Kobe Jones, King Street Wharf
As you walk into the dark entrance that leads to the dark dining room, let me warn you that someone will shout at you – loudly. “Welcome”!! I have been dying to come here ever since I sampled some of their teriyaki salmon (the dish that overcame my dislike of this fish) at one of the SMH Good Food Month events. Described as modern Japanese with a twist , I went with open mind and very high expectations. Let me say first up that the service is FAST, and not to please you, but feels more like they want your table! We were in and out within an hour – helped by the fact that our mains appeared before we finished our entrees! (more on that later).
The food was good, but the presentation varied alot. The prawns tempura ($16.50 for 4) were flawless – light, crispy and not oily, and very large. I had trouble finding a sushi roll without raw stuff in it (I don’t understand why one would eat raw fish when cave man discovered fire 
) Anyway – I found the crunch roll – $16 for 8 bites of tempura prawn with crab salad and cucumber layered with tempura flakes and smelt roe. A bit small for its price, but good none the less. It’s garnished with a thick BBQ sauce.
Baked Dynamite Scallops – $15.50 sounded intriguing and looked amazing – a baked mountain topped with like flakes of bonito. Sadly, I suspected and was right that this dish was slathered in mayonnaise (my worst nightmare!), and cheese stirred through the rice – eww eww. But I was told it wasn’t bad, and had alot of scallops for good value. As mentioned, as I was still munching on my crunch roll my main (just mine, not any others), and without anyone assisting in moving my set up around to place it in front of me!! Very very annoyed – they didn’t even bother bringing all the mains at once! I pointed this out to one of the waiters who tried to explain that this is usual practice and didn’t my waittress ask me how we wanted it served? Nope. Anyway, annoyance aside – the salmon was a generous two person sized serve which I could not finish. Cooked perfectly, served with rice and stir fried chinese veges (weird combo – this must be the twist!). Sadly, it came ungarnished.
The teriyaki chicken was had ($25.50), and was more of the standard I’d expect of a restaurant of this fame and pricing. It was artfully stacked in a lattice, with poached daikon (radish) and carrot, and topped with a shaved sweet potato crisp. The restaurant redeemed itself when we spilled a glass of water all over it and they agreed to recook it for us (literally). We heard much of the famed chocolate chopsticks that came on its dessert platter – $25.50. The tasting plate consisted of 5 ordinary tastes of dessert – vanilla bean ice cream, a shortcake biscuit, green tea creme brulee (yum!), cheesecake, marinated strawberries, and a delicious chocolate torte square. The chocolate chopsticks were huge and solid dark chocolate for your daily dose of endorphins. And sadly, our view for the evening was blocked by the parked paddlesteamer boat 
April 18th, 2007 at 5:10 pm
Kobe Jones just opened up here in London. I was quite excited as i had good memories of it in Sydney way back in 2004 sometime. But when we tried out the one here – the food was just ok, the service terrible and the price def not worth it. I’m not sure if it was opening jitters but I left very disappointed and unsatisfied.