Sakura

Sakura is a Japanese restaurant located in the smaller building of Ramada Plaza Hotel. Upon entering the restaurant, you feel welcomed by the Japanese-themed decor which creates a lovely ambience for an evening out with family and friends.

The restaurant menu offers diners many choices starting from appetisers such as tempura and sushi, to main courses such as teppanyaki, bento sets, udon, soba, etc.We ordered several a la carte dishes to share among ourselves and to try a bit of everything.

Agedashidofu is a traditional Japanese dish that involves deep frying tofu cubes with starch and then served hot with soy sauce. The agedashidofu is rather pale looking here because the tofu was not deep fried enough to give a golden brown coating. It failed to give a 'crispy on the outside, soft on the inside' taste which makes this a popular Japanese appetiser.

We ordered 2 plates of sushi platter offering a mix of raw fish. To be realistic, any diner has to concede that sushi in any restaurants here will never be on par with the real stuff in Japan. It saves you from the shock of eating raw fish that may cause tummy upset if you had a weak one to begin with. While the mediocre freshness for the raw fish was expected, the way the sushi was sliced was bad - they were as thick as processed cheese cubes found in supermarkets. The sushi chef really needs to improve his culinary skills.

The mixed seafood tempura dish suffered the same fate as the agedashidofu, evident from its pale colours instead of an inviting golden brown. Therefore it did not surprise us when the tempura did not taste crunchy at all. It was made worse by the seafood meat inside that tasted soft and powdery.

The worst dish of the evening had to be the stir-fry seafood udon. The noodles was too oily, too soft and with too much sweet sauce. I also wondered where the seafood were as I could only see onions and vegetables.

For a hotel restaurant that offers such a lovely ambience and charges expensive prices, I had expected much better quality food. I would think twice about returning to Sakura as there are better Japanese restaurants around with more wallet-friendly prices.

Sakura is a Japanese restaurant located in the smaller building of Ramada Plaza Hotel. Upon entering the restaurant, you feel welcomed by the Japanese-themed decor which creates a lovely ambience for an evening out with family and friends.

The restaurant menu offers diners many choices starting from appetisers such as tempura and sushi, to main courses such as teppanyaki, bento sets, udon, soba, etc.We ordered several a la carte dishes to share among ourselves and to try a bit of everything.

Agedashidofu is a traditional Japanese dish that involves deep frying tofu cubes with starch and then served hot with soy sauce. The agedashidofu is rather pale looking here because the tofu was not deep fried enough to give a golden brown coating. It failed to give a 'crispy on the outside, soft on the inside' taste which makes this a popular Japanese appetiser.

We ordered 2 plates of sushi platter offering a mix of raw fish. To be realistic, any diner has to concede that sushi in any restaurants here will never be on par with the real stuff in Japan. It saves you from the shock of eating raw fish that may cause tummy upset if you had a weak one to begin with. While the mediocre freshness for the raw fish was expected, the way the sushi was sliced was bad - they were as thick as processed cheese cubes found in supermarkets. The sushi chef really needs to improve his culinary skills.

The mixed seafood tempura dish suffered the same fate as the agedashidofu, evident from its pale colours instead of an inviting golden brown. Therefore it did not surprise us when the tempura did not taste crunchy at all. It was made worse by the seafood meat inside that tasted soft and powdery.

The worst dish of the evening had to be the stir-fry seafood udon. The noodles was too oily, too soft and with too much sweet sauce. I also wondered where the seafood were as I could only see onions and vegetables.

For a hotel restaurant that offers such a lovely ambience and charges expensive prices, I had expected much better quality food. I would think twice about returning to Sakura as there are better Japanese restaurants around with more wallet-friendly prices.