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Totally wonderful! Make sure you come here to eat, and make sure you are hungry because there is lots of excellent food to eat!
Trying a new restaurant for the first time is always fraught with nerves - particularly a buffet, where, if the food is not good you end up paying a whole lot of money for not very much at all.
Coming to Hikari - the night started off very very well, with a bright and cheerful welcome from waitstaff that took the time to explain properly how everything works.
There are some simple sushis and fried chicken on the traditional self serve buffet line - but there is also an Ala-Carte buffet.
For this you get "two rounds" of orders in the 90 minutes seating time at your table. The basic strategy would be to try what looks yummy to you in the first round, and then go back in the second and order more of what you liked the most.
The food was really high quality, and cooked fresh - we were super impressed with this.
It's a bit of a battle to remember all the Japanese dish names from the menu, but there were some that stood out as being wonderful -
there was the teriyaki chicken, nice and crunchy on the outside and succulent, sweet and tender in the middle. Both of the beef dishes we had were great, as was the "Japanese Pizza" - the sweet and savory here mixed really well and it was delectable.
The kids and wifey all loved the udon noodles, which came in a small enough helping that they left you plenty of space of other dishes without over filling you.
Big fans of fresh salmon, we got stuck into the salmon and tuna sashimi which was firm and bouncy - just how it's supposed to be. For the wasabi, this was high quality and gave the nose a good cleaning out!
Listed on the menu - they tell us that "All you can eat" is an Invitation, not a challenge. If you're wasteful you will get charged for the balance food as ala-carte prices.
We ended the night with some ice-cream, only 7 bowls amongst the four of us, so I felt I was letting the team down a little.
All in all - we had a really great dinner, and felt that we certainly got the value out of a buffet, which is not a feeling that I normally walk away from the "eat yourself" silly style of dining.
We're going to be back to this bright, cheerful and tasty Japanese eatery, and would heartily give it a big thumbs up!
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Newly opened at the corner of Durham and Gloucester Streets, Hikari brings a choice of brunch/lunch dining into an otherwise coffee-shopped-out neighbourhood. There were no less than 15, freshly made, choices of sushi available for individual selection while I visited. Options include dine-in or take away. As well as the Sushi selection there was a short menu of lunch items including a couple of Bento boxes, Udon and Don options. I chose the Chicken Katsu Curry at $16.90 and selected a table dine at.
The curry was delivered quite quickly, was nicely presented and was steaming hot. Accompanying this was a complimentary bowl of Miso soup. Do you feel disappointed when your curry arrives and you discover it has been bulked out with large pieces of Potato? So do I but I have good news for diners here at Hiraki. Not a single piece of potato was in this curry. Broccoli, Onions, Zucchini and other vegetables were plentiful though. The hot Katsu Cutlet was crispy on the outside while the Chicken was tender and moist. Carafes of water were freely available for self service but were at room temperature rather than chilled and were also uncovered (there is a high traffic road outside and our atmosphere is a little dusty at present).
All in all I had a filling lunch which was tasty, well cooked and presented.
Nice nigiris and rice balls. Good price too - $1.80 per piece. The rolled sushi is way too big and super rice-heavy.
came here as a table of 4 when they first. once we sat down we were immediately served with a sushi boat. they also had a sushi bar to eat from while waiting for hot food. for all you can eat for $38 it was well worth it and very high quality. we want to return even when it is back to full price :)
All you can eat - The cold food cabinet is usually mostly empty and they don't refill it very quickly. Ordered our "first round" of all you can eat and it took 40 minutes before we got any food, while tables around us were getting theirs. We were a group of 4, so not a huge table that would warrant the long wait time. Our server apologised and told us we could stay as late as we needed (usually you're only allowed 1.5 hours) so that made up for it.
Great food, good service, Friday and Saturday have all you can eat sushi deal!
Best Japanese restaurant in Christchurch.
There are a lot of sushi and hot meal menu.
Good price. Friendly staff. I will definitely go again!!
Great food great service you will roll out
Best sushi in Christchurch. Very reasonable price and salmon was amazing fresh.
Benton set not too bad at all. Accepted the fresh food. But not the sushi on display.
It is my second time here. Each time I have been impressed, you guys do an amazing job. Your staff are so friendly and the food in amazing. It's like leaving New Zealand and entering Japan. It is making me look forward for when I finally hit the Japanese shores.
ありがとう！
Edit:
After reading some of the reviews here. I would like to add your stuff did a really good job tonight. It was quite busy but they did a great job. Always smiling and it truly felt like a little family.
Good work team. I LOVE YOUR WORK. ..
Absolutely in love with Hikari. The foods great and the staff is usually very nice.
Will say our last visit was a bit of a mess. First time we'd done a late reservation and they were a bit busy. Got sat and didn't see the server for 20 minutes. Took 30 more to get our drinks. One of the servers was being very short and really we couldn't get help for anything which ultimately hurt them since the plan was to have a few drinks but we barely got one.
Still recommend it but think its something they need to be aware of.
Great wee find, was surprisingly busy for a Tuesday night so I highly recommend you call and reserve a table! Great service and the food was so good! Definitely will be back with friends!!! The staff were all so friendly, loved the greeting when we walked in.
The all you can eat tapas is great value for money, best all you can eat Japanese offering in Christchurch.
Fun little all you can eat place. The premises is fairly small so if you go on a busy night your kinda rammed in there with everyone else though it's not too bad. The staff are friendly but a little disorganised. Small things like there was no water or cups available when we first arrived for 5-10mins. But was ok after that. There is a cabinet of food you can help yourself to at any time that was all pretty good. Fried chicken sushi etc. Then you can order twice. Each order can be for whatever you like and as much as you like. Don't be sad though and order way more than you can eat. Once you have tired it on your first order you can order again,as much as you want what ever you want. Cool idea to share with a group. Good is generally pretty good.
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