Nihon Kai Japanese Restaurant @ Sunway Mentari

I was on a mission that day looking for Sunway branch of Nihon Kai. I first introduction to their restaurant would be the one over at Kuchai Lama. A friend introduced the place to me and we decided to give it a try. You can read from the post here. Needless to say, the visit was nice and the food was good. So I decided to give their other branch a try to see if it's the same standard. This particular restaurant is located along those new shop lot over at Dataran Mentari. It's behind Belly Good. Parking is still manageable since there's plenty of it outside the restaurant.

The place was packed when we arrived. Luckily there were still a table left for us to dine in. Browsed through their menu and it's the same as the one over at Kuchai Lama. Since I had tried their lunch set, we had decided to go with ala-carte instead. Since my lunch buddy was contemplating between katsu and udon, we decided to ordered these two to try it out.

 

We were served with hot green tea and the waitress was really patients waiting for us to take our order. The restaurant was really pack and they are a bit short handed but still they didn't show any sign of inpatient or chasing us from their body language. I think I saw one of the lady from the Kuchai branch before. 

Decided to give their Gyouza (fried dumpling) a try. Since I love these a lot, I really do hope they can surprised me. And they didn't disappoint me a bit. It's one of the best I had lately. It's not too over fried but the inner stuffing are still well warmly preserved and the outer skin is still soft and thin. I like mine thin and not too oily. And this give me what I wanted. Thumbs up~!

Browsed through their menu and finally found my katsu don set. The set consists of the main dish and also misou soup and kimchi like vegetable on the side.

The portion isn't that large but just enough to cover my lunch craving. The egg on top is freshly layer on top of the fried chicken underneath it. My complaint would be the lack of the katsu sauce underneath it. But overall it's was good.

My friend ordered their cold udon set which come with fried tempura on the side.That is not misou soup underneath that mini egg but the soup to go with the udon.

The buckwheat noodle doesn't seemed to attract my friend. As she'd been to Japan and had some share of cold udon over there, this is some what different. What's the different? Texture? She can't answered me but just not as good. Sorry but my friend is not good in expressing her opinion. I had a try and I think it's the texture of it. It's a bit rough. But the portion was really generous.

3 pieces of fried tempura on the side. Nothing fancy but for the price we're paying, it's alright.

Last but not least, they have this miniture egg which we do not know what to do with it? Do we throw it into the soup to go with the udon? Or just consume it like that? Another thing to highlight would be the soup/broth that goes with the udon is a bit too plain. My friend complain that it's too flat on the taste but and had to throw all the wasabi into it.

The place had two rooms for large crowds which you can book beforehand. It's always recommended to call in and book if you are having a large crowd for lunch over here. There is also a bar table where the chef will prepare fresh sushi as any other sushi restaurant. Overall, we had a good lunch. Nothing too over the top but just an average one. I saw there have another separate menu for set lunches which we wasn't shown to before. Had to check that menu through on my next visit over. 

Ambiance: 3.8 out of 5.0 (a bit crowded and noisy)

Service: 4.0 out of 5.0 (service was good although it's crowded)

Food: 3.8 out of 5.0 (decent and not too expensive for a lunch)

Address: 2, Jalan PJS 8/18
Dataran Mentari
46150 Petaling Jaya
Selangor Darul Ehsan

Contact: (03) 5630 1368
Business Hour:  12:00p.m. – 3:00p.m. & 6:00p.m. – 10:00p.m. daily