Osaka Reading — Restaurant in Reading

I had always been put off going to this restaurant.

It always looked nice enough, and it's a very visually appealing place, but I’d always seen it busy, and once when I finally popped my head through the entrance to get a feel for the place, it was way too loud. I’m acutely sensitive to sound, so a restaurant environment (“ambiance” if you will) is of paramount importance for me.

In the end, I went with a relative on a weekday evening.

Table for two? Yes please.

We are guided to a ‘banquette’ where we’re going to be sitting beside each other, which I find is a nice touch, to be honest. Most of the time, when you go to a restaurant, you sit opposite your dining partner(s), and that’s rather adversarial, isn’t it?

There are people on the other side of us, but we can’t see their faces, so it’s all right (but I do have to resist the urge to duck my head under the dividing board and say “Hello! What are you having?”). There are some marks on the dividing board, which look like faint traces of grease, but I really don’t know.

Laminated cardboard menus are given out, and they’re easy enough to read and deciper, so I find it easy to decide what to order.

“Do you have any non-alcoholic booze?” I ask our waitress (Unisex waiter? Wait person? Server? I don’t know what the term is these days).

Why, yes! They have Asahi 0.0%!

I am overjoyed.

Although our order is taken by one person, the food is delivered by others. That’s a little destabilising, and I think it’d be better if they forewarned diners “I’ll be taking your order, but different people will be bringing you your food”.

There’s a problem with my dish. I deliberately won’t say what it was.

I raise it as an issue with our waitress, and she quickly offers to have the dish changed. Later the front of house supervisor makes the same offer in more emphatic terms, but both times I decline because I just want to get on with eating.

We forgo dessert, because….there wasn’t any need for it, really!

The portion size is very reasonable indeed. I’d even go as far as to say it was just right. Not too much, and certainly not too little.

Although there was a slight problem with my dish, overall it was good. The broccoli in my yaki soba was OUTSTANDING.

The music was turned down slightly at my request, and I wasn’t the only one who found it very loud: at the beginning of my meal, I asked a diner on my right if they also found it “oppressively loud” and the answer was yes. Later, however, the music was barely audible above the buzz of conversations.

Osaka really needs some acoustic baffles in the ceiling to soak up the noise. That would tip the scale of the restaurant more towards ‘refined’. The lighting was VERY good – definitely not harsh, and for someone like me, lighting and sound are critical factors when I decide whether to eat somewhere.

My initial thought was to rate it three stars, but the staff are the main factor which tipped it to four. I’d only ever give five stars to a place if it’s truly world class, but Osaka stands out as one of the better places in Reading.

The staff are attentive without being curt or regimental, and kind without being obsequious. The grub just happens to be nice too.

Would I go...

After a lot of convincing, I went with my girlfriend recently. We both left unhappy with the food and we won't return. Whether it's gone downhill or has always been bad depends on who you talk to.

Service was great but food has never impressed me. First time I ordered here was soon after it opened. I remember the octopus balls were chewy and soggy, and general quality really poor, even putting price to one side.

Agedashi tofu 0/10 Tofu wasn't crispy or light as it should be, and not enough sauce.

Salmon California 6/10 This was our favourite dish, but it was just the basic you'd expect of sushi. Safe and boring.

Tonkotsu Ramen 1/10 Broth not to my taste. Completely inflexible to swap pork for an extra egg. One egg is shown on the menu, only half an egg given.

Tofu & Seafood Stew -1/10 This was f*ing disgusting! The broth was bland, brown water, with a thick film of red oil floating on top. I'd tried to finish it, I hate waste, but it was so bad I could only bear digging out the veg & seafood and leaving the broth. All the seafood was hard from being overboiled in the broth, and the veg was tasteless mush. A disgraceful excuse of a dish.

Dark Dragon 2/10 The presentation was more enticing than the taste. The lotus root chips were nice for crunch but beyond that none of the flavours stood out. A waste.

Service 8/10 The servers were lovely and attentive. There could have been some improvements like being more aware to top up the empty bottle of soy sauce, serving plates from the side rather than leaning between us (we were seated with our backs to the servers on the middle bar). We had to queue for 20-30 mins to be seated, so it was a bit frustrating to be handed the bill and encouraged to leave promptly after finishing our meal, particularly given there was only one couple queuing at that point and there were others leaving. Still, overall good service but awful...

Visited Osaka Reading for the third time having a good experience previously. But had an awful experience this time. The waitress took note of our drinks and food. When we mentioned there was a food allergy in the family. She couldn't take the order and had to ask someone who could deal with food allergies. A few moments later the manager continued with the order. My family placed their order first, then I ordered starters and ramen, the last thing was the dragon sushi platter, while I was deciding I heard the manager sigh and tut with impatience under his mask. We ordered four teas and one coke. A waiter presented us with one tea and one coke. We told the waiter we asked for four teas, we are missing three teas. He went to speak with the waitress who placed the order. She was displeased and was sure my Mum ordered only one tea. When the other teas were brought to our table, I was about to pour the tea and realised the pot was very light. I checked the water level and was disappointed to find that it was half filled with water. When I complained to the waitress her response was, that it will dilute the tea. The tea was a con so they could get the customer to pay for more tea. We spoke to the manager and he offered to refill the tea pots later on. But there was no urgency to fix the problem, and the attitude of the staff including the manager was very rude, lazy and disrespectful. He offered a discount but that was never gonna resolve or hide their crafty service. We decided to cancel the meals and just left early with the sushi and tempura. My family won't be coming...