Manzoku Japanese and Korean Restaurant — Restaurant in Portsmouth

Amazing little authentic Korean/Japanese restaurant.

I'm always unsure about spots like these as it seems like the demand for good quality Japanese and Korean food outside of sushi is fairly low in the UK.

Well I was very pleasantly surprised. The menu is deceivingly extensive so it took me a while to decide what to try first. In the end I went for the Hell Spicy Ramen as I'm a bit of a chilli fiend and have always wanted to try this kind of dish. Alongside that I ordered the yakitori assorted skewers, spicy edamame and house kimchi.

The yakitori was decent, with a nice char and delicious sticky soy based coating. For the money though, there wasn't much there so I would say the money is better spent on one of the cheaper sides or something more substantial. The beans were a lovely palate cleanser and the kimchi was good, but a little less sour and more sweet than I prefer. It also was a little warm from being packed in with the hot food, so I popped it in the fridge and I'm sure I'll enjoy it more that way later.

The ramen was the real star of the show here though, and I think that's a general theme with their mains. I gave them an extra 10 minutes or so beyond their quoted time and was playfully chastised for taking too long by the lady on the till, she was genuinely concerned that it wasn't going to be hot enough and gave me advice on how to reheat it.

This was an easy task as I'm well versed in carefully refreshing this kind of food. The bowl was attractively presented with dry ingredients and the soup seperate. A generous helping of quality ramen noodles, beansprouts, spring onions, ribbons of mushroom, egg, spicy ground pork and GORGEOUS marinated chashu pork. The chashu alone looks Instagram worthy. The broth is rich, red and oily, with what I assume is a miso base due to the distinctive cloudy swirls.

This bowl seems to be based on tantanmen, a Chinese inspired spicy noodle soup. I can tell you it is definitely not for the faint of heart, with a fiery warmth that will satisfy spice heads. The flavour itself is absolutely delicious, with well balanced umami, saltiness and sweetness. Due to the thinness of the broth, the heat is not that bad if you simply eat all the solid ingredients from the bowl and don't drink the broth. Although my spice tolerance is quite high, I couldn't drink all the broth, a few slurps made me cough and burn for a long time. The pork was tender and melt in the mouth.

All in all, very impressed with the food and the lovely welcoming staff. I look forward to trying all the other popular dishes on the menu and maybe bringing a friend to eat inside. I would definitely recommend it to people but I would suggest if you want the ramen it's probably best enjoyed served straight away in...

I really am disappointed. I ordered through Uber Eats because the reviews were so good on Google and Uber. I wrote on the notes to please only use breast meat chicken. They called me to tell me that they don't have it. I asked them to refund the money and leave it out. The man said I have to contact Uber to get my money back but I must not cancel the whole order because they are making it. I was nice about it because it's not their fault if I don't eat drumstick or thigh meat. So I was just going to contact Uber eats to get my chicken money back and the restaurant agreed not to put it in the order. I contacted Uber Eats, order was meant to be delivered at 18:20. Whilst messaging Uber, restaurant calls and says their boss said the order was canceled. I told him what was said on the call before and the other man told me that I must not cancel the order so I didn't. The guy sounded unhelpful and didn't offer suggestions. I had to ask him what is happening and what am I meant to do. He said the food was ready. I told him I will contact Uber. At this stage I was irratated and didn't want the food. My food then arrives, more than 30min after the supposed to be delivery time. chicken and fish in products been sitting out waiting for a driver. They still sent the chicken even though I said not to. Broke it open, oily, cold and didn't looked cooked. Tried the kimchi, tasted abit off, cold oily pumpkin croquettes, ttekboeki had fish product in and sitting out, so I didn't touch it. Seaweed salad tasted not good. Dumplings, over fried and cold. So now I spent £33 on oily, cold food that sat out waiting for a driver, that I ended up binning because it was awful. The restaurant won't give me a refund, because I ordered through Uber. I have been sitting messaging Uber for over 24 hours, and they are refusing to refund my money and don't care about customer service. I love Koren food, and this was such a disappointment to get this service and type of food. All because of miscommunications within the restaurant staff. Really not worth it. I will not use Uber again either. Terrible experience...

We used to come here when it was Nara Sushi, but hadn’t been since we moved out of city. We saw they’d changed and decided to come out for dinner and try the new place rather than go to our usual Sushi restaurant!

We were starving and usually service is very fast. We were in there over an hour and managed to get 4 of the small starters we ordered. But they didn’t even come out together, so me and my partner shared them rather than having what we ordered due to being so hungry. (One being a tiny portion of cold edamame)

One order of sushi maki came out, but after 20min we still hadn’t received my sushi. We ended up leaving before the sushi came and when the guy checked the kitchen it was apparent they didn’t make it. So we paid and left hungry.

They did say it was because they were busy, but there were 6 tables of 2people when we walked in and two of the tables left as we ordered.

Also, I always order a green tea and one of the quaint little touches I love when getting sushi was that it’s usually in a teapot, with the teabag and little teacup. They seem to have stopped this and I got a green tea in a latte glass.

Although the reviews are all great, it seemed only when they aren’t busy that they can cope, maybe they needed more staff this night. People have stated the staff talked them through the menu etc, we didn’t receive that service.

I don’t usually leave reviews as we are very laid back but it wasn’t a great experience unfortunately. I’m not sure if we will return

It’s a shame as what we...