Torai Ryotei 渡来料亭 @ Shenzhen

Japan’s most successful export would be Japanese cuisine. Everyone likes Japanese food – they are pleasing to look at and (most of time) tasty. As China became more affluent and more were exposed to proper Japanese cuisine, restaurants like Toro Ryotei started to pop up.

While they catered to general public with value-for-money sets, they tried to come up Omakase courses that appeal to the more adventurous. We decided to try a few a la carte choices to see if they are any good.

We ordered an item from each category – sashimi, teppanyaki, grill, cooked.

Started dinner with two amuse bouche – Japanese-style Potato Salad and Slowed Cooked Pork. I was quite disappointed that they actually served the potato salad. They are appetite fillers and should not be served as an amuse bouche. And the pork was very dry.

I did not have a high expectation of the Sashimi Moriawase and an a la carte order of Uni. The uni tasted like local sea urchin. The only fish that was above standard was their tuna. Everything else was just OK, and the sweet shrimp was slimy. So far two down, nothing impressed.

We ordered Grilled Puffer Fish so that we had something to nibble while we chatted. This was quite alright.

The first of two Teppanyaki dish, a Teppanyaki Hokkaido Oyster. The oyster was huge, and the buttery sauce and garlic really helped with the oyster. In fact, we wanted to have the oyster raw, but they actually recommended that we cooked it because of their size, and they suggested we do it two ways – teppanyaki and grilled.

We were quite surprised when they agreed to have half our Australian Wagyu A5 Sirloin cooked at two wellness – medium well and medium rare. They turned up quite alright, but I would enjoy it more if it was more moist. However they already impressed me when they did it according to our requests.

The second oyster came a while later. Grilled Hokkaido Oyster was overcooked and dry. Epic failure.

And again the service won the day. We asked that the sauce be separated for the Teriyaki Pacific Silver Cod.  The cod was really fishy. The technique was ok, but the ingredients failed.

And for dessert, it was the seasonal Sakura Konnyaku. Tasted like factory made dessert. Pretty but again not to expectation.

While the decor was really posh, and the service was impeccable, I was pretty disappointed at the quality of the food vs the price they charged. Hence I only considered this a Good Eats place, not exactly Fine Dining as what they hoped to position themselves. Instagrammable food, but that’s about it.

Torai Ryotei 渡来料亭
文心六路33号保利文化广场A区4楼 南山区 深圳
Tel : 0755 86696166

Date Visited : Jul 2018