Starters
Here’s some context to whet your appetite.
Kenilworth is a small suburb south of Cape Town, known for its narrow roads, horse racing, and occasional racist ‘klapping’ incidents. Nestled along one of these narrow streets, you will find the “food court” of Kenilworth: Harfield Village. From Mexican to Thai and everything in between, Harfield Village has an array of food options for residents and visitors to choose from. Last weekend, we decided to try out Sakura, a little sushi restaurant that offers all-you-can-eat sushi from 6pm on Saturday evenings. Complete with a sushi conveyor belt that customers can sit around, Sakura has a funky, inviting vibe. In addition to the sushi bar, there are small islands of tables and the tiniest buffet table you will ever see filled with steaming pots of Chinese food.
After a long day of red wine and pub crawling, we rushed in and the waitress took our hungry bodies to our tafel vir twee.
Main Dish
Let’s dive right into this, shall we? Here are our overall impressions.
From the Braai George’s Perspective:
We can never turn down sushi, especially if it’s all you can eat. The American also has these weird fantasies about sushi conveyor belts since she watched Lost in Translation. I believe that sushi should be consumed until you’re no longer able to move.
The sushi was colourful, fresh, and inventive. Deep fried sushi is always a winner, though I was not a fan of how much spicy mayonnaise and sweet chili that covered every other plate. I feel that the sushi sandwiches were very plain and could have been jazzed up a bit more. There also could have been a little bit more variety; a wasabi roll never hurt anyone . But a good piece of fresh sushi and some generous portions of blue cheese. No matter my misgivings, I still ate until I could barely move.
From Southern Comfort’s Perspective:
I concur with Braai George on most points. Mainly, I wish there had been a bit more variety. I got one roll with cream cheese when we first arrived and no more ever came out. Cheese is my weakness, so I was disappointed there. And maybe we are being paranoid, but it seemed like the sushi chefs were amused by our naive aspirations of sushi eating greatness. They were probably right, though we didn’t do too bad. With 3-4 pieces of sushi on each plate, we managed to get through 14. BG also had a few helpings of noodles from the Chinese station. I was a sushi purist that night. I should also point out that they were heavy on the salmon, which I was OK with because it was pretty delicious.
Sides
Here’s some tasty side tidbits for ya!
The Saturday night scene was very chill at Sakura, with many people having quiet date nights. To be honest, though, we were so busy stuffing our faces that we didn’t have too much time to people watch. Like us, most patrons seemed to be in quite a bit of pain, having stuffed themselves with far too much sushi.
Drinks
We ordered white wine because it is lighter and would ensure that we wouldn’t fill up on alcohol. Eyes on the prize, ya know. The serving was huge, though it did come from a box. It cost R25, so at the end of the day it probably wasn’t worth it. Next time we will look into a corkage fee and bring our own hooch!
Dessert
Sugar and spice and everything nice…here are our positive takeaways.
The Chinese section is a wonderful bonus. It includes sweet and sour pork, beef stirfry, noodles, and dumplings. The value wasn’t bad either. We tallied our cost at over R1,000, of which we only had to pay R119 per person for the all-you-can-eat special.
Bill
Mo Money, Mo Problems, yo. Here are our negative takeaways.
At the end of the day, your experience depends entirely on what the sushi chef decides to make. Also, we definitely got the impression that they were secretly taking bets on how much we could eat. We missed having the option to choose our own sushi. The sushi was heavy on the rice, which filled us up quicker. Also, while having the Chinese section is a great bonus, but it was a little bland and masked in soy sauce.
Overall Rating: On a scale of 1-5 drunken Vienna Gatsbys from Bollywood Cafe at 4am… we give Sakura a 3! We probably won’t be back right away, but we would definitely give it another go.
Tafel vir twee 