Lunch at Sono Japanese Restaurant, Portside

Japanese is one of the many favourite cuisines of mine when it comes to food. So when my girl friends ask me to organize a lunch date for us, I instantly recommended Sono at Portside knowing that they offer $25 business lunch set during Wednesday to Friday. The girls happily agreed!

I’ve made a reservation for the 5 of us and they have nicely organized a Tatami room for us with river view so I can park my pram in the room too.

The Business Lunch Set includes:

• Salad
• Salmon sashimi (3 pieces) or Prawn & Avo sushi (3 pieces)
• A choice of main between Mini Wagyu Sukiyaki, Teriyaki Chicken, Pork Katsu and  Assorted Tempura
• Steam rice
• Miso soup

I’ve chosen Salmon Sashimi over the sushi and Assorted Tempura as my main. I feel the presentation of food is fantastic although I’m a bit disappointed in the portion size and quality of food. 

I’ve eaten tempura at many Japanese restaurants in Brisbane, Hong Kong and Japan. The perfect tempura should be lightly battered that it tastes crunchy on the outside and soft on the inside even when it’s cooled down. It should leave you with an oily feeling after eating. Unfortunately that is not the case when we dine at Sono. My tempura is so oily that I can see the oil marks on the paper placed in between the tempura and the serving plate. As I have a baby to feed and look after, I only start eating my tempura when they have cooled down, and it’s not that nice at all, a little too oily and soggy. It’s got a good variety of prawn, fish, pumpkin and eggplant though. I finished all my food anyhow. I wish my bowl of rice is a bit bigger so I won’t feel like I need more food after this meal.

Service is pretty good in general as all the staff members are friendly and welcoming although during the lunch service we didn’t get our green tea topped up regularly leaving us feeling thirsty during the meal.

Will I return? Yes, I’m hoping to see some improvements as there’re lots of emerging Japanese restaurants serving quality food at reasonable prices in the suburban areas. Sono really needs to put some efforts to give us a reason to visit again!

Average spend per person this time - $30