Pacific East Japanese and Malaysian restaurant — Restaurant in Kent

I had very high hopes for this restaurant after seeing the good reviews for it. I perused the pictures online and everything looked decent. My party decided to visit this establishment today. Our first indicator that we should run should have been the strong aroma of urine when you enter the restaurant. We decided to ignore it and move forward with the meal. We were seated promptly by a waiter that looked like he hated his job. Once the menus were slapped down on the table, we began to explore them. All the options looked great! They were unique and exciting. I tend to frequent a lot of Japanese restaurants, so I decided to go with one of my favorites: soft shell crab tempura. The rest of my party got phò and a chicken rice bowl.

I received the typical ginger salad and miso soup. The miso soup had an unknown object in it that had no flavor and was the texture of undercooked potato. The ginger salad wasn't too repulsive.

I was impressed that my tempura came out shortly after receiving my soup and salad (but before the appetizer, of course!) The tempura was haphazardly thrown on the plate and you could visibly see the grease oozing on to the plate. It's deep fried, so whatever. However, when I bit into the softshell crab, it tasted of fishy, year-old frying oil. The crab almost seemed to be rancid. It had congealed into a paste inside of the tempura batter and smelled very foul. The tempura vegetables with it were very undercooked. However, the swarm of flies that were flying around the restaurant seemed to love it, as they kept landing on my food.

I feel bad for the wait staff, they seemed very stressed (probably because they knew all their customers for the night would complain about the quality of food.) They were so stressed they were dropping glass bottles around young children and interrupting the rest of the diners with jarring shattering noises. At least they cleaned it up and got most of the pieces, but left a large sticky spot and several large pieces of glass for some poor diner to slice themselves open.

After promptly paying for our overpriced food, which we barely touched and threw the leftovers in the trashcan on the street, we quickly went to Taco Bell. It was a very mediocre experience at Taco Bell, but the service and food were leagues better than Pacific East.

tl;dr Please never go to this restaurant. You will regret it with every fiber...

I had the tonkatsu ramen, my friend had the mango shrimp, and we shared spicy kani and spicy salmon maki rolls. Everything was good, with some qualifications: (1) The dish my friend ordered was not as described, which could be very bad for customers with food allergies. (2) The ramen, which I was really looking forward to (tonkatsu is hard to find in this area!) was quite bland compared to other versions I've had. Tonkatsu ramen is consistently very rich and flavorful wherever you find it, whether on the East Coast, West Coast, or abroad, and the ramen I had at PE tasted like all the ingredients were halved. I also requested a soft boiled egg and got a sliced hard boiled egg like you'd find on a chef salad.

This is a new restaurant with a lot of potential and the rare opportunity of being one of very few restaurants of its kind in this area! If the owners make adjustments based on reviews, this could be one of my favorite restaurants! But I'm afraid they'll be satisfied with the booming business they're getting just from filling a needed niche and not feel the need to step it...

100% honest review, these are the only problematic things I’ve witnessed over the years:

The food is very good, but can lessen in quality depending on how busy they are/the time of day you come. If you come right before close, the food may not be amazing but it’s still edible and I like it! I don’t suggest the Poke Bowl, but the Sushi rolls are made to order and very good.

The service is usually good, but can vary depending on the staff on shift that day.

There is usually only one waiter working at a time, which can delay your check arriving or order being taken.

Some staff members have a hard time understanding English, so sometimes I write down what I want so there’s no confusion. Because of the language barrier, there’s been a few occasions where something I ordered didn’t come out, or a special request wasn’t done.

I had a staff member add in their own tip before (I don’t think she’s at the establishment anymore) but I always scribble out the tip lines if I tip in cash, or make it very clear what my tip was.

Their miso soup is amazing, but...