Sticks’n’Sushi - Victoria — Restaurant in London

Today y’all will be visiting @sticksnsushi_UK through my page 😍, to my UK followers, a must try after the lockdown! ORDER Mixed Emotions - £23 With the mixed emotion you get edamame, ebi bites, maki, shake tataki, karage & sticks. REVIEW. First, this restaurant gives top tier traditional Japanese food. Located in Victoria, London. The ambience? 😍 EBI BITES (Slide 2) Tempura shrimps( shrimps dipped in batter & fried),miso aioli( mayonnaise), chili, lime & coriander! Lover of seafood so this was a fave! STICKS - (Slide 3) This was panko (bread crumbs used in Asian dishes to add a breaded coat to their dish) chicken with wasabi caeser & chicken meatballs with chili dip, teriyaki & spring onions served on white rice. I’d say wasabi being such a distinct flavor, so making such an outstanding balance with the other ingredients to make such robust of flavors is really impeccable. KARAGE (Slide 4) This is fried chicken (made from a tasty soy sauce, sake, ginger, and garlic marinade then coated in potato starch and fried super crispy) with pickled red onion & wasabi Caesar. It was really the crispness of the coating in contrast with the chicken ultimately melting in your mouth for me! 😋 MAKI (Slide 5) This was wrapped sushi & it was a fusion of Pink Alaska, spicy tuna & chirashi. Edamame (Slide 6) Basically, this was beans with salt & lemon. _ NIGIRI (Slide 7) This is sushi but unwrapped, carefully & delicately placed so when you pick it up, you have all in one bite. One bite, you’d get the harmony of the salmon, rice & wasabi. Balance boo! _ CAULIFLOWER (Slide 8) This was fried cauliflower served with black truffle goma. This was so unexpected. Go & try it. chefs kiss I’d commend the presentation of the food, very pleasing to the eyes. They gave me such a unique dinning experience, the waiter was super attentive & informative, had extensive knowledge about their menu & willingly gave me a walk through of the menu. Also loved the presentation of the water, it had a charcoal stick that helps...

We dined here on a Sat night, July 20, and I give this 3/5. Hopefully the Covent Garden location is better.

When we first walked in no one acknowledged us so we just walked upstairs. We ordered a variety of things on the menu and it was tasty. The menu is stylish and well laid-out, we appreciated the crisp photos, it really helps while you wait in anticipation of what you're going to eat!

The service was odd though. Here's why:

1- We were asked if we wanted the food all together, or the sticks to come first and sushi to come last. We went with the latter; we like to break it up and enjoy the different flavours with a bit of a stagger in between. Soups and sticks get cold fast. The server noted this down. Didn't happen. What seemed like minutes later, it all started to come at once. Why bother asking and saying you'd note this down for the chef and runners?

2- we ordered a bottle of wine. It came after first round arrived and it but we were brought the wrong one. We were too busy eating to check, and by the time we realized we had already drank it. No biggie, no fuss, we enjoyed it. The issue here was that when we let our server know as an FYI we were given the wrong one, she tried to convince us that we actually ordered the higher priced bottle and we got charged a cheaper price. That we should be happy. I defiantly disagreed. She said she would check the menu and confirm. Never did. So, when we got the bill, I looked it up on their website and confirmed with her that we indeed got a different bottle and paid the price that was listed. Why try to lie and twist the situation? It was weird behaviour.

3- we didn't get asked once throughout the meal how we were doing, our glasses of water nor wine were not filled, etc.. If servers are on their break in the middle of a dinner service, it'd be nice of someone else jumped in to take their place, so at least we know? don't try and come back at the end to ask how everything was when we're paying the bill. When I expressed my concerns over the timing of food, wine issue, and lack of check-up, it didn't seem like she really cared to make it right.

Anyways, we won't be back at this location. Part of dining out is having a fun and efficient service experience, to warrant the service fee that seems to be added automatically everywhere in London. Trying Covent Garden instead...

We went here for birthday treat, the service was good, first table was sat right under air con and too close to others so we requested to move. The table was at the back in the corner we were moved to, first thing is the 2 person tables are TOO small and when you want your food altogether to pick n choose from you can’t. We ordered dishes as starters and main and only 2 starters come out so my husband ate most of one of mine but one one of my main, then his came out with some of my main. Seriously who wants to eat cauliflower on its own or Edmame beans? The server was very good and the lady who took us upstairs replenished drinks, the Sakura cocktail is delicious.

We didn’t enjoy the Sushi as much as last years visit to Covent Garden as menu seemed to have changed a bit, the lobster sushi (🦞 in the photo) was enjoyed and Brocolli tempura & mushroom croquettes but so we left some of rest of Sushi and didn’t even want it to go home with us.

We had requested £10 of points to be deducted from bill but it wasn’t sadly and service charge is a tad high at 13.5% (they don’t put % on the bill), we really would have preferred to have tipped our great server, he loved his job.

There was a nice touch of a complimentary dessert at the end which was a nice surprise. Would we return, not here I’m afraid the restaurant lacked any ambience, mind you Covent Garden was very dark and service not as good, maybe we will try another branch next time but wait for...