Visited Hakuba 26/01/11, as a party of 6. Our booking was at 6pm, we arrived early, the waiter allowed us to sit in a booth on the side whilst a large party was finishing. The reason for the visit was a Living Social deal where 2 people can eat for £40. We had 3 vouchers.

Before visiting I had checked the website and noticed there was a special Malaysian chef which had cooked for the King of Malaysia. The Malaysian menu was very limited to three items. We were not offered this menu and had to ask the waiter to see it. Luckily I had seen this on the website otherwise I wouldn't have known about it.

We ordered some green tea to go with out meal. At £2 per person it wasn't any special tea, not tea leaves just a tea bag in a small pot, too small for 6 people. Throughout the whole meal we had to constantly ask the waiter for more hot water for the tea. There were times were we had gone for near 10 mins waiting for a waiter to pass.

For starter: exotic mushroom salad, the mushroom was earthy, however the salad dressing was salty and overpowered the mushroom's earthyness. Scallop summit maki roll was a avocado and crab maki roll with a “smelt roe sprinkle” on top. The scallops were hard to find, they has been chopped small. There was a creamy mayonnaise tasting topping on top which had looked like eggy topping. The cream topping was overpowering and had masked all of the seafood sweetness underneath. The soft shell crab roll had a tempura soft shell crab wrapped within. All of the maki rolls were not tightly wrapped enough as soon as you picked up a roll it fell apart. The sashimi platter was beautifully presented, the sashimi was presented on a bed of ice. The sashimi itself was cut thick and tasted fresh.

For mains: Grilled black cod, the cod was cooked well, it was soft and flaky. The cod did have a slight “fishy” note suggesting perhaps that the fish was not fresh enough. The miso-yuzu citrus sauce was overpowering and creamy. The sauce was thick and rather than the… More