Donzoko — Restaurant in Madrid

This restaurant ruined our evening. Sorry, but this is one of the most disappointing restaurants I've ever been to. It is with sadness I leave my first one-star review, let alone my less than four-star review, and even through a personal channel.

Sure, your takoyaki weren't warm and runny inside, and lacked a proper amount of takoyaki sauce and seaweed flakes. Sure, your yakitori lacked the binchotan smoke flavor, since it was likely just cooked on what's probably a griddle. We asked for umeshu highball, and the waiter nodded and confirmed. But what we got was umeshu only and not the drink. The menu was obviously widened to offer the traditional dishes, but without the genuine aspect of it all. Still, I'd have left a four star review at least, in reality 3,5 stars rounded up. Because even though it was far less than genuine than the rating would have shown, it would have left me nostalgic.

However, the review is a one-star one. The visit left us me and my significant other with a disappointed experience, and we were left sad for the rest of that night.

1. At around 22:20, we ordered our food. Our order of the set menu was missed despite us showing him the picture on their website as well as spelling the set menu name out. We tried to explain this multiple times throughout the visit, but we were left ignored. The waiter came by 4 times asking us if we wanted dessert, even though we were really just waiting for our main food set, which we told him every single time. Finally, when I went to the website and showed you the picture of the menu at 23:13 - FINALLY we got our food a few minutes later, just minutes before you closed. In the very end, we asked for a take-away box because all we felt was stress to eat everything up while staff was cautiously watching how fast we were eating.

2. We got someone's returned food, since they got the wrong order. The above order arrived suspiciously fast. In fact, the company to the right of us got the set meal with sushi when they had specifically asked for NO sushi. This was returned to the kitchen at about 23:10. We finally got understood about our order at 23:13-ish. We got our food about 23:15. The tempura was cold, even though we delved right in. There's a strong likelihood of us receiving their returned food, when we ordered the set meal that they specifically asked not to get.

3. The prices on the website are incorrect. We were left saddened, without chance to eat our meal without stress and literally throwing food into our mouths and swallowing down without chewing. The set meal cost 27.5 EUR each on the website order system AND their menu. The actual price charged was 33 EUR. Add these issues up, and at the end we paid more than a hundred euros.

Now, I understand that you get a lot of low-intelligent "angry" reviews like any other restaurant. My review is not to slather. It is a honest review of my experience. We have never left a restaurant feeling sadness and regret. In fact, I will leave the exact amount and time of debit so you can identify me. EUR 102.50 at 23:34 the 28th of June 2024. We arrived at your establishment at 22:17 with a dark blue bag that we stored by the window. It's also not a money issue, we are both medical doctors whose time to write this review gravely undermines the amount we paid for the visit. You are however more than welcome to reimburse us, since the staff barely understood anything we said despite also trying to put it in Japanese, which was met by nothing but confusion. If we could, we would just have sent the food straight back.

And that is my first and hopefully last one-star review I'll ever leave. I hope people will take this into account, and the restaurant to take the remarks...

I am a Japanese traveller having tried most of Japanese restaurants in Madrid. I am afraid but Donzoko was not the best experience among all. The menu is very large and seeming promising. However, the first appetizer small plate "otoushi" was already an ominous sign. They put unfresh and untasty fried vegetables (this is not even Japanese) which I stopped after one bite. Don't make any otoushi ever which looks and tastes indeed like a quick pick-up of leftover from other customers plates. I ordered a yakiniku set but the beef was too thick to be called as yakiniku, the sauce is too little and the side dish such as mayonnaise marinated spaghetti was neither tasty, "fit" to the rest of Japanese plate nor necessary, since you don't need more carbohydrate after a bowl of rice. Their miso soup was quite ok. Their desert menu was quite rich and good though.

The biggest problem was that I had a quite atrocious diarrhoea instantly after the meal here. Something was not fresh at all.

I do not consider either that it is a good sign as a restaurant when staff are chatting a lot themselves in front of (or even rather 'across' the customers, basically staff talking to each other over the heads of customers) for amusing themselves. Slightly disrespectful and despite the izakaya like decorations, the services were quite unjapanese. After all, at least on my first visit this restaurant didn't seem very serious and customer friendly. The prices were also a bit more expensive compared to the...

Food is a bit too salty for my group, though I believe that this is a subjective matter. We expected better taste and quality for this price range. The service was terrible, I understand that sometimes people have a bad day but I couldn't accept much what happened. Food ordering was messy, some dishes was wrongly ordered. The serving speed is fast, which is the only plus. The waiter dropped a plate so 1 soup bowl spilled to my friends. We didn't actually mind that so much. But before we even spoke any words, he got already defensive and kept saying he didn't see the soup bowl instead of helping out. We tried to move on but the waiter didn't manage the situation well and fast enough. He was slow to clean up the scene and messed up dirty stuffs, cleaning tools with the food plates that we still have on the table. It's just really messy and dirty for us. As much as we tried to sympathize with his situation in a busy restaurant, it cannot be denied that we got pretty poor service this time. It's normal to break or spill things, but resolving it in a fast and clean manner is something we didn't receive. Set aside the fact that we don't feel respected in...