MAKO JAPANESE TAVERN ORIENTAL FOOD — Restaurant in Barcelona

I should have listened to my gut. This place is a no-go.

I was craving sushi and against my instincts, I tried MAKO. I'm a NYer, and have been fortunate to experience great sushi joints in NYC. I haven't been to Japan yet so that should set the context of my limited experience.

I got the omakase, plus additional nigiri afterwards because I wanted to like this place, since it's so close to my apartment.

The rice is unseasoned. The "toro" doesn't taste anything like toro. The omakase came in pairs of two for an individual tasting. The salmon was clearly overpowered by the sesame oil, and truthfully the rest were bland. I got the "toro" with uni nigiri and the uni was way too cold, and the toro was nearly identical to my omakase.

While the fish appears to be fresh, the overall taste of the fish were not drawn out. It was as if, the meal was prepared by someone who has never tasted real sushi. And this is coming from who has never been to Japan - that should tell you something.

Maybe for Barcelona standards, this place is great but for someone non-native to Barcelona, who was craving sushi, this place was a...

This one was okay... An odd one, it just felt as if there were small elements holding each dish back from being really good:

Wagyu Gyozas - New dish on the menu, I felt like the flavours still needed to be perfected. I did not get either the "Wagyu" or beef taste out of this, had a taste of raw flour. The sauce served with these was very untraditional and had zero taste to it, rather thick.

Tuna Uramaki Roll - Too many sesame seeds on the outside, was too over dressed with seeds that you're left checking a bunch of them after swallowing the sushi. The tuna itself was an extremely fatty piece for a roll.

Soft Shell Crab - I'm not entirely sure what it was, it was a green ingredient in the middle of the roll. Again, not sure what it was but it tasted extremely untraditional. Very odd taste.

Soy Sauce - It may just be me, but I had a very hard time getting onboard with the "soy" sauce served on the table. I understand each establishment like to serve according to their menu, but for me this was a big miss.

Overall, nice experience but a few areas that stuck...

Disappointing… I had hig expectations and found that the rolls and nigiris were not as tasty as I hoped. Most of them either had a little intense flavor or the flavors did not add up. For example, the tartar roll was tasteless, and the squid nigiri tasted too much of coriander and lemon but the squid was bland and only provided the texture, which was strange to the palate together with the sushi rice. Quality wise, dishes are exceptional, but prices are too high and are not worth it. The rolls table costed 30€ (83 pieces) and the especial nigiri table 45€ (25 pieces). The 2 tables plus 2 desserts and soft drinks costed 92€. Moreover, the menu is not well explained: there are no allergies specified and they don’t add the ingredients of every dish so you cannot really know what you’re going to eat. A girl who served us was very kind and professional but there was a waiter that was disrespectful when we asked if we could sit outside because we did not feel comfortable for covid reasons. I think the place...