Raku57 — Restaurant in Warwick

AVOID

Had been wanting to try this new-ish Japanese restaurant for a while, and now I wish I'd never visited.

The service was fine, if a little emotionless, we were seated and poured a glass of tap water each. The atmosphere was fine, it was a late lunch, the decor was more sake bar than restaurant.

We looked over the menu, still donning sprigs of holly on each corner (Christmas surplus printing), and picked a few dishes to share, ranging from £6 to just over £9 each.

The first dish arrived very quickly, worryingly so. Korean Honey Cheese Chicken, was piping hot chicken pieces, we suspect frozen and either fried or microwaved, covered sparingly with a weak creamy sweet sauce, not pleasant or unpleasant, just weird. Pumpkin croquettes followed, uniformly moulded and piping hot in the centre. They tasted bland, and I suspect were deep fried from frozen, if not microwaved. Next came two very sad and disappointed bao buns, chicken and bbq pork. A microwaved bao bun with a token iceberg lettuce piece, chili sauce and cucumber slice and two pieces of the same fried chicken as before, and the two small thin sad tasteless pieces of pork in the other, £6.50 and £6.80 respectively I recall. My partner had a Korean pear juice that came in a funky can, which was poured tableside and removed before we could have a look at it, which was nearing £4.

All in all, we were ravenous so ate the food, but it was disappointingly bland, uniformly tasting and clearly not worth the price charged. We arrived, ate and left within 30 minutes, it was practically a drive through. We will not be returning or recommending.

We love Japanese food, and if you're in the area and looking for a good one, I cannot recommend Nana's on Regent Street, Leamington Spa enough for authentic tasty Japanese food,and Hayashi on Warwick Street, Leamington Spa for Sushi. If you can't get a table with either of these places, wagamamas in Leamington is still a better choice than Raku.

Or if you want a memorable meal in Kenilworth, try Tambayan, a Filipino...

Chicken was undercooked in the middle, a patch of red with pink flesh going outwards from the centre. When I pointed this out there seemed to be some confusion understanding my concerns. After some reluctance, I was given 2/3 of a deconstructed new meal. Had to ask for the rest of it and build it myself. I was told the Chicken had been injected with soy sauce as some sort of odd explanation. This did not seem apparent anyway. There was no sentiment of regret or understanding that undercooked chicken is not nice to eat and a hazard. Mistakes can happen but if you don't accept a mistake the chances of reoccurring problems are increased. I had some painful cramping starting about 2.5 days afterwards. The place was empty, so there was no rush to process the order even. If the food had taken twice as long to arrive it would have still been fast. I have no faith that this was a useful learning experience so here we go... Cut chicken uniformly. Check oil/cooker cooking temp with an IR thermometer. Set timer and optimise checking the product until you find a winning combination. Occasionally, things will go wrong, accept and say sorry. Take away the meal and be flexible as possible to offer something that makes the customer feel as happy as possible. Make it clear you understand the risks or unhappyness and and take it seriously. Consider goodwill by cutting the bill or offering a free tea or something. Mistakes can have positive outcomes when...

Absolutely shocked with the awful verbal abuse we received today. As 1 out of 6 of our dishes was unpleasant, and charred. When mentioning this, the polite servers informed the chef and tried to address it. However, the “chef/owner/manager” came out and started shouting about why we are wrong, and that it could not be taken off the bill. whilst explaining, he continued to sarcastically insult every point mentioned. My husband was furious at this point and told him to remove himself and we would pay for our bill minus this particular dish. He then started shouting again saying he would call the police! We sternly informed him that this was our first time at this restaurant and most definitely our last! We then settled the outstanding balance and left.

Such a shame as other dishes were delicious, we also had recently moved into the area and we’re looking for a local Japanese restaurant.

To all those looking for fantastic Japanese restaurants check out these tried and tested places:

Hayashi - leamington spa Nanas -...