I’ve toyed with the idea of writing reviews of places I’ve been to every time I travelled; however there was nothing as compelling as this that drove me to write my very first review today.

I just went to Jogoya for the 50% off promotion for ladies, and it is the worst restaurant I’ve been to. Note, worst restaurant, not just worst buffet. For the first time, I did not pig out at a buffet. I felt embarrassed to have so much food left on my table. My dining partner and I was in fact trying to find something edible, in the end we gave up and settled for a few scoops of Haagen Daz ice cream (which was more melted than usual) and some salmon sashimi (not the freshest) after sampling the food.

This is why. Almost everything else, especially the meats tasted like it was cooked several days ago, refrigerated and then reheated, or just simply not fresh meats used (detected from the smell, taste and texture), be it the chicken wings, scallops or bamboo clams. You know the dry texture caused by refrigerating rice? That was how the sushi rice was. Deep fried soft shell crab which had to be ordered, twice we ordered and both times the crab was not even warm when served. It was as though it was pre-cooked hours before and served without even reheating.

The dimsum with seafood mostly smelled so bad that I could not bring myself to eat it. The grilled oysters looked too mushy to be safe for human consumption. There was a sign that claimed “eating milky food with oysters can cause food poisoning due to chemical reaction”. That is was unbelievable as food poisoning is caused by types of bacteria/toxins of bacteria in food that has gone bad or that has been contaminated. What about the common way of cooking oysters, grilled with cheese and cream? Those are milky stuff. I have eaten that in many restaurants and have yet to suffer “food poisoning” or stomach flu. That sign sounds more like a disclaimer should anyone get sick. I cook often and I know when meats are either not fresh or raw meat that have been left unrefrigerated for too long till it has gone bad then cooked.

Selection wise, Jogoya was sorely lacking authentic Japanese food.

50% off promo doesn’t mean 50% off good quality, I’ve been to Shogun’s 1Utama 50% off promo, it was as excellent as ever, and Tenji’s Solaris 50% off promo, again the meats and etc were fresh, also Tenji’s Haagen Daz ice cream was not as melted.

Hygiene wise, some parts of Jogoya smelled, I had to pass the dirty dishes area to my place, it had a strong unpleasant smell (like the area was not washed frequently) which a nice restaurant like this shouldn’t have.

I’ve eaten buffets at many places in Malaysia and around the region, there was no buffet any worst than my Jogoya’s experience yesterday.

On an unrelated matter to the food, I believe Jogoya had overcharged me on the 5% Government service tax as well as the 10% service charge (which is not required by law). I came home and scoured through my recent Business Taxation lecture notes on Service Tax. It said service tax is charged based on payment receive, i.e. the actual charge, not the normal price. Apart from that, there was a rule that said if it was on credit on usual trade terms then any settlement discount given based on early payment is disregarded, i.e. then the tax is based on the invoice price. However, this rule does not apply to my situation, as my transaction basis was cash and the discount given is not considered as a settlement discount. Therefore, the tax should have been based on the value I was charged, which was 50% off the normal price. However, my service tax was based on normal / full price and so was the 10% service charge.

karen,
yah it’s been pretty average these days.

2)The clips system is slow like shit , 1 handroll took like around 20 minutes and some foods are only for the vips also the serving are patheticly small example : oyster egg and unagi .

3) they should change the whole dessert and ice cream to self service instead of asking them to take for us .

I was actually shock of the number of people , its a weekday and it was like 70% full of people . I duno if its the promotion or its the “tong zhi ” festival on that day .

I definately would not recomend people to go there