3 /5 Sunderland Mat (Sunders ont road): I have to say this was a very disappointing experience for a relatively high value meal. So the positive is the place looks amazing. The floor is remarkable and the decor what a 1980s Rock band would view as Japanese art. No subtlety all colour. A bit like the food. It was nice to have a, somewhat confusing mix, of live violin and dance music and the place was clean and really well done.
Then the welcome. There were 3 staff on the desk, one using a computer. None of them said hello. It took a 4th member of staff to arrive before anyone asked if we had a booking and this pretty much set the tone for a very average if not below average experience.
We had booked and pointed out we had a gluten allergy, if that is you then dont bother with this restaurant. We then had three staff tell us that we had to use the qr code to look at allergens. All good. That was not the problem there was nothing much on there. Including Sashimi. So we wanted to know if they could serve the sashimi without the sauce. NO was the answer. The food was sacrosanct and therefore no changes to any meal were allowed.
Then it was explained to us that Asian food was a blend of flavours and sauces and difficult to classify and remove allergans. Now this is true. However having being talked down to three times I felt I got it. I did not want to explain I had been to Japan, Thailand and countless asian restaurants in many countries and had issues, but resolved. Makes me feel the food was pre prepared to an extreme. Backed up by the stale popadoms and the fact the recipies could not be adjusted.
Then there was the fact there were so many staff it was hard to negotiate the restaurant, they were falling over themselves to not serve. The wonderful removal of your bottle of wine so that it was not cluttering the table is a good thing in a well run restaurant but if you have to continually get someones attention to get a refil not so god. I have run out os space so cannot vent further. Never Again.
