Here’s one for those who’s looking for a party atmosphere type of brunch, with good japanese food 🙂 It’s the last Friday for March so you would probably have missed out on the 241 deal the Entertainer was offering for their Disco Sushi Brunch, but hey, you never know when they’ll choose to join in again and if you’re curious what you’re gonna get – here it is 🙂

Food

It’s serve-to-table style, with edamame to snack on whilst you wait for the rest of the troupe to arrive.  The Hushihu Salad was a full-flavoured appetiser – a combination of crispy duck, romaine lettuce, red raddish, mixed cabbage, leek, daikon, fresh pomegrenate drizzled with hoisin-amazu dressing.

The chicken karaage, sprinkled with ginger and sesame seeds was a winner amongst us all. At that point we were all smiles. We ordered a few more servings of this throughout the afternoon 😉

Seared wagyu beef, truffle ponzu with garlic crisp – how I miss beef tataki!

One of my favourite dishes for the afternoon – the wasabi tiger shrimps. Almost as good as the ones at Shanghai Chic 😉

The last dish before you queue for sushi was the Miso Nasu Shigiyaki – deliciously baked aubergine with sesame seeds and sweet miso glaze.

This is when you get the go ahead for sushi and sashimi 🙂 The selections are very few and to be honest, on the disappointing side. You get vegetarian sushi, nigiri sushi with prawn, and ones with tuna sashimi, fresh salmon sashimi, sushi with salmon, and seaweed. Fairly simple.

The one that everyone waits for was definitely the grilled yuzu-miso marinated black cod. Always a winner at fine dining japanese restaurants like Zuma, Karma Kafe and Asia Asia alike, the ones served Okku’s brunch was at its highest quality – absolutely delicious 🙂

This came altogether with Toromi Chicken – grilled chicken with honey-sancho and pepper-soy, tasty all the same, and lastly the truffle fried rice which was just pretty average.

Desserts was a bit of a let-down. For the price, the place, and all the awards they’ve gotten, we kinda expected at least home-made mochi, green tea or matcha ice cream, but we were given a buffet-style dessert selection of freshly cut fruits, chocolate cake, green tea cake and lil’ apple crumble tarts. Average.

Drinks

No complaints for this one I’ll say for those who were drinking 🙂 Buckets of chilled Asahi beer was placed for those who wanted, sparkling wine and various cocktails made from the bar. 

Service

Now this one was a wee bit of a letdown. They were great with keeping the drinks top up, no doubt about that. The only big problem was the lag time between food. For a lot of the times there was no food on the table, and even after toilet breaks, lots of photos and drinks, the food was still.. not there. When the sushi buffet was ready everyone rushed to queue, possibly because everyone had been waiting so long for food? Aww.

Atmosphere

Do all your talking before 4pm because after that the lights go down and the party starts 🙂 They have a gorgeous singer to start the party, singing to 80s music and getting you to join in the fun.

 The damage? 

Pricey, very pricey. They have two packages, Sakura Sparkling Package for 550 AED, or Natsu Champage Package for 650 AED. So no, there isn’t any non-alcoholic package.

One very important thing to note here is that Okku charges 10% for service. And this is based on the full-price of the brunch so amongst two people, it would be 550 AED x 2, + 110 AED for service. Drop in your Entertainer and you’ll be paying 275 AED + 55 AED, that’s 330 AED per person.

I’m glad we gave it a try when we could use a 241 😉
So that’s my two cents. Maybe I would have enjoyed it more if I had a few wines? 🙂 No doubt that the food was good, I just expected a little bit more from their sushi/sashimi and dessert selection. And definitely need to have the food coming to the tables a wee bit quicker. To compare with other brunches serving japanese fare as well, I’ll still recommend Asia Asia’s Spice Route Brunch in comparison to this, for the value for money as well 😉  (Click here for my write-up on it). It is still a great spot for a party brunch and if you’re planning to drink up though!

Check out their ladies nights if you want to drop by for a cheap night out though, it’s on a Wednesday 😉

• Disco Sushi Brunch
• Okku, H Hotel 
• +971 4 501 8777 
• Fridays, 1pm  – 6pm, with last drinks at 4pm 
• 550 AED for Sparking Wine Package, 650 AED for Champagne (241 with Entertainer until March 2016)

Disclaimer : Not a sponsored post. Booked and paid for the brunch with our group 😉