Dojo — Restaurant in London

I'm confused. What is this place? Is it Pan asian or is it fusion? Is it for couples, or is it for families? Is it fine dining, or is it a social diner? It's all of the above, and that's why it is so confusing. They don't know who they are themselves and have just whacked it all together and hope no one will notice.

Look, im not restaurant bashing and basing it on our personal experience for 12 feb 2023 yesterday. We knew this place was busy/ pricey. Hence, we thought we'd go for my birthday and go all out if we enjoyed it. This was based on 2 adults and 1 child. (All pictures provided)

What we ordered and reviewed: cocktail, Bangkok to Tokyo: 7/10 nice but decieving glass could not see how much they poured in, which was not too much. Geisha@dojo: 8/10 personally, a good drink both visually and taste wise. Mocktail: Ginger Beer: 7/10 aesthetically pleasing, but the garnish overpowered the taste, leaving it tasting bitter.

Food: Edamame with Matcha: 1/10 completely over cooked, dull looking not the normal green glow, and the matcha powder gave it a fishy aftertaste. Worst i've ever tasted. Should be off the menu.

Vege Momo / Chicken Gyozo: 2/10. Momo dumpling was too thick and chewy, but delivering it without the sauces and having to wait 10 minutes to ask for it was criminal. Gyozo was so obviously ready-made and out of a packet that you might have well just bought the packet from a chinese supermarket, Loon Fung? Ring any bells?

Veg Spring roll: 8/10 flavoursome, 6 well presented.

Sichuan Paneer: 8/10 Worked really well, one of the standout dishes. Standards we were expecting in a place like this

Mountain Chilli chicken: 6/10. Good, but no wow factor I was expecting. Seen very similar dishes in other establishments that are executed better in taste wise.

Satay chicken: 1/10 Should be called turmeric chicken cooked in the oven. As that's what it tasted like. No grilled element, too much turmeric on the chicken that was completely overpowering and the sauces were bland, tasteless, and shouldn't have been there as it didn't add anything to it.

Skipped straight to desserts as we were getting fed up with the mixed standard of dishes coming out.

Desserts: Hot chocolate volcano 8/10 Looked and tasted great. Good presentation. If being slightly nit picky, was a little too small and the garnishing did not add much more flavour.

Ice cream: Coconut cream and Raspberry sorbet combo 8/10. Worked well, good ice cream not too sweet.

Overall - As mentioned, trying to be too many things at once. Fine dining journey, although place was as noisier than a zoo. Was given a named waitress but did not see her once until it was time for payment. No attention to detail i.e. forgot the sauces with the Momos/ Gyoza. Found out after my wife mentioned it was my milestone Birthday to them. No mention or gesture. Probably never read the notes.

Mentioned all these exotic beers but when trying to order, the usual excuse was out of stock. Beer in mention was Nin tang.

Aesthetically beautuful and toilets were clean but again didn't match the ambience when you have crowds like a group of boys on a nearside table acting as they've never visited a restaurant before but they have a dress code that asks you to dress...

After hearing rave reviews about this place I decided to give it a go for my birthday. Though the food was excellent the service wasn’t up to standard and it is for this reason I have unwillingly had to deduct a star.

For starters we ordered the hot and sour soup which was extremely hearty and flavoursome, the dynamite mushrooms that had the perfect amount of heat and were fried to perfection, and spring rolls. The issue arose with the chicken satay skewers, for some reason the serving of peanut sauce was extremely miserly, in a tiny bowl I was served two tablespoons worth of peanut sauce which was a joke considering the price of the dish and the size of my 4 skewers. I tried to get the attention of server which took five minutes and showed to him how even the back of my skewers couldn’t be dipped in sauce as the bowl had a couple of millimetres of sauce to emphasise how ridiculous the serving size was. He fetched me a new bowl that came 5 minutes later. Though the skewers were enjoyable the enjoyment I had from eating them was massively hindered by the fact that they had cooled down for so long and made the experience less than optimal.

All of the mains were excellent; the jungle curry packed a punch, the pad Thai had the perfect mixture of soft and crunchy textures and the duck bao buns were delectable. My only qualm would be that my main, the duck bao buns, were brought out ten minutes after the other two mains, so had my family not started eating immediately their food would’ve not been fully hot by the time my food had arrived.

Overall the experience was enjoyable and I wouldn’t question returning. The ambience of the restaurant is perfect, the lighting is just right, the tables are well spaced and the music is at a volume where you can talk comfortably without raising your voice. The food was excellent in terms of quality and the portion sizes were good. I think the management team need to improve on the speed of their service and quality control side of things. We weren’t even asked once if everything was okay with our food and this was a first for me in...

Had heard good things before going, and must say it definitely lived up to the hype. We had a reservation Friday night at 8.45pm.

The ambience was great, the decor was vibes, music was good but they turn it up way too loud at 9.30pm so everyones struggling to hear and shouting (would advise leaving until 10.30pm when the kitchen closes), but special shoutout to our waiter Robert, he was on point.

As for the food it was really delicious. We got a mix of both meat and veggie dishes. Wok Flashed Garlic Pep were incredible, and the veggie sushi was sooo good. We got the drunken noodles, lamb, tofu, and bao buns which were all good.

Would definitely recommend.

REVIEW 2

Back for a third time - kept to some favourites and tried some new dishes. Booked in advance, went on a Monday evening thinking it wouldn’t be busy…. It was totally rammed!!! Every table was taken, and even the outside tables were full. For a Monday night I was shocked. Just shows how good the food really is. This time round we had:

DRINKS

Shoutout to these cocktails: fruiticlious and sake mauy thai. Both super tasty and delicious.

STARTERS

Lotus stem - one of those you have to try, got a good crunch and really good flavouring. 9/10

Calamari - I don’t usually mind calamari but these ones I can eat for days. They’re sooo tasty and moreish. Actually really good garlic chilli flavours other than just lemon. The best calamari I’ve had so 10/10

Prawns wok flash - again a delicious favourite, very tender and tasty. Its a must to order for any seafood lovers. 9/10

Okra mock chicken black pepper - first time trying, it was nice but nothing special to me personally. The mock meat was decent, the flavour was okay. 6/10

MAINS:

We decided to try something new this time so we opted for some curries. We got one meat and one veg to try and both were delicious.

Gaeng massaman with lamb (8.5/10) Panang curry with vegetables (8/10)

Each curry comes with rice (enough for 2/3). Would very much recommend both dishes. Service was good...