Atami Japanese Restaurant Dundalk

BettePorter

Pighead wrote:

Is that the place on Parnell St. In the Shakespeare pub?

No its one of the places in Temple Bar . Which is my point. If they're charging temple bar prices for a basic takeaway bento box, they're not gonna be there long.

tayto lover

Most of the takeaways are too expensive for what you get imo.
8 euro for a curry i.e. chicken, curry sauce and a bit of rice.
6 euro for a small bit of fresh cod without chips.

Far too expensive.

My name is URL

Sounds very expensive alright. Wouldn't have expected a bento box to be over a tenner.

I'll reserve judgement til I've tried it though. Ya never know, could actually be worth what they're charging

BettePorter

Yeah I don't mind getting what you pay for. Its when they charge big money and then are mingy with the substance. I was looking at some of eskays pics on facebook (still haven't been in) but they seem very expensive for what u get. One fish cake, a mound of rice all surrounded by a mountain of (albeit pretty) salad, for 12.95 odd. Or a chicken tikka wrap for same price again pimped up with lettuce. I'm all for anyone needing to make a profit but don't take the piss like!

10green bottles

Opening Wednesday 01/06/16 -

cournioni

Walked past it this evening. Looked pretty nice, will check it out at the weekend I'd say.

BettePorter

Was in it twice today! Once to get menu and second time to book table ( phone number on menu isn't working yet ). I'm thinking the same menu applies to both take out and sit in so it remains to be seen if its good value. Menu has me salivating! Can't wait!

BettePorter

So went to atami tonight and have to say I came away happy. Was top notch. Personally I thought the pricing was fair and quality was good. By the time we left it was packed and a lot of people in and out for takeout too. ( though the wait time for takeout wasn't impressing some people ) seemed to be only one guy on the raw counter out front doing rolls etc and then perhaps another out back doing the cooked stuff.

My one criticism would be the lack of (in ignorance of the correct term ) a maitre d. It was a very young staff, with no discernable front of house which I certainly would have expected on the second day in business at least. Service was perfunctory at best. They were friendly but in no way chatty ( language of course being the obvious barrier ) but had we never been in a sushi joint before I'm not entirely sure they'd have been of much help. People coming in for menus were trying to engage the young guy behind counter in general chit chat about the new business and he was monosyllabic in reply. Same went for the woman beside us who tried to tell the waitress how pleased she was they'd opened. Needs someone with a bit of presence to meet and greet.

As I thought, the takeaway menu is exact same as the sitdown menu. Same price to sit in or out.

Overall id recommend it, and I hope it does well! So nice to have something a bit different than the usual stodge as an option!

tayto lover

What did you try Bette?

BettePorter

tayto lover wrote:

What did you try Bette?

We had .... a dragon roll, a rainbow roll ( both presented on one of those wooden bridge display things which tbh I'm not a fan of, id prefer a crisp white plate but how and ever) a salmon avocado medium roll and a tuna medium roll. A Japanese salad. Had a doggy bag home which was lovely for lunch next day. Had a takeaway lunch today from it of a calafornia roll and an ebi gyosa. Again all yum! Had a couple of asahi beers which were nice and refreshing. Had a quick look at the wine list. I might have missed the house one but from what I could gather the cheapest bottle was €25 which tbh I wouldn't pay for a house wine.

Mr Magnolia

I've heard it's fantastic too, looking forward to trying it. Will report back soon.

Very solid review Bette

White Horse

I went to Atami for lunch on Saturday.

I had sushi to start, the traditional nigiri was particularly delicious. Among the best I've tasted in Japan.

A lovely big bowl of seafood ramen followed. Lots of seafood and vegetables. it would have fed two.

This is a quality place to eat. As said earlier, the service is not great. It is a bit slow and the Japanese being very reserved people are very unobtrusive.

I really hope it works because we don't often get this kind of quality in Dundalk.

tayto lover

Have never eaten Japanese food before but certainly going to try it after reading these reviews.

MugMugs

Should really ask for the thread title to be changed. It's quite misleading. By rights it should be ACC Bank

Mr Magnolia

I have done so already via a reported post.

Edit; to be clear, I asked that it be split into a new thread after Bette's post. Hopefully the mods will oblige when they get a chance :-)

MonkeyTennis

tried both Atami and Eskays last weekend and really enjoyed them both.

Atami was packed and they need a better system but the food was really good.

Almost everything on the menu in Eskays sounded lovely, I had a lebanese chicken salad and was so nice and a welcome change

Mr Magnolia

Well I could wait no longer. Decided to get a take away from Atami one of the evenings this week just past. I was running late home from work and couldn’t have been annoyed cooking, there was nothing in the house anyway so I convinced myself that it was as good an excuse as any!!

The dining room seems nice, no air conditioning on and very warm but nice. It was about 7pm and appeared to be fairly full. I like the seating area at the front door for the take-away diners, it’s unobtrusive to those seated for a meal.

The take away menu seemed identical to the restaurant menu, even the prices which I thought very odd! Generally, a take away meal is cheaper in my experience as you don’t have to be waited on, cleaned up after etc but anyway, that wasn’t going to deter me.

I ordered the tuna sashimi to start. I also added the beef ramen and the seafood yaki soba, Mrs Magnolia was joining me though not on the sashimi!
The waiting staff seemed attentive though they didn’t have much to do for me in fairness. My order was placed and 15min later arrived. I paid, €35.30 and raced home.

The sashimi was fine, accompanied by the usual ginger and wasabi. The wasabi appeared fresh which was nice in comparison to the paste that I’ve become accustomed to.

The beef ramen was very good. Very wholesome and I’ll certainly be looking up some recipes to try and replicate, it’s a soup for an autumnal day though pricey at €14.90 take away. The oriental vegetables were totally missing save one leaf of pak choi though.

Next was the seafood cha han. 3 sticky prawns greeted me protruding from the box. They were plump, sweet and well cooked. There were also 3 pieces of squid within, 2 of which were over cooked and chewy, the third was perfect. No other seafood was detected, neither was the miso soup or fried egg that was supposed to accompany the dish. I’m no expert on Japanese cuisine but for my buck it was a little on the greasy side. It was tasty and moreish though, no doubt.

Overall, it didn’t impress me nearly as much as I’d been expecting after talking to some locals and reading reviews here but I certainly will give it another whirl. Not takeaway though. I would eat very well twice, well nearly twice, from the Punjab restaurant for the €35.30 paid here. I must check if their prices are the same for takeaway as they are for sit-in…

BettePorter

Mr Magnolia wrote:

I must check if their prices are the same for takeaway as they are for sit-in…

They are. Exact same.

Ive had one sit in and three takeaways from it now and whilst I love it I agree its dear for takeaway but then I only really order rolls.

I was in futuyama in Dublin on Tuesday and noted that prices were considerably cheaper than dundalk. I guess they have competition though. Hopefully seeing how popular sushi is proving we might get another eatery opening up elsewhere in the future and we ll get a bit of competitive pricing.

delly

Posts split from California Burrito thread. Arigatou.

henryporter

BettePorter wrote: »

They are. Exact same.

Ive had one sit in and three takeaways from it now and whilst I love it I agree its dear for takeaway but then I only really order rolls.

I was in futuyama in Dublin on Tuesday and noted that prices were considerably cheaper than dundalk. I guess they have competition though. Hopefully seeing how popular sushi is proving we might get another eatery opening up elsewhere in the future and we ll get a bit of competitive pricing.

4 meals since it opened it must be addictive!

BettePorter

5 counting today's takeaway tea! No recession in this house! Although ....spent just under 20 euro , paid with a fifty and the girl had to go ask the other staff for change. Not the greatest look not having a basic float!

rogieop

WEnt in last saturday evening for a take away.. .checked the menu and when i seen the prices deceided to make a reservation for this weekend instead and went elsewhere for my takeaway.

Just think for the prices they charge id prefer to sit in have a nice bottle of beer enjoy the atmosphere and be waited on.

Shall report back after Saturday! :e

rogieop

So was in last night.

Atmosphere was good, seemed they had turned down the music a bit, not sure if that helped or not.

We started with two complimentary cups of japanese tea which were delicious!

Got the seafood futokami for starters. Got the 8 pieces to share with the missus. Having not tried much sushi/japanese before it took a bit of getting used to but once the kind lady told me to mix the soy sauce and wasabi in the dish it tasted quite good! It was fairly filling though and 2 pieces each probaly would have been enough.

For my main i got the tofu steak which was absolutely delicious whilte the missus got some kind of crispy chicken.

I also had 3 bottles of the japanese beer while she had a glass of the plum wine. The beer was definitely the highlight of the night for me. I could have drank it all night.

The service was fairly decent although maybe a little slow.. however it was a saturday night so they were very busy.

I was most surprised by the bill.....

One large starter, two main courses 3 beers, one wine and all for only €66!! I was expecting somewhere around the 90/100 mark going by previous reviews.

bridster007

Japanese food should be eaten slowly and socially in small portions over many servings and eaten with chopsticks which naturally slows the eating process.
Hence it should be a bit more expensive at it requires more service.
Gotta decide what you want.
"Starters" don't exist in Japan but hard to convey that to Western Europe, especially Ireland. This is a big problem and why it is not viable to provide genuine Japanese food/eating experience in Ireland. We like, and expect the big feed on one or 2 plates that belong to me.

CarrickMcJoe

Went to Atami last night, table booked for 7pm. Plenty of empty tables then but by 8 the place was full will a good buzz.
Food was delicious and service was fine, but had to wait a bit for desert. Wife didn't mind as she is a real foodie and was eating with her eyes, all the lovely dishes coming from the kitchen.

Bill came to €78 but that included a bottle of wine.


We will definitely be returning.

Mr Magnolia

We went in for a sit-down meal last Saturday night ourselves, none of the complimentary traditional Japanese tea which rogieop was treated to though.

We were very pleasantly attended to by all of the waiting staff that we met. We had a couple of traditional Japanese beers while we reviewed the menu and they were indeed very interesting, I’d certainly give them another whirl.

To start, I ordered a mixed sashimi and sushi dish. With a certain amount of trepidation my wife ordered the calamari, nothing worse that chewy over cooked squid but this was not to be the case. The calamari was fantastically cooked, crisp batter and delicate squid. The dipping sauce that came with the squid tasted of nothing until I lashed a load of soya sauce into it. My dish was fine, nothing amazing but having tried sashimi and sushi a number of times now I’ve kinda decided that it just doesn’t taste of a whole lot and isn’t really supposed to. The ginger and wasabi was a very nice accompaniment as usual.

My wife went for a marinated chicken dish served with ginger and stir fried vegetables. Myself, I went for Teppan Tune Teriyaki, again served with stirfried vegetables on a hot plate. Both dishes came with steamed rice. Another two Japanese beers were ordered to accompany the main dishes.

The marinated chicken hadn’t been marinated at all, instead it had been bread-crumbed. The stirfried veg were fine but swimming in oil. There was also no trace of ginger on the plate so it was a bit one dimensional and the oil left it a little unpleasant to be honest. The tuna was very well cooked, firm and delicate, it had been handled by someone that knew what they were doing. Served on a hot plate and accompanied by the same stirfried veg that had accompanied my wife’s dish and again they were very oily which I isn’t for me.

Good value, I paid circa €75. I am interested in going back and trying Atami again, I’m looking forward to trying the dumplings for example but it’s not somewhere I’ll be going back to in for the next few months. Perhaps a bedding in period may help settle things down, perhaps this is what’s to be expected from Japanese fare…

BettePorter

Was in it last night myself. Food was as usual absolutely lovely but the service is absolutely atrocious. Place was jammed when we went in. We had a table booked but couldn't even get past the takeawayers or the ppl hoping for a sit down. As I said before there is seemingly no front of house person to greet and seat ppl etc so as a result by the time we got seen to our table had been given to someone else cause they thought we hadn't come. Not a huge deal .... we got one a few mins later. But then we sat. And sat. And eventually had to call someone ( different from who had seated us ) our order was taken and off they went and again we sat and sat .... wouldn't have been so bad had our drinks at least come but no they didn't. Called someone to at least check on the drinks and she disappeared never to be seen again. When the first food arrived we had to ask that person to see where the drinks were. ( we'd dealt with three separate members of staff at this stage) as I said food was lovely, we were sharing dishes so didn't mind if they all came at once but one dish never appeared. We called someone again and she went off. A different girl appeared and said sorry about that ... 2 minutes. Ten mins later a guy was passing and thinking we were finished started clearing our plates and we re like ..... eh no we re still waiting for our last dish. ( we weren't hugely bothered as we were talking anyway ) another 10 mins later out comes our dish and she she explains it had gone to another table ( we had seen one pass) . So we finished eating and out appears the guy with the same dish again! Thinking we'd ordered it from him rather than asked him to find out where it was! As you can imagine the tip left told its own story!

I think the place is great. The staff lovely. But the service is a mess. Its very disjointed and haphazard. I am delighted its doing well though. Its a long time since ive queued for a booked table in a packed restaurant on a Friday night in dundalk.

10green bottles

Hear you're going to take out a subscription on boards Bette and your changing your user name to Atami How many times have you been in now?

I haven't been in yet but have made made a date to visit soon.
I work in town and pass this restaurant near a dozen times every day,always very busy,great to see it has taken off so well for the owners and long may it continue to be a success for them.

BettePorter

10green bottles wrote:

Hear you're going to take out a subscription on boards Bette and your changing your user name to Atami How many times have you been in now?

Yep I have a bit of a problem with sushi I'm afraid. Death row meal! That or salted chilli prawns in a certain other dundalk eatery.

BettePorter

Got a takeout tonight and was informed what was the takeaway / sit down menu is now less 10% for takeout! Happy days! They must have had complaints / queries.