Inside the UK all-you-can-eat restaurant where robot waiters serve you
There are plenty of cool places to visit in the UK from ancient castles to a speakeasy hidden behind a VHS shop. But, Britain’s latest viral venue is far more futuristic than many of our best attractions.
In fact, a restaurant with robot waiters might feel a step too far for some Brits. While for others it’s all their sci-fi fantasies come true.
Over in Manchester, Sakura is a Japanese all-you-can-eat dining space on Cheetham Hill Road, reports MEN. It’s wait staff greet you with announcements and chirping sounds – because they’re animatronics not enthusiastic people.
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The restaurant offers a range of nigiri, maki, teppanyaki and other Japanese delights for around £30 per person (sakura-japanese-restaurant.co.uk).
The technology whirlwind means you can order your food using a tablet at the table (perfect for introverts) before robot waiters serve you the dishes you asked for. The site does state that service is “robot-assisted” so if something goes wrong you can speak to a person rather than shout at R2D2.
The all-you-can-eat offer can be exiting – especially as foods like sushi, sashimi and prawns can be expensive elsewhere. On the menu there are soups, dons, rice dishes, sweet and sour chicken, chicken wings, chips, crab claws, tempura and even ribeye steak rolls.
From the photos, it looks like you can even order prawn skewers stuffed with seafood, grilled mussels, lamb chops and tenderloin. Plus, bar buns, fried fish, eel, salt and pepper dishes and chicken garage.
It’s a dream come true for big eaters, but the reality might not live up to your expectations. Reporter Ben Arnold visited the high-tech hotspot to see whether it was worth the hype, but sadly, he wasn’t sure it was…
Ben wrote: “I went in wanting it to be great, truly I did, but ended up wanted it to stop after the first few three dishes. They start out cute. One turns up at the table with a bowl of prawn crackers and some kimchi as a little entrée that I’ve not ordered, and that’s fun too.
“But then it just stands there, side on, its blinking robot face staring the other way. Do I have to tip? Say thanks? Goodbye? Is it watching me? It gets bored of this eventually, and tells me to touch its face panel to signal it can get back to work, which I do, and it does. It’s a relief.”
His robot waiter eventually returns with all of the food he has ordered – and again Ben was less than pleased. He noted: “Cumin is a strong, instantly detectable flavour.
“The chewy, greasy squares of cumin brisket had been nowhere near it. The lamb chop was a sorry flap of protein with a perm of thin, spiralised carrot perched on top like a man wearing a sad and obvious toupée.
“I still don’t know what was inside the deep fried sesame balls, but might start using the phrase as an insult. The grilled chicken gyoza were barely room temperature, so I didn’t eat them beyond a first exploratory bite.”
Apparently you can order five items every 10 minutes from the tablet at your table which is a fun way to explore all-you-can-eat. However, it seems to be wasted on Ben.
He commented: “The fried squid rings are the reformed type, mashed squid formed into perfect circles and battered like cheap onion rings (which I love, incidentally), the tempura prawns the same, all impossibly straight and uniform.
“They’re both merely a texture, and taste of nothing at all. An actual man delivers a single eel nigiri – he seemed sad putting it down on the table, and then so did I, because it was bland and flavourless.”
After a while, he claims that the robot’s greetings became like “a catchphrase from a horror movie”. Though we can imagine that kids would love the experience.
His opinion on the food only got worse. Ben said: “The lemon chicken was two tragic pieces of orange fried wooliness in a container like a child’s paint palette with a small indent for the lemon sauce, though some yellow acrylic paint might have been more pleasant to dip it into. The katsu was truly grisly, the sweet and sour chicken likewise.
“A piece of duck was grey and flabby, and all of these dishes were slid, barely eaten, onto a passing robot and whisked silently back into the kitchen. It felt a bit cowardly doing it that way, but better that than having to explain to an actual real person how bad they were.”
For dessert, he ate “a brownie cube” and a “forest gateaux style cube” which he claims were inedible. Ben added: “It was a depressing vision of a future that as a species we probably deserve, a grim purgatory we will have brought upon ourselves. “
For those who simply want to eat a lot all in one go the £30 a head may be worth it. Especially, as you can fill up on sushi or meat unlike at other restaurants where these can cost a bomb.
However, it might be more worthwhile to catch a £12 flight to Portual with Wizz Air like I did last month – for £10 you can buy a belly-busting fry up sandwich there that left two of us outfaced.
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