanese food. We will definitely be...