akiba

deserving of its high rating. obliging friendly and efficient service. delicious food and a hard to choosemenu- settled on the $45 waiter's choice and we weren't disappointed.  great choice of drinks with some tasty cocktails.

newmenuitems. good to go back after a couple of months and see some newmenuitems. smoked potatoes were great, and sirloin was divine. service a bit hit and miss, but mainly around timing of wine orders.


-----12 jan, 2015-----

good food, awesome space. awesome space, clearly designed with a younger, hipster crowd in mind. food was mixed, too much mayo on the crab bao. pork bao was great. beef short rib was sublime. good list of wines by the glass, including some locals. overall really good for canberra city.

loving this restaurant and bar! the food here is very nice. the lunchmenuis different from the one for dinner. there are more noodle or fried rice in lunch menu. i have been there several times and they never let me down.

honestly haven’t had food like this in ages. great asian fusion food with incredibly tasty combinations. came here alone and felt really comfortable. staff were really helpful with themenutoo, i can recommend the miso eggplant and smokey potatoes - yum!!

we had one night in canberra, and after many research and recommendations by friends, we’ve decided to dine at akiba. did not disappoint at all!! we didn’t have a booking and despite being packed, they still squeezed us in. eggplant is a must try and everything else was just delicious. service was spectacular and their drinksmenuwas awesome with lots of variety. would definitely consider coming back to canberra just for this!

this place looked great; it has a cool vibe, high tables, good music and extremely cute advertisements featuring dumplings. but the food was average, the dumplings were a bit floury and bit over cooked, the king fish toppings were a bit too much- the fish itself was beautiful and didnt need the extras, the octopus was average & the boa was dry; overall underwhelming. the drinksmenuwas great, lots of different cocktails to choose from and the service was really quick. i would go back and give it another go.

previously i thought their food has strange taste, with too much chili powder. definitely not traditional japanese food. we visited again last month and reckoned that the food was creative and flavorful! they have updated theirmenuand released more vegetarian friendly options. i love the eggplant and carrot. laksa dumplings were tasty as well!

we dined at akiba for lunch on a hit and run visit to canberra after seeing some favourable reviews.

we elected to go with the feed me option which consisted of 8 servings made up of a combination of smaller and larger plates and a dessert.

the food is best described as asian fusion and follows on the same path as a number of these types of restaurants that are prevalent in sydney and melbourne. living in melbourne i would compare it to rice paper scissors.

from themenuwe had the king fish which was delicious, the prawn fried rice and prawn/chicken dumplings which were serviceable, the pork belly bun which was rich but tasty, the kimchi pancake which was unusual but ok the beef short rib which was a bit bland and a disappointment and the chinese broccoli which was ok. we also had the tofu dessert which was average.

my wife did have the lychee martini with popping candy which she really enjoyed. the general look of the restaurant was very modern and cool and i suspect has a nice atmosphere for dinner service. the staff were courteous and attentive and food was served promptly.

all in all it was a pass but i must admit my expectations were a little higher based on past reviews. definitely worth a look but maybe a once in a lifetime experience.

when you’re in a new place and you don’t know where to go- akiba offers a great vibe, food fun and just an all round great night.

we only arrived in canberra on friday for the weekend and hadn’t made any bookings, so when we came by at 8:30pm- we could see that the place was jam packed. luckily, for a table of 2 we only had to wait 20min for a seat.

the point of akiba is to try lots of different drinks and dishes to share- and they even had a yum-cha style trolley offering offmenudishes that the chefs had whipped up to use customers as taste-testers.

food and drinks were tasty and definitely a great japanese fusion style, it’s not a cheap eat- but it’s not extortionate either. as long as you’re looking for a restaurant/bar with pumping tunes, loud vibes and everyone (staff and customers) shouting “eyyyyy!” when the kitchen drops a plate - then you should definitely check akiba out.

i have mixed feeling about this restaurant
the best dish ive tried was the kingfish sashimi and barramundi with miso.
the rest was ok.
their duck dumpling was sweet. the other dumplings was average too. fried rice was still wet, the flavour is there but its very light. the octopus was my least favourite, it has a weird fishy smell. the kobe skirt, its sad that the meat is drowned with a-lot of teriyaki. if its drizzled with thicker sauce it should be fine.

service. was average, i feel like the waitress rushed us, less than 5 minute after she gave themenushe returned to take my order. im alright with that cause the restaurant seems busy. the kitchen cooked all of our order in under 1 hour. i am super amazed.

if they change themenui would definitely comeback.

akiba sits on bunda street, canberra’s main shopping strip. it presents youthful, contemporary pan-asian dishes, from a raw bar, barbeque and dim sum kitchen. it reminds me a bit of manly’s daniel san, though i’d argue the dishes here are slightly better. akiba also wins on the friendliness of their floor team, who take the time to make friends, as well as serve. we’re seated on comfortable stools at the raw bar. with a large function coming in at dinnertime, the chef is rapidly breaking down whole fishes. it’s clearly a space andmenudesigned around doing volume, which makes me suspect it isn’t the owner's first restaurant. my inquiries uncover that the harrington brothers, peter and michael, own akiba. they’re second-generation restaurateurs with sage and kokomo (a neighbouring 600-capacity canberra hotspot) also under their wings. drinks are obviously a big focus here, so we double-park with the ultimate boiler maker ($38). it teams my favourite japanese beer, echigo koshikikari rice lager, with a mild, dry wakashika ‘blue bambi’ sake cup. to avoid fomo (fear of missing out) we create a second boilermaker ourselves by teaming...

one of the best pieces of beef i have ever consumed - cooked to perfection, seasoned perfectly and super efficient service
as to be expected at a great restaurant there was a small wait , but great communication from the wait staff in dealing with this
great variety so don’t be afraid to take picky eaters here - should be enough on themenuto keep them quiet

dinah and i visited akiba a couple of weeks ago to check out their expanded foodmenunow, and had a great time sitting in front of the sashimi bar and chatting with the new apprentice sashimi chef.

i have mixed feelings about akiba. i do feel they are over-hyped and they get away by serving mediocre fusion food because they're in canberra (and not in melbourne or sydney). the tofu cheesecake (which they should disclose is deconstructed) is just a bowl full of goop with crumb over the top and it was very unappetising. unfortunately that is the standard dessert in the banquet and has been that way for the last 2years. on the other hand, of you order off theirmenuthe josper octopus is delightfully tender with generous amounts of crisp potatoes and octopus. the kobe skirt is also highly recommended as the beef is perfectly rare and has great flavour! perhaps, they bundle the inferior items on their banquetmenuto sell more of them?

however, on my fifth visit to this restaurant for lunch today i was very disappointed. they advertised a $10 ramen lunch special and this is by far the smallest serve of ramen i have ever seen. from the top it looks like it is piled full of ingredients. the redeeming factor is that the pork belly slices were tender and the egg was perfectly poached. however, let's not kid ourselves it is obvious from the photo they serve their ramen in a saucer. the sides of the "bowl" is not much higher than the edge of the green plate that is next to it in the photo and is ridiculously shallow in the middle. even as a lunch serve it is grossly inadequate. the ramen was very very over cooked and not chewy at all. the texture of it was like the soggy and paste-y noodles you get from cup-a-soup chicken noodle soup packets. there was barely any noodles in the bowl and i left definitely still feeling hungry. also, the cooked mushrooms on the top were oddly sour for some reason. i'm not sure if they were supposed to be pickled but the sourness was very off putting and odd in this ramen.

i may go back to try their dinnermenubut i certainly won't be going back for this pathetic rendition of ramen. save your money and go anywhere near by like the asian noodle house or cbd dumplings and get yourself a human sized serve of noodles.

akiba. think fusion new age japanese. 

this is a hip dining bar scene located near the central canberra central precinct. parking on the street is time limited so you may be better off spending $2 to park at canberra centre.

service here is pretty decent for a bar. you can book online instantly and having only booked hours previously, sat on a stool overlooking the 'raw kitchen'. it seemed pretty busy for a monday evening! the bar and waitstaff young, vibrant and about as attentive as you'll get in a busy bar scene. 

the japanese whisky selection isn't anywhere near melbourne bars, and priced somewhat on par from canberra. that is, overly inflated given the supply and demand problem with japanese whisky. everything else was to standard though.

food. there is a 'vegetarianmenuthat shortlists all the vegetarian options on the menu. 
tuna tartare. simple, of reasonable freshness. the jalapeño mayo not really spicy, and rather creamy. topped with prawn crackers for texture and a sweet, ginger ponzu sauce and jelly. didn't mind that at all. the sweet corn pancakes. batter was pre-made and only took 5 minutes to come out. simple, somewhat dense and filling. the wok blasted asian mushrooms were a bit of a 'miss'. the caramel and soy sauce dressing way too salty and overbalancing the dish. we ended up mixing the sauce with the green papaya salad. the roasted carrot. simple, somewhat soft but satisfying. agadashi tofu. light batter, quite fluffy and fresh. a fun evening. then i suggest heading to one of the well known nearby bars to round up the evening (though my preferred canberra bar isn't open monday evening)

a hip and casual 'bring your friends for a group date' type of place.