Kobe Sushi is a simple Asian cuisine takeaway spot in Plumstead, Cape Town. While the venue is big enough to accommodate several tables, you get the impression they’re geared towards facilitating takeaways. After all, who wants to stand and wait or eat? The decor is very hands-off, making it minimalist in appearance and geared towards basic comfort and simplicity. It is what it is.
After a fantastic first experience at this branch – we decided to visit again. The pricing is great with daily 2-for-1 specials on a wide range of dishes and sushi platters. On our first visit, we ordered two veg platters as well as spring rolls, tempura prawns and salmon roses on the 2-for-1 deal, which were able to feed four quite comfortably at less than R100 per person. The quality of the sushi was excellent, the staff were friendly and we were impressed enough to make a mental note of returning.
*dum, dum, dum*
The second time was terrible. With one fan, it was sweltering in the restaurant on one of Cape Town’s hottest Fridays in recent memory. Ordering over the counter, I could see that flies were buzzing about avocado cuttings in an open bowl on the preparation counter. A drying cloth was loosely draped over another bowl of ingredients. It looked bad.
This ordinarily would have triggered us to leave but after a great first experience we gave Kobe Sushi the benefit of the doubt. Having seen the flies, we made a special point of ordering and insisting on fresh avocado. While waiting for our order, my wife visited the shopping centre’s bathroom. There wasn’t any hand soap in the bathroom and she had to carry toilet paper in from the restaurant. The only soap in the restaurant was a packet of clothes washing powder!?! As mentioned, this place is built on takeaways… the bathroom should’ve come with a disclaimer, but gave us an inside look at how staff were being asked to maintain basic hygiene. The second red flag.
The staff appeared glum and possibly sick. In their defence, it was an incredibly hot day with little help from the lone fan, but based on the state of the bathroom scenario it could have been any number of reasons. We just assumed the heat may have overwhelmed them. Looking at us with glassy eyes and fairly robotic expressions, it seemed as though there was some inside joke we weren’t getting. Maybe mid-afternoon is just a no-no at Kobe Sushi. Being the only customers in the restaurant, we may have been onto something. The whole situation did not seem hygienic at all but we had traveled some distance to be there, had faith in them from the first experience, were very hungry at this point and chose to believe the best. Trust your gut instincts.
Ordering two platters, one 14 piece veg platter with fashion sandwiches, avo maki and california rolls and another 2-for-1 platter of salmon rolls, crispy california rolls and avo maki. Eating this at the restaurant because we were that hungry, the sushi was filling and while somewhat put off by our initial assessment of the situation, tasted okay. However, everything was about to change.
Later that night, my wife felt ill… starting with a feeling of nausea and working its way up to full blown food poisoning, which ruined the whole weekend. Thinking I’d dodged a bullet, it soon became apparent that I had food poisoning too. Suffering the ill effects over 48 hours, I began to recover sooner than my wife, whose constitution remained compromised for almost a week. This shocking experience has made my wife, who’s vegetarian, not want to eat sushi ever again. As someone who recently started eating sushi, it’s confirmed some of the worst risks associated with it for me.
Contacting Kobe Sushi via Facebook as soon as we had the strength, it appears they don’t have anyone monitoring their social media. We asked for a full refund as a gesture of apology, but have not heard back from them after two weeks. Having tainted the sushi experience for us, the story will obviously come up a few times when people mention sushi in the future. Getting some form of apology or recompense would have offered up some measure of relief to the very utterance of “Kobe Sushi”.
Unfortunately for both Kobe Sushi and us, this hasn’t been forthcoming. Having had mixed guest quest experiences at this sushi outlet, we thought it would be a good idea to warn other patrons. It’s one thing to have a food poisoning slip up… it can happen at places you’ve visited a hundred times, but it’s another thing entirely for the restaurant to ignore customer concerns and complaints over produce that could effectively be bacteria-riddled and causing severe illness.
So while the sushi can be good if you visit on the right day, the prices are appealing and you may find the staff to be friendly on cooler days – Kobe Sushi can be likened to gambling with your next week. We certainly won’t be returning to this takeaway joint and will be actively dissuading others from visiting it too. Consistency is so important in the restaurant game and if you choose to operate your restaurant like a roller-coaster, don’t be surprised when people throw up their hands and your food.
One-Word Review: Avoid
Kobe Sushi
4 Cecil Road, The Village Link
Plumstead
Open Daily, 11am – 9pm