KAIKAYA Sushi Nikkei — Restaurant in Valencia

Here are the positives and negatives of our experience. Positives: The restaurant is cute. It has a sort of eclectic aesthetic with a Japanese flair. It’s also centrally located, in the Plaza de Ayuntamiento so it’s easy to find and get to. The location also means it’s a bit more expensive but we were ready for that. The server was nice and even tried to speak English to us, although we’ve lived here for several years and we speak Spanish. One of the appetizers we ordered was delicious. It’s a tempura skewered shrimp wrapped in salmon. Get it. The restaurant offers a sustainable water solution by serving carafes of filtered water instead of disposable bottles. The drawback is that the carafes only fill three glasses and they cost €3 each time you order one. One suggestion would be to charge a flat fee for water based on the group size and refill the bottle for free. €6 for water for our kids. The last positive was the recourse for one of the negative points; the server agreed to take something off the bill. In my opinion, we shouldn’t have had to ask her to do it but the end result is the same. That’s about it for positives. On to the negatives: We reserved a table for 5 a few days ahead of time. We sat inside as some of us aren’t fans of al fresco dining during fly-season in Valencia. When we arrived we were greeted and sat at our table upstairs. It was a 4-top with an extra chair added to the end with no fifth place setting added. Also, the table had a smear of the remnants of the previous party that we had to ask to be cleaned. We had to ask twice for a fifth setting. My wife and I arrived first and our kids joined us a few minutes later, and the evening kicked off. I ordered a bottle of Japanese beer and my wife ordered a glass of white wine. €3,50 each, which is fine when you’re in the centre but the wine pour was approximately 4oz. Also, they don’t seem to have a wine menu listed so everything was offered and confirmed verbally: “Copa de vino blanco por favor.” “¿Verdejo?” “Vale.” We ordered two appetizers: gyoza (dumplings) and the shrimp i mentioned above. The kids said the gyoza was “okay.” This place is a Japanese/Brazilian fusion so maybe that wasn’t their best effort. Two of the kids ordered bao (€10 apiece), the last one ordered some kind of ramen (€18). My wife and I ordered one of each of the Wok dishes they have on the menu. We got the two apps I mentioned above. We all ordered together. The apps arrived (review above), then with the help of another server our mains started to come a while later. The pacing was all pretty good at this point and everyone was happy. As the mains were arriving we decided to order a bottle of wine to avoid the light pour situation. Again, there was no list, just verbal co formation that Verdejo was acceptable. €19. It was good and for us the price in the end is fine but it’s always nice to see what’s available and make a choice. It’s a restaurant. This is the worst part. Only four of the mains we ordered arrived. We get that sometimes things come out a bit staggered, and that some dishes take longer to prep, but it was clear that #5 was not coming. After an uncomfortable amount of time had passed (2 kids ate 2 bao each while my other son and I politely waited for my wife’s food to arrive) we inquired. They said, “oh ya, it’s coming!” At this point my wife and I decided to share my Wok then do the same when hers arrived. My dish was okay but really quite salty. It’s basically noodles, veg and seafood, and the menu description talks about flavours of red curry etc. Nope. Salt. Later on my wife’s Wok arrived and we both tried it. The amount of salt that had been added to her dish was unbelievable. Nothing had any remnant of flavour except for overpowering saltiness. Could we have complained when the food came? Of course after everything we just left it alone. The meal went mostly uneaten. We declined dessert or coffee and wrapped everything up from there. The bill came and I asked to her to take the late, salty Wok off. She reluctantly...

Pretty disappointed with KAIKAYA. With prices 2-3 times higher than everywhere else for tapas and drinks, we expected the standard to be high. The 6 piece €18 nigiri mixed sushi didn't taste fresh and was frankly bland. I was not impressed with the €15 ABACAXI CHEIO DE GRAÇA premium cocktail which largely tasted of lime. I raised our issues with our server who explained both the tuna nigiri and cocktail were fine, they did make me another drink which I appreciated... But went on to explain that the cocktail maybe wasn't to my taste because in Brazil premium cocktails are a little stronger and so my 2nd one had been made to be a little more "tikki". I'm sorry but a bad cocktail is a bad cocktail, I drink enough to know, and we eat enough sushi to know what's good.

The one dish we did enjoy was the Tuna Tataki, that in contrast to the Tuna Nigiri was excellent, and we enjoyed the pistachio garnish but even then the "Crema de edamame con wasabi" drops that decorated the plate, which I think were topped with strawberry? Just tasted bad, and while beautifully presented, did not fuse well and just seemed bizarre frankly.

But at €55 for 1 cocktail, 1 water and 2 dishes overall KAIKAYA was just memorably bad. It felt like we were paying for presentation over quality and the focus on creative combination had exceeded any care to ensure those flavours added more to (one would assume) good quality, fresh fish. I don't think I'll be trying a Japanese Brazilian fusion again based on...

I took my partner here for his birthday, and we ordered the tasting menu for two. The food was SO GOOD, with innovative flavor combinations and plenty of choices. In fact we loved it so much we went back a few days later to try some of the sushi rolls that we saw being brought out to other tables but were not on the tasting menu, and we were not disappointed. The place is small, with low ceilinged upstairs seating area, which means it is quite warm if the air conditioning is not on. On the ground floor there is a terrace, but people were smoking out there even though it is forbidden in Valencia, so we ate inside both times to avoid being assaulted by clouds of toxic tobacco smoke covering our food—really it is quite repulsive and thoughtless for people to smoke where people are eating, and I wish the no smoking rules were better enforced in Valencia as a whole. On the inside on the ground floor there is a sushi bar where you can sit (on the second day we were sat at a very nice spot then made to move as the hostess decided to give the spot to someone else coming well AFTER after we had ordered, which I must say is bad form), but the smoke comes in through the open door some, detracting from the experience. But my god the food was good so we tolerated it though at times it was overwhelming.

I cannot recommend this place enough…if you want a great fusion sushi restaurant with incredible flavors, this is for sure the place to go. It’s not inexpensive, but it is well...