Kazoku Bedford — Restaurant in England

We visited this Japanese restaurant after a friend of mine recommended it to us and she came along as she was happy to come along with us. This place used to be a Chinese restaurant now transformed into a Japanese one, the place looks quite forlorn of any unembelishment with very little decoration, just paper shades hanging from the ceiling, overall not appealing. Service wise in my opinion I think the waiters should come to the table sooner to ask for drinks, I really do not like waiting ten minutes to get a drink, in my humble opinion it should be ask as soon as you sit down. Truth to be told, once we ordered, everything came in a blink of an eye and food looked very appetising served in a quite nice looking tableware. The food itself was either disappointing or delicious, I'm sorry to say so as I hate giving bad reviews but I hate even more to be dishonest. I had nigiri and sashimi, the sashimi was just ok but the nigiri was tasteless, where is the rice vinegar flavour? Bland, really bland. I normally do not like to indulge into much soy sauce dipping but in this case is a must, otherwise there's no flavour, disappointing. But on the other hand everything else was delicious, scrumptious. The salmon teriyaki was superb, the pork katsu soup super nice. We definitely want to return and try more things but honestly there's room for improvement. Please have a...

Let's keep this review nice and simple.

Positives:

Food - Fresh and tasty. Well presented.

Staff - All the staff were polite and friendly

Neutral:

Location - It isn't in a bad area or anything, just not a great location. It's about a 5min walk from what you might consider as the "town centre".

Parking - If you're visiting from out of town you'll need to find somewhere to park.

Decor - Clean and tidy. Needs work though as it feels quite sparse!

Online - Online presence needs a lot of work.

Negatives:

Menu - The menu's are printed on folded pieces of A4 paper to make them A5. The text is small, badly positioned and probably made by someone with little familiarity with MS Word.

Service - The staff are inexperienced.

Speed of service - Slow. Took 20 mins at least for our starters to arrive, and another 30 mins for our main course to arrive. We ordered a third course, and that didn't arrive at all. When we asked where it was they offered to reorder it, but it'd be another 20mins. We declined. They weren't even half full and they were struggling to keep up.

Food - Not as good as Kazoku in Hitchin.

Summary

I wasn't disappointed, instead I was more underwhelmed. I'll definitely go again, but not for a few weeks. Hopefully, this will give them time to overcome their...

At long last, Bedford finally has an authentic Japanese restaurant! 🍣 Some of the front of house staff are locals, which can help with occasional language or cultural barriers, but the rest of the staff are all Japanese - as it should be. Having been versed in Japanese culture from an early age, through practising Karate with Japanese teachers and developing an interest in Japanese cinema in my teenage years, I knew that the service would be of both a friendly yet professional standard. Advice: place your order with the numbers on the menu rather than saying the names of the dishes, it will speed up your service. The artwork and aesthetic in the restaurant is also highly authentic - they've certainly brought a little bit of Honshu with them to our town, that's for sure, complete with a pink blossom tree in the front garden 🌸 As for the food, it really is sublime. Fresh ingredients, prepared with care and precision. I've tried about half of the sushi options so far, and all of them have been perfect. They even accommodated my partner with a gluten free menu, and she loved her Hamachi Nigri and her Tuna and avocado Uramaki. The Kushiyaki mixed grill skewers (chicken, prawn, scallops, beef) were delicious as well. Ive said enough. Come and support your local...