Akasaka

A genuinely nice little place in Milton Keynes. Food is very good (couldn't finish mine I was so full), highly recommend the plum wine too, paired nicely with how rich the food was. Polite and friendly service with a very pleasant decor that wasn't too much, really loved the cherry blossoms near the entrance. Food would have got a 5 star if my partner's dessert had been made fresh, rather then something that had been pulled out of the freezer. Would highly recommend if you're a Weeabo

Went today (Wednesday 5th, July) for my partner's birthday. There was a large group of us for dinner and our server Ethan did an amazing job being attentive to each one of us. We never felt we were waiting long at all. The Beef Dolsot Bibimbap was beautiful, highly recommend. We always enjoy our times here but this was special as we hired a karaoke room. It fit us all in and we all had fun with it. Ethan also guided us through the process and how to use the remote etc. Then wished us well when we left. A lovely time was had by all. Thank you Ethan and Akasaka MK.

This was our second visit to Akasaka for dinner. Last time we shared some sushi but then had main dishes each (I had the chicken katsu curry, which was just ok), and although the mains were fine, the sushi was so so much better, so this time we ordered just sushi for our mains, and it was amazing and exactly what we were hoping for! From the appetisers we ordered salty Edemame and the deep fried chicken thighs. Both were lovely, and there was a good sized portion of each! The thighs were incredibly hot, obviously straight out of the fryer, so so be careful! For mains we chose 4 sushi rolls (you get 6 rolls per portion): prawn tempura, soft shell crab, bulgogi and eel. All were amazing, lovely presentation and great sized rolls! The eel was so lovely and was a very close second favourite of the night (if you’ve never had eel you should try it - it’s just a soft and delicate fish (no skin don’t worry and it doesn’t resemble an eel at all), and the pairing of that with avocado in the roll was really spot on!). The soft shell crab was both of our favourite out of the 4 - the crispy crab inside the roll was such a nice sensation to eat, as most sushi rolls tend to be soft rather than crispy so it was lovely that they managed to keep the soft shell crab crispy! The prawn tempura rolls are really really good, and the bulgogi was a first for us - it’s a Korean bbq style beef, very tiny soft pieces in the roll. Very tasty and a nice change from the other rolls that were all seafood. We found 4 portions of rolls (24 total) was plenty to leave us both very full! They average about £10 per portion, so was roughly £40ish for our mains for 2, which I think is great value for such amazing sushi. The appetisers are cheaper than the sushi rolls, I think our chicken thighs were about £6.50 which is great value, and the edemame were £3.50 ish. So all in we spent just over £50 for 2 for 2 courses, and it was very much worth it. The one ‘complaint’ I have is that the drinks, in my opinion, leave a lot to be desired, which is a shame. For alcoholic drinks there are wines, beers and Saki. But no spirits and no cocktails - I feel like the restaurant would do some good trade if they were able to offer some more interesting and varied drinks. The same goes for no -alcoholic drinks - the choices are water, coke, sprite and orange and apple juice I believe. I would’ve liked a mocktail or something a bit more interesting, but as nothing appealed to either of us, we just had water. Which is fine for the cost, but as we’d checked the menu before coming here, we’d known there wasn’t anything appealing to drink, so we had gone to a nearby cocktail bar for our drinks before the meal, as we were celebrating our anniversary and wanted some interesting cocktails and mocktails (I can’t currently drink alcohol). Which is a shame as I would much rather have given the trade (and money) to Akasaka instead. Again, it wouldn’t put me off returning at all - the sushi here is the star of the show! - but it would be nice to have some Interesting drinks here. The restaurant, once you get inside, is nice and cosy, though I do always find the location surprising as it’s basically inside an office block, but it kind of makes it feel a bit like a well-kept secret location! There are pretty pink blossom trees inside with fairy lights and large ceiling lanterns. It’s definitely more casual, but if you were dressed up for a date night, you wouldn’t feel silly either. (The annoying thing about coming in the main entrance is that you have to pass the restaurant Melis, a Turkish restaurant that clearly does a lot of chargrilling, and the smoke from the grill is pumped out and down onto the pavement area where the door to the building to get to Akasaka is. This is nothing to do with Akasaka, but just walking through that thick smoke in 10 seconds made my hair then smell of the smoke all evening. It’s really very bad and I’m surprised MK council ‘allows’ it rather than it being vented upwards and away from people.) Highly recommended!