KIBOU Japanese Restaurant & Bar Cambridge — Restaurant in Cambridge

Decent food with hits and miss if you can tolerate the orientalist decoration.

—1

Favorite things first, Hojicha Creme brûlée is probably the best Creme brûlée I’ve ever had. It has a rich roasted tea flavor and is not too sweet. The texture is super soft and silky. (I love custard of any sort, sometimes tolerating the high sugar, but this one is above and beyond.)

Scallop nigiri is excellent. The scallop on the nigiri melts in mouth and actually tastes better than the sashimi version.

The sashimi moriawase is also quite nice, with fresh fish and thick cuts.

Wagnyu tataki is not a wow-level for the price. It is too thin and looks a little sad comparing with the regular beef version in terms of flesh color. The dressing is refreshing, but the onion/shallot crisps are too overpowering for the delicate meet.

Japanese garden, the other dessert is alright. I like the sesame flavor, but the mousse and chocolate part is too heavy.

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I was really hesitating before visiting the restaurant because of the interior design— no offense to the artist, but there is just too much western imagination of something exotically Japanese, Asian, Oriental… I can’t stop thinking about Edward Said when I “gaze” at the geisha, the Chinese porcelain looking washbasin, the chinoiserie furniture. (The lighting is dreamily purple and perfect for food pictures tho.)

The brighter side, despite the wild representation, the food is arguably tasty, as my friends agree.

—- Service: Many thanks to Theodore who took our order :) Very friendly and helpful in all sorts of things. The kitchen mixed up the orders (regular beef instead of wagnyu tataki and sashimi instead did nigiri), but his memos are faultless.

— It is on the pricy side—comparable to the more established S* Sushi, but they save a return ticket for London. Might come back some day for sashimi or chirashidon and another hojicha creme brûlée.

— Update: I did get that to-go on behalf of a family friend craving for some creme brûlée (and I was dreaming of it too).

— 2

Again, with Orientalism, there is only a fine line between fantasy and misrepresentation.

Chirashi is lovely, nice selection of fresh fish. The tamagoyaki appears to be made in from some premixed powder or liquid. Not rolled and no Daishi or soy sauce. It is very artificial in flavor and texture. Sweet egg rubber?

My friend said her teriyaki chicken tastes more like yakitori, which is a different, more savory seasoning. Fortunately she likes it despite the misnomer.

Kabocha korokke is pretty good. Crispy crust, soft and mellow sweet squash. The tonkatsu sauce is just right to highlight and balance the flavor.

Dynamite prawn is pretty sad for me. The prawns are large and plump; but the mayonnaise just overpowers everything, the miso (?) sauce and the seafood. Pity.

And the hojicha creme brûlée again : the star of the show. My friend loves hojicha and fell in...

From the moment we were seated in the beautiful red room, we were greeted by the friendliest and most genuine waitress. She made us feel welcomed and paid us a compliment that was warm and kind, and didn't feel at all as if she was trying flatter us for a better tip. The other 2 servers that assisted her with clearing the table were also friendly and you could see that the 2 ladies had a good and respectful relationship and worked well as a team.

I also really appreciated that they had pillows that you could use for more back support. This is not customary in many restaurants and as a person with lower back problems, this made my dining experience 10 times better, as I did not feel uncomfortable in my seat.

The restaurant offers complimentary wasabi peas and still or sparkling water. The sparkling water was a first for me, as I've not been at other retaurants which offered this option for free.

The menu has a huge varitey of Japanese food, and you can clearly see that a lot of thought has been put in its creation. You can find something to cater for everyone, even people who do not like fish and are not fond of sushi. The food was DELICIOUS. They serve it as and when it's ready, with the first item being brought within 5 minutes of us ordering. This enhanced our experience as no one likes to wait forever for food, especially when they are hungry.

The drinks selection is also amazing. We chose to go for the nonalcoholic cocktails on this occasion, but I liked that all the drinks had a twist and were not just the regular cocktails you could order at every bar.

The ladies restroom was clean and smelled nice. The sinks are really beautiful. You can tell that every little interior design decision has been made carefully in this restaurant. Unfortunately, the men's restroom smelled quite bad, but it was clean.

Sadly, we were full so we didn't take a look at the desserts menu.

The atmosphere was lovely. I honestly don't remember if there was any music, but this is because I enjoyed being able to hear my conversation and not have to scream over other customers or loud music.

We found the prices to be affordable for a fancy anniversary lunch. We paid around £86 inclusive of the service charge and had 5 dishes and 3 drinks.

I highly recommend this establishment and suggest getting as many different dishes as you can so you have the experience of tasting as many of them as possible. I will make sure to visit their London location and if I am ever back in Cambridge, I will definitely eat here again.

EDIT: I wish I knew our servers name. From reading other reviews I think it may have been Destiny. She had a beautiful black and white manicure. She truly knows what it means to work in hospitality and deserves to be praised, along with...

First things first - a really well-decorated venue in central Cambridge, with good cocktails, and nice sushi. Wait staff also had a very good attitude towards the feedback we gave, probing us with more questions about what exactly went wrong etc. I really appreciate that.

Things we liked: Jo Moriawase sushi platter was good, tasted fresh Duck bao bun was very nice Beef tataki was okay - but didn't do justice to the A5 wagyu (tasted like it could've been any other meat and would've tasted the same)

Things we disliked We ordered a lot of starters/sharing platters. While still less than halfway through our dishes, wait staff started bringing in the mains, even though we'd explicitly stated that the mains should be brought out after starters, in order. The waitress offered to take the mains back until we were ready (and had more space on the table to accommodate the dishes). These were bowls of ramen, so we asked if we'd be served the same bowls - and she replied "yes" (much to our chagrin). Ramen noodles get overcooked/soggy if left to sit too long in the broth, so the idea that we'd be served the same noodles after 10-15 minutes was totally unacceptable. We decided to go ahead and start eating the ramen straight away as a result (didn't want the bowls to be sitting somewhere else, getting cold and soggy). The ramen (both chicken and pork chashu) was disastrous. The bowls did not have enough broth in them to submerge the noodles fully (which is a tragedy, since the broth of a ramen is supposed to be the star of the show), and the broth itself wasn't flavourful enough, and did not have enough body (this applies to both the chicken and pork broths). The noodles were overcooked and not 'kata', and did not have the texture of traditional ramen noodles - they stuck together in clumps. The pork chashu, while tasty, were cut into super thick and large slices, completely overwhelming the dish. It also tasted like BBQ sauce - not the mild-yet-fatty flavoured chashu I'm used to eating with ramen. We noted that the chashu served on the ramen looked almost exactly alike to the chashu that was served with the yaki-udon. But ramen chashu should be sliced thinly so that it's easy to pick up with chopsticks and it melts in your mouth! We sent the ramen back - but, as mentioned earlier, the wait staff took this extremely well, asked for feedback on where the ramen went wrong, and offered to remove the ramen...