Sen Nin

Oh dear.

This place is really not good.

I don't want to say too much because I'm sure people work hard to make this place work, but my experience was truly quite awful.

I found the food basically inedible and a complete waste of money, even on half price Tuesdays...

Say what you want about teppanyaki, that's it's a fad, it's overpriced. Whatever. I had one of the best meals I've eaten in ages and it was because of a crazy little chef called Leo.

He clapped, he flirted, he made the whole table laugh and bond. He gyrated, he grinded a little and gave a lotta bang for our buck. At these places, who you get as a chef is really important. You can have a quiet meal or you can have a chef like Leo pretending to be a pole dancer, winking and calling everyone baby.

And the food. ZOMG! We ordered the seafood gyoza and the tempura to start, these were good but mediocre. But the egg fried rice, he whipped up in front of us was a dream. The squid and the red snapper... amazing. But the king prawns and the lobster were the best I've ever tasted.

The prices are not cheap, but not exorbitant and they are generous with the portions. You will not regret splurging a little for SEN-NIN.

Just make sure you ask for Leo, he'll show you a good time ;-)

Close to perfect!

I've walked past this place a lot, it being my nearest sushi/Teppanyaki place. However it always looked quite pricey and unwelcoming. Well that all changed with new management and a focus on value for money. I spotted a poster outside the window that said a few words that you never see associated with Sushi in London.

It said. Sunday buffet. Unlimited Sushi. All day. I did a double-take. Did it really say that? There is a sushi place near work that sets you back £14 for 8 tiger rolls. Surely even if this wasn't even very good sushi, these's no way it was this cheap. Anyway, as somebody that likes to try things I decided to plan a trip here one Sunday.

I'd been to the gym earlier than morning. Obviously because exercise enables you to eat more. We were greeted by whom I assume was the manager, and told to just start helping ourselves. Initially it looked like a mountain of choice, till you realise that some of the platters are duplicated. Even then it was still a good range. Lots of salmon, tuna, egg roll, fried sushi rolls. There was a fair amount of choice. Added to that, Katsu curry which was perfectly decent. However the Chicken Yakisoba noodles were dry and not very pleasant.

The price for this all was £9.95. I was wowed. We'd ordered tap water and some drinks so I was expected a small service charge, but non was added. This was appreciated. The price has increased since I went just over a month ago, to £10.95, but that's still a bargain for all you can eat sushi. And you can think of it as a small 10% service charge on the original price.

In all, I'll definitely be back. I just hope that they add and alter some of the buffet dishes over time so the experience keeps feeling fresh.

As for the other stuff they offer, it's arguable that they're losing money running a buffet all day Sunday, but from how full the restaurant was prior to this offer, it didn't look like many people visited, so what they lack for in price, they're probably making up in higher footfall.

Seriously unimpressive for sushi.

I came in here on a Sunday afternoon with someone who told me it was good for bento. When we sat down, we saw some other people finishing up what appeared to be bento boxes, but when we looked at the menu, it only had starters and sushi on it.

We just went with the flow and ended up ordering a load of sushi that ended up being quite expensive, as sushi tends to be. The seaweed salad wasn't available, which I thought a bit odd for a sushi restaurant. They brought us gyoza instead of yakotori. Then they brought us prawn tempura instead of vegetable tempura.

A couple sat down about midway through our meal and asked the host, straight up, why he hadn't given them the special Sunday menu. Thus solving the mystery about where the bento boxes were.

By this time, my companions and I had eaten just about all the things that arrived at our table and - by the way - were completely underwhelmed by everything. Considering we paid £80 for our meal, hearing that there was a special menu on that we weren't told about at the start was a real kicker.

If you run specials, you should tell your customers about them - because the ones who just randomly settle on your establishment will assuredly hear about these specials at some point during their meal, be thoroughly pissed off, and then leave less-than-complimentary reviews on Yelp.

This place is so mediocre... their sashimi is decent enough, the unagi nigiri is ok, although it could benefit from more taste. The nigiri sushi is a total rip off here. Expensive, with small pieces of fish. The Gyoza are completely forgettable (very slimy), and the so called japanese pancakes have way too much mayonnaise (huh??). The spicy tuna isn't spicy. Booooooring !!!!

The house sake is drinkable, but nothing to write home about, although at 10£ per 250ml, you'd expect it to be the good stuff, which it ain't.

As I said. Mediocre, overall. Pfff. #wasteofmoney

I have to say I had wanted to enter Sen Nin and get a feeling of Teppaniaky for a long time.

Passing by the windows and seeing the fire flames behind the Cook / MC's back was quite impressive.

So when we entered the restaurant, I had great expectations... and was not disappointed !!!

The teppaniaky meal deal is a bit pricey (20£), but worth it, with the show and all. We tried the chicke, beek and squid, and the three of them were perfectly cooked with amazing sauces.
The squid on its own was really impressive, very nicely presented.

Sushi was great as well.

As we were with more mature people as well, I was afraid the whole show thing would be too much and a bit overwhelming, but in fact it was a great part of the meal, and only lasted some 10 minutes.

I'll go there again - possibly with visiting friends and family !

Itadakimasu !

The venue itself looks pretty good. Fairly narrow but with large windows along the side street. Open kitchen and teppanyaki grill with seats around at the back. Like the modern decor.

Ordered some noodle dishes. My chicken teriyaki soba noodles was disappointing. Just bland and completely unexciting. Big white chunks of chicken breast that had been just heated in a warm wok with some shredded veggies and then some noodles thrown in and a little squirt of brown sauce (I guess that was the teriyaki bit) added at the end. The ingredients were decent enough but just heating some stuff together in a wok doesn't = chicken teriayaki. It was so boring.

A few days later I made chicken teriyaki myself. Take some skin on deboned chicken thighs (not breast), flatten, marinate in salt and ginger, pan fry skin side down until crispy brown, turn over, add a splash of sake, steam for a few mins. Make a sauce of honey, mirin, soy sauce. Add to the chicken and pan fry until sauce is thick and caramelised all over the chicken. Slice up the chicken and serve on rice or noodles with veggies, whatever. The point is it tasted fantastic. Flavour and texture abound.

Sen Nin could do this too and be so much more exciting. It has all the right ingredients but needs to up it's game. It needs to stand out a bit more with focus on the cooking, just generic and bland renditions won't cut it. Wasn't cheap either.

My friend and I saw this restaurant last week and while walking down the street and both thought we should try it. The place was busy and the sign said £10.95 all you can eat sushi buffet. The American in me was like, "oh yes!" but I was left disappointed with the selection as it isn't truly a Japanese restaurant. It was a hotchpotch of sushi and pan-Asian cuisine.

Menu: I can only comment on the buffet menu and I was very disappointed with the amount of selection at the buffet table. They had salmon sushi and several maki rolls to choose from. At the end of the buffet table, there was some generic fried rice, Japanese chicken curry, and noodles. The chefs finally brought out some tuna sushi 2 hours into our meal. There were no starters, no desserts. Is it that expensive to serve up some miso soup? All together, there were around 6 items to choose from at the buffet. Perhaps, that's what you get when the buffet is this price.
I also looked at the à la carte menu and it had a lot more variety; with pricing between £5-£20. Items on the menu included, Tom Yum soup, Thai beef salad, and pandan chicken.

Atmosphere: Despite being disappointed with the food, the place was clean. As it's a corner shop with lovely windows, we sat and people watched while eating our food.

Service: The service was lacklustre and slow. It took the server 15 minutes to get our drinks and again for the cheque. My friend asked for soda water, but was given the wrong glass size, the manager later told us. There were 3 servers on the floor, but I felt like only the manager/maitre d' was working. Here's a question for yelpers, would you pay service charge at a buffet?

This place is in our neighborhood, but I was never really curious enough to try it. When it showed up on a voucher site and had a total revamp, I figured, why not. I had a voucher for a £45 meal (per person) for the price of £20 per person. So I expected to be eating what would have been a £45 meal.

Maybe I'm being nice by giving it 2 stars...

The service was bad. It seemed kind of lazy. The restaurant was only half full (or half empty), and the two waiters were having a really hard time coping. I'd have more sympathy, but they did a really lousy job with everything-- from serving food on time to setting down the utensils. They thought they could make everything better by saying that our food was coming soon, when it wasn't. I could tell we weren't the only unhappy costumers.

Our meal came with a margarita, soup, a salad or roll, and a "premium" dish. All of the portions were tiny. The roll looked like it was slapped together. And my "premium" black cod was two thinly sliced cod steaks, which were at best, just okay. And this meal was supposed to be £45! We would've been ripped off. It was clear they knew we were voucher customers. Ya know, if they left a better impression on me, I would've gladly come back. It was clearly a lost opportunity for them.

We left really disappointed. Now I'm not so curious any more.

One Tuesday I entered this establishment in a rush with my dinner date, we were headed to a show at a nearby pub-theatre and thought we'd have a quick light meal to see our pangs through the muggy evening.

With 1 hour 10 spare we thought we'd be fine.

There were plenty of empty tables, but the maître d, looking at his computer, gave us a doubtful look; we implored him that we would be swift, as we had places to be, thankfully he obliged us.

Delighted that we arrived on half-price Tuesday, we took a seat, perused the menu and promptly decided what we desired. 15 hungerford minutes later a waiter presented himself at our table. We ordered, and our delicious, tall mango sake mojitos arrived promptly. The length of the cocktail and warmth of the evening loosened our tongues and delicious drink became delicious conversation... Until we realised it had been 40 minutes since we made our food order!

I called a waiter to our table insisting that we must have our meal immediately. They must have heard me in the kitchen, as no sooner had I finished my diatribe, my delicious and well presented dragon roll, miso combo and my dinner date's salmon ceviche salad and tuna tartare arrived at the table.

While the meal was delicious, mouth-watering, and half priced we had to engulf it at breakneck pace, I was as hungry as a peregrinating pelican and imbibed my fishy meal as so. With this metaphor complete we paid and flew to our show 15 minutes late!

My advice to them would be if you expect me pay the 19% service charge you should employ more people to provide some actual service.