From having been low key for eight years since opening, 2014 has been kind to Kyoto Garden Sushi, in it winning a 5* Smart Casual accolade in the 2015 Diners Club Rossouw’s Restaurant Guide, as well as Best Asian Restaurant in the 2015 Mercedes-Benz Eat Out Awards last month.  As a result friend Whitney Wentzel and I had extremely high expectations when we had dinner there last Wednesday evening, which sadly were not met at all!

I was surprised that I could book a table for the following day when I called, being the week after the Eat Out Awards, the Japanese chef taking the booking.  I had seen a parking sign with an arrow to the left outside the entrance, and had thought that parking was available behind the building, but was told that it was for upstairs tenants and that we should park at the school down the road, not great on a rainy night.  The waiter I asked had no clue about the parking sign outside.  Luckily a parking bay became available across the road.  At the entrance to the restaurant a candle is lit, and two Noren cloth dividers hang in the doorway.  We were shown to a table, sitting next to another couple, so close to each other that we could hear each other’s conversations.   There seemed to be some uncertainty about our booking, Continue reading →