Grace Chiang
Google
Went for their soft opening over the weekend and had mixed feelings. Would've given 3.5 stars if that was an option, but rounded up to 4 since it's their soft opening and I know things take time to smooth out.
we got 4 rolls, miso cod, Kinjo appetizer, pork belly mochi skewer, and chicken skin.
I'll start with the good: The rolls were surprisingly delicate, neatly assembled, and well flavoured. The scallop Hokkaido roll was our favourite with fresh lemon slices and raw scallop across the top of the roll, was a great combo!
The pork belly mochi skewer was also yummy with a soft mochi wrapped with crispy pork belly. A bit pricey at $6 a skewer, but yummy!
Then onto the disappointing:
- all the food ran quite sweet
- the appetisers and specials were all a bit of a miss
- The cod was the best of the 3, but it had a lot of fish bones and the miso flavor wasn't that strong
- the crispy chicken skin came cold, which is a bit off putting bc cold chicken skin is not it. It was crispy and interestingly season (had sugar?), but think it would've been much better hot
- then the kinjo special appetizer: this was absolutely not worth it at all. At $18 for a tiny bite, it should be perfection. But the tofu was too firm, the jelly wasn't flavourful enough, and the uni/ caviar was surprisingly bland.
On this appetizer in particular, we also had an AWFUL customer service experience:
The server delivered the dish to the wrong table. I saw the other guest reach for it with their chopsticks before everyone realising it's not for their table, then the server took it away to the counter. I watched them verify a whole bunch, leave the item on the counter to go check on some other tables, then a different server came and brought that same dish to us. I asked if she was sure it wasn't touched by the other table, and she said yes...I mentioned I saw the other table reach for it but idk if they touched it... and she said oh do you want a new one? I said it's fine as long as they don't think it was touched.. and then the server passive aggressively insisted on bringing a new one, but DUMPED the old one?! It was so incredibly WASTEFUL. Most other great dining experiences I've had usually just give them the dish if there was an error, since it would be wasted if taken away anyway, and bring a new one just to be sure everything was all good. So we were really shocked when we saw the server just dump such expensive ingredients away...
The service (esp the guy, not the girl) was otherwise slow but friendly. The atmosphere was fine, music a little loud.
At soft opening prices it's possibly worth a try, but think I'll wait a long while for their operations, flavours, and customer service standards to stabilise before trying again!