Kansai Japanese Restaurant

Food

There are several all you can eat menus available, ranging in price from $25 to $45, where you get the whole hog of sashimi and seafood. For that you get to order anything you like off a standard list. We decided that the cheapest one would do. We started off with some miso soup, which was much better than I expected. We ordered some hot dishes to share. The teriyaki chicken was standard. The strips were a bit thin so the chicken was kinda try. The pork katsu was fried golden, but the sauce was dull and it was again a bit dry. Never fear, we weren't really here to eat that stuff, we want the sushi! (For those who like it, there are other hot dishes available too). We ordered a large sushi platter which had the standard salmon, tuna, egg, prawn, octopus, kingfish nigiri. The rice was soft and slightly sweet. The fish was not the freshest I've ever had but it's not bad either. The wasabi is quite mild too. We moved onto the various special Maki sushi rolls. The dragon roll, made up of eel, cucumber, avocado, was beautiful. The seaweed was a bit damper than I like but otherwise it was great. The volcano roll consisted of a shrimp tempura roll topped with eel and spicy sauce, and looked spectacular, if a bit messy. In terms of flavour it's a bit undistinguished. I surprised myself that I actually like the Italian roll, which had cheese and avocado. It must be because of that yummy Jap mayo they smothered on the whole thing!

We gave the rolls a break and ordered individual hand rolls. The soft shell crab was very yummy, even though you can't really taste crab. The tempura prawns had a very hot prawn. The batter is a bit thick but otherwise it's lovely. At this stage we were quite full, but it's an all you can eat and I wanted to try everything, so we put in some orders for:

• scampi - my favourite for the night, basically a raw prawn atop some rice. It's so smooth and slimy. All prawns should be eaten raw!
• scallop - also raw and fresh
• salmon roe - just to finish off. This one is a bit too wet and not salty enough

All in all, a very good meal. We didn't go in expecting top of the range sushi, but these are very good for the price.

Rating - 7.5

Atmosphere

It's a dingy little place at the bottom of the Hunter Connection. I'd walked past the entrance a couple of times and it looked kinda dodgy, but once you're inside, that all changed. The decor is still sparse, but you can actually watch the sushi chefs at work, and the setting is quite pleasant.

Rating - 1.5

Service

The owner came to serve us personally and delivered our free bottle of Sake. Sometimes the service can be a bit slow and it's hard to attract the attention of the staff. The owner knows how to please his clients though, and offered us a bottle of sake to share (we found out later that it's on offer for everyone if you bring in the ad from 9to5).

Rating - 3

C-factor

$25 for all you can eat is pretty good. Just don't go expecting top class sushi, but these are definitely better than your average takeaway.

Rating - 1.5

Brownie Points - 12.5

Info

Shop B1, Hunter Connection
7-13 Hunter St
Sydney
NSW 2000
Phone (02) 9231 5544