1890 House Sushi and Grill — Restaurant in Observatory

I have travelled in many places in the world and I love and often try sushi/sashimi everywhere. I can safely say this was absolutely "the worst" I have experienced.

The tuna sashimi and sushi we were served had gone bad. The color was clearly wrong, simply gray instead of red. As we are talking about raw fish, this is criminal. The point of serving raw fish and the number one rule for any, even a cheap imitation sushi shop, is that the fish is fresh.

One can understand if something goes wrong by mistake. We had three different plates, all had tuna that had gone bad in the plate. But what made it worse was the irresponsible and unprofessional behavior of the manager Charley, it was unacceptable.

Instead of admitting their fault or trying to make up for it, he poorly tried to justify by sad reasoning: 1. he said you had seared tuna that is why maybe it was gray. my reply was that I had sashimi, then he simply says this is weird because we use the best piece for sashimi...!!!??? that's it? 2. He said that it is "not tuna season". I replied to him this doesn't mean you sell expired raw fish to your customers. He says: but my customers may want tuna and I should be able to provide it !!!??? I have no more to say. case closed. If in cape town, and don't want to get sick, avoid this place. It does not deserve to run business like this, if not illegal. The food and safety authorities must definitely...

I was quite frankly shocked at the despicable service I received at this establishment. Three of us went there and waited one and a half hours for our food only for my duck to be served cold and the sushi to have been hastily made at the very last minute (we saw this ourselves - they only started to make the sushi at the sushi conveyor belt after we started to complain) to complement the stone-cold duck (the waitress agreed that the duck was ice cold).

When we asked for some consideration given our inconvenience the best the manager could offer was a round of shots and he could not even take the time to come to speak to us. When I went to speak to him, admittedly angry by this point, he did not apologise nor make any attempt to remedy the situation.

Instead he chose to remain behind the sushi counter and allow the other patrons to defend him rather than taking the time to address a legitimately upset customer. Whilst I probably went over the top in my frustration with the situation I nonetheless feel that the service was absolutely shocking. It is not the fact that there was a problem but the fact that there was no meaningful attempt to address the problem.

We ended up going to Pancho's down the road who managed to serve us our food within 20 minutes of us ordering it and whose service was impeccable.

One and half hour's for sushi and some cold duck? I strongly recommend that you avoid this...

Used to be a regular here for years ... until today. They have lost me. I paid R600 for an order. It arrived in pieces, almost like it has been thrown around. And with a delay of around 20min.

When I called them, all I got was an apology and an assurance they would take it up with the driver. Do I care? No offer to make it up to me. I'm sitting here with a broken platter of sushi.

Later I realized what they delivered wasn't even what I ordered. This time they first want to verify with the chef before they bring the actual order.

Around an hour later I get a call from a driver who advises that I am welcome to pick up the replacement sushi at his place. He tried to deliver, but didn't call because it is not his job to call me, so he didn't meet me, that's why the sushi is now at his house.

You are kidding me.

A waste of time, no accountability and really poor service....