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In Japanese, Aya means colourful, but I once heard some Chinese lady joked, “‘Aya!’ is the sound you’ll make when you receive the bill at Aya!”. Aya, in chinese, means “oh my god”.  The comment makes me curious about this restaurant. It has graced the Good Food Guide for several years now, have heard good reviews about it but there’s always the price factor which held us back. Then I realised my Entertainment book will give us 25% off- so off we go!   

Sadly, I can firmly say Aya should not be on the Good Food Guide anymore.  Where do I start? Oh how about Aya is a trainwreck? That’s a good start.

First of all when we place our order, Hubby asked our waiter, what’s “wafu sauce?” The waiter stammered and explain it’s a Japanese sauce with Japanese ingredients in it. Very informative. We also asked how many oysters there are in the oyster entree, he said 8 oysters but we only got 6.

We ordered Kani Tatsuta Age (Fried Soft Shell Baby Crab in Japanese Spiced Batter $16.50. To be honest this dish wasn’t too bad (compared to the other dishes I mean). The crab was crispy and fresh, a bit too salty for our liking- good that it had some finely sliced fresh coleslaw to balance it out.

I spotted my main, Chirashi Sushi Assorted Sashimi, Prawn and Dried Seaweed on Sushi Rice $20.50- it was on the counter and I am thinking- ohhh this should be mine! Waiters walked by, ignoring the lacquer box on the counter, 5 mins later, a waitress finally spotted it and carried it past our table, walked around the restaurant, double checked with the chefs and carried it to the table. This is a raw fish dish- it is quite scary how they decided to leave raw fish out in the open for so long. The fish is not the freshest fishies in town- Shoya or Nihonbashi Zen can do 10 times better.   

Nama KakiFresh Oysters with Grated Radish and Spicy Ponzu Sauce $14.50. As I said previously, we were told there’s gonna be 8 oysters but there’s only 6, so obviously that’s not good enough. I had to leave the oysters to Hubby and he said that it was “okay”.   

Croquette Salmon and Scallop Potato Croquettes with a Blend of Mayonnaise and Japanese Bbq Sauce$14.50 . I ordered this dish mainly because I thought Hubby liked potato, and the concept of salmon and scallop in a croquette sounds really good. I am imagining large scallop wrapped in mash potato and salmon and deep fried into yummie goodness. Well, I was wrong- I can’t find scallops anywhere and there are only minimal bits of salmon- you can’t even taste it.   

Then we waited, waited and waited- 1/2 hour before our next course arrived. And the only reason why it has arrived is because the waitress was taking away our plates of soy sauce, and we told her we still have a sashimi platter $29.50 we are waiting for. She immediately went up to the sushi counter (from where we sit we can see this clearly) and asked the chef about our order. My mouth drops open when the chef whipped out a pre-prepared sashimi from the beer fridge. Erm… how about some freshly prepared sashimi for us? Why did we have to wait so long for PRE MADE SASHIMI? I have long suspected that this restaurant is not owned by Japanese- well, most Japanese takes pride in creating the freshest, yummiest food. Sigh. At least this sashimi is better than the chirashi sushi- just marginally better.   

Hubby’s main arrived whilst we are halfway through our sashimi. One might ask why did my main chirashi sushi arrived so early in the meal and his main arrived so late- I don’t even want to ask. His Eye Fillet Steak with Trio of Mushrooms Teriyaki sauce $34.00 is rare instead of medium as requested. Whilst I quite like it cos I am a vampire and it’s really tender, the teriyaki sauce is WAYYYYYYY too salty. I had a bit of mashed potato and one bit was unmashed and uncooked.   

We checked out the dessert menu, but to pay $8 for green tea icecream may just be a wee bit expensive.

Ok, so we’ve commented a bit about the service, but wait- there’s more! Well, first of all, when you have an open kitchen/sushi bar, everything that goes on in there can been seen from where the customers (we) are sitting. I noticed that the communication between the wait staff and the sushi bar is sub-optimal. Every time a dish is served up the counter, the wait staff had to ask the sushi chefs where it goes, instead of having the order slip place under the dish. I also observed that at least one other dish of sushi is left “unnoticed” by wait staff for about 15 mins, then it was put under the counter- don’t really know what happened to it.

Most astounding of all, the manager (well he look like a manager cos he doesn’t wear a uniform) walked past pouring two glasses of water back into the water jug -_- I am assuming that someone complained that their water is not cold enough, so he poured it back to the public jug and replace it with cold ones. This is very very scary- what about cleanliness and hygiene?

Yes, I have got to say “Aya!”, but this time, the “Aya!” is not only about the exorbitant prices, but also about the lack of professionalism, cleanliness, timeliness and taste. I am sad to say I will only give this trainwreck of a restaurant 2/10 and will happily announce that I will never go there again.