Ayame Japanese Restaurant - Glen Eira

I went last night to Ayame for my God daughter's belated birthday celebration. The service and food were both excellent. To top it off, at the end of the meal we were presented with a display of 4 desserts as a treat for my Goddaughter. (no charge1) Very thoughtful and much appreciated!

One of our go too Japanese restaurants in this part of Melbourne. Amazing traditional Japanese and excellent fillet steak

We get the same things every time sashimi salad, spicy tuna hand rolls, vegetarian Californian rolls (pumpkin and agudashi tofu. Expensive but so yum.

We were there on Saturday night and it was not very busy.After a considerable time we had to get out of our seat to get our order taken. As it was not very busy it was poor service not checking to see if we were ready to place our order. The food was good but not fantastic in fact it was disappointing.The Nash Dengaku Eggplant dish was swimming in oil which didn’t make it taste so great Ice cream was good service not good

I was told by locals(obviously non Japanese how good the food there can be although I am always apprehensive of any so called Japanese restaurant in any Western country knowing that almost all of them are not genuinely cooked by Japanese(there is almost always a whole world of difference in the food . My first suspicions about the authenticity was aroused upon seeing white tablecloth tables with wine glasses (seriously!!?? . And then when we were attended to by the staff, non of their accent sounded at all Japanese! We ordered first a sushi/sashimi platter which was the only dish that could pass off as really Japanese. The other dishes were more good on presentation than on Japanese substances!!! There was nothing Japanese about the Nasu Dengaku which looked and tasted more like a modern Chinese dish. The scotch fillet stew tasted like a western and Chinese fusion! The Ayame Bowls of chicken also was too much of a fusion to be Japanese as was the Eel that had some Chinese tasting bean sauce! Mind you, I am not saying that the food is bad but just that when i want to go to a Japanese restaurant, I really want to have genuine Japanese food and not some artfully decorated dishes trying to pass off as Japanese!! Even the Dai Ginjo sake was named Cowboy!!!(seriously again!!?? Many restaurants are cashing in on the popularity of Japanese food without offering really Japanese food(I don't think it is easy for a non Japanese to dish out good Japanese food mostly so that they can charge prices like $228 for 3 persons!! From the reviews here and for other so called Japanese Restaurants, it does appear to me that these pretenders(restaurants have managed to completely hoodwinked many diners into thinking the diners are into some good Japanese food!!!