GASTRONOMY REVIEW: Sushi Waka - Leeds.

To say that I was disappointed with my visit to the Sushi Waka Japanese Restaurant in Briggate, Leeds, would be not just an understatement, but also a falsehood  It was the worst Japanese food and service I have ever experienced.

Where do I start? Let's start with the building itself. Unprepossessing and uninviting from the outside, and nothing changed my opinion of this once inside. It was dark and gloomy beyond belief. It was so dark that one had to use the mobile phone's torch facility in order to read the menu. The background music was too loud, it was pop music, and was not Japanese in any way. The Gents' toilets (located down an uncarpeted stairway) were smelling very strongly of urine and needed a jolly good clean. The waiting staff were slow, and seemingly uncaring.. just going through the motions. And they were not busy. In fact, they were practically empty.. never a good sign. 

The drinks menu might as well not have even been printed. Majority of the items on there were not available.. including the entire section labelled "Speciality Teas" - and so a Japanese restaurant was unable to supply you with Japanese / Oriental style tea! It didn't even have standard black tea or coffee available either. Their choice of cold drinks was minimalist in the extreme.

The food fared little better. The Vegetable Spring Rolls were 90% dough rapper, and the microscopic amount of vegetables inside were mashed to a pulp and soggy. Whilst a Deluxe Sushi Platter, which I shared with my companion had some of the rankest tasting sushi I think I have ever eaten. The platter consisted of 6 California Rolls (which are a Canadian invention, nothing to do with Japan at all!) which would normally consist of the rice surrounding avocado, cucumber and crab (although a vegetarian roll usually substitutes the crab with radish). However here, the crab was sunstituted with a small portion of fish stick and tasted vile. The rest of the platter had a selection of fish nigiri, some of them tasting fresher than others. The raw fish / seafood on top of the sushi rice were in chunks rather than the thin elegant slices one is accustomed to seeing in Japanese cuisine, and the nigiri too large to cope with using chopsticks.

To be honest, I couldn't wait to leave the restaurant, and will obviously never be going there again.

Reviewer - Matthew Dougall
on - 23.11.21