Okami - Pennant Hills

Was a bit worried after reading previous reviews, but seems like some teething problems after their initial opening have been ironed out now. Tried it for lunch today. Not the best Japanese food going around, but when it's all-you-can-eat for $36 on a Sunday, the value is definitely there. Some dishes better than others, but can't really complain at the price point. Recommended if you're hungry and want a big fill-up of Japanese food rather than a special dining experience. Definitely a pass mark based on the concept they're offering. Service was friendly and prompt. Don't expect a super-gourmet experience and you'll probably enjoy yourself. Above average food at a decent price with friendly service. I'd go back sometime for sure.

Came here one night with a large group of 10 for the all you can eat. We were thoroughly impressed with how quickly the food came out, and most of food on the menu tasted delicious. For the price, it's pretty good value The waitresses were also very attentive and came to check on us regularly to make sure we were looked after. Great local addition - will be coming back again!

Service very attentive, once seated at our table. Disappointed with the frozen tempura prawns & prawn gyoza. I would had expected these products would be freshly handmade to order, as I can easily cook these items, when frozen at home. Overall a pleasant meal we all enjoyed with the novelty of "all you can eat" Japanese!

What an absolute disappointment, and be warned - THEY DO NOT ACCEPT THE DINE NSW COVID VOUCHERS, plus will happily charge 1.5% credit card surcharge. Having noticed this new restaurant recently open and seemingly quite popular, I suspect based on tonight's experience it will struggle to survive amongst the many wonderful long-standing dining options in our local area - restaurants and eateries run by hard working decent people, who appreciate the support and will also graciously accept the Dine NSW Vouchers. We ordered the "buffet" dinner option, which cost $141.29 for 4, after the 1.5% credit card surcharge. Food is ordered off the menu, and it appears at varying stages throughout the sitting. Portions are small, which is good in that you get to try a wide variety of dishes ... but maybe not so good after-all. The staff are friendly and obviously trying to keep the customers happy, however it's what they're serving that lets the experience down. We tried the following:- 2 salads - seaweed, mushroom. Both were really tasty, however I suspect they were not made in-house. The seaweed salad is the standard imported frozen product widely available. Tempura - oily, hard, seemed like it had been twice fried. Nothing like a traditional light tempura batter. Takoyaki - tasted ok, but seemed microwaved from frozen product, shrivelling up as it cooled. Teriyaki chicken - if there was such a thing as canned chicken chunks, this would have been it. Skinless and devoid of any character. The cheap bottled sauce further letting it down. Teriyaki beef - meat texture was not like beef. It had more of a strange bite, somewhere between chicken and firm fish. I would liken it to crocodile, however it seemed more like a manufactured product. Agedashi tofu - actually tasted really good, even came with bonito flakes and had a nice dressing. Potato croquette - frozen product, not unlike what you could buy from the local supermarket. Tasted ok, just not what you'd reasonably expect from a restaurant. Tonkatsu - seemed twice fried. Overly oily and dry inside. Sushi - dry, not fresh. Have eaten better sushi from the supermarket. Sashimi - as per the sushi, but the chunk of salmon was a first - it's typically thinly sliced. Squid - if there was fake squid, this would have been a great example. Un-natural texture, and covered in too much pepper, which clashed with the same sickeningly sweet sauce as used with the other dishes. Karaage - served cold, over fried, oily, just the taste of batter with a dry, shrivelled piece of chicken hiding inside. Desserts - green tea ice cream was ok, however black sesame ice cream had obviously part melted and been refrozen, as evidenced from the frozen "puddle" under and around the main ice cream ball. Flavour was non-descript. The taiyaki deserves special mention - a deep fried concoction which would have made news headlines in Japan for all the wrong reasons. Traditionally this is made in a griddle, similar to a waffle. Tonight's version was rich and sickly, over powered by the taste of oil, with a strange green sweet filling - not red bean, nor taro, what exactly was it meant to be??? The owner of this restaurant should be ashamed of the food being served. I am puzzled by the seemingly positive reviews posted, but would hazard a guess such reviews were posted by diners having never eaten authentic Japanese cuisine, OR perhaps we just went there on a really bad night. As for not accepting the COVID NSW VOUCHERS, shame on you!!! The fact we decided to support your business tonight with our hard-earned money which could otherwise have been spent more deservingly absolutely justifies the poor review above.

All you can eat Japanese food at reasonable price, but don't expect good variety and quality. Service was attentive and friendly. My comments on the food we ordered: miso soup was very blanc; chawan mushi quite nice but the portion was very small; sushi and sashimi platter tasted like those you get from the food court; prawn gyoza was not nice; the sauce of the miso steak was too sweet; beef carpaccio, takoyaki, potato croquette, yakiniku beef, chicken katsu, tempura, fried udon were ok. Overall, I was not very impressed. I would prefer to spend the money at a good Japanese restaurant for nicer food.

Loved the variety and all you can eat menu! Finally something different around the area!

Great atmosphere.Great food. Absolutely Awesome! Have been there three times now, you are guaranteed to leave with a smile and full tummy.

Okami appears to operate on two seatings a night - one at 5:00pm, and at 7:45pm. Wife and I booked the 7:45pm seating for Sat 5 June 2021 - the night was very chilly, and we arrived at 7:30 to find a few people waiting inside, with a crowd growing outside while the staff frantically ran around cleaning and setting up tables. We noticed a few other guests had been seated with menus, but both they, and the growing crowd behind us were being ignored until we all were finally seated at around 7:50pm. The staff had made a mistake with a large booking of 27 people, splitting them up into two tables, with us seated a little in between them - which resulted in us being crowded by the larger group (this was not their fault, as they wanted to simply greet their friends and family, and had to push past us). I had to pop out of my seat and explain to one of the staff that they could move us, and extend the table for the larger group, resulting in two happier tables. They instead moved us to another empty table, which was unfortunately directly in the way of the propped open door - which meant we enjoyed the freezing wind blowing in from outside, and which would have cooled out food assumed we managed to order any. So what happens when you seat 80+ hungry people (it was 8pm by this point) all at once at an all you can eat restaurant? Obviously the hungry patrons all attempt to order at once. It was at this point, we noticed the dysfunctional system Okami operates on being further exacerbated - there appeared to be two 'teams' of staff, three poor people who were methodically taking orders starting from the kitchen and working their way out - and some other staff who explicitly refused to take orders, and instead carried food out from the kitchens. When you have 30+ tables all attempting to order at once, I assume the kitchen would then be flooded with orders, which would lead to the scenario in the other reviews of cold food, and incorrect orders. Why Okami would do this is a mystery - why have only some staff take orders (not enough) and only some staff take out food, when the entire team should do both? Why seat everyone at once knowing that this leads to a glut of orders (its an all you can eat, so I assume some people would order a bunch of different items to try, and there were many large tables). Either way, their system is set up to fail and I feel sorry for the poor front of house team since they will be the ones that cop the abuse and the stress. We couldn't tell you about the food, as we saw another family with three hungry kids leave, then noticed that the family sitting in the corner table (which had been there before we arrived - so probably at the table for 40+ mins) hadn't been served so we decided to bail. Either way, only take your friends/family there if you no longer wish to see them, and enjoy being hungry and angry.

Quality food and good price. Ordering and serving was smooth. Many different dishes to choose from. Will definitely come back for a big meal.

Small portions, and takes long time for food to get to you. Most of our time there was just waiting for food. Left earlier, and less than we wanted to because we just couldn't be bothered.