Tang's

when I miss Japanese food during my holiday in Scotland, Tang's saved my stomach. Gyudon, Karaage, miso soup..Yum. for backpacker, it was bit expensive, but it was good taste.

by the way, we never use spoon for miso soup in Japan. asking spoon for miso soup is like we are asking chopsticks to eat fish and chips in pubs.

anyway, it was good food.

Tangs was one of the worst dining experiences I've ever had... From top to bottom eating at this restaurant was a grim disappointment.

I went to Tangs for a Valentines meal with my boyfriend, as people who have worked in the service industry we understand the occasional pain of serving the public and are very polite and understanding, yet Tang's ill informed, unresponsive and occasionally rude staff managed to take us from understanding to outraged in record speed.

To work in any restaurant waitstaff need a basic understanding of the cuisine, yet at Tangs when I asked for a spicy tuna maki the waitress told me it was not possible. They had spicy tuny hand roll, but could not make a spicy tuna maki? this makes absolutely no sense what so ever. Laughing this bizarre incident off we decided to go easy on the obviously stressed waitress and ordered the set 2 person menu at £29.00 per head.
Than we waited. . . and waited. . and waited some more... after 45 minutes and no sign of acknowledgment from the waitstaff we politely inquired where our food was. Looking at us blankly the waitress barked "5 minutes" and went off to bring us the COLD starters. It was obvious that such a wait was just an unnecessary oversight, following the cold starters we were brought chewy squid with insufficient pots of sauce and started to realize that this meal was just not going to get better.

The sushi platter was next and the disappointment continued, the tuna was grey and I was almost afraid to eat it, the sashimi was frozen in the middle and accompanied by the saddest ball of wasabi possible. Sushi should not be frozen, especially in a coastal city like Edinburgh. BEYOND unacceptable.
When the mains came out the beef teriyaki was presented upon a soggy derelict pile of bean sprouts, the sauce was bland and watery and the texture of the meat was chewy and inedible leading me to believe it had been pre-cooked and reheated via a microwave. The chicken katzu main was chewy, fatty and greasy....To top the entire debacle off we were served almost as an after thought... miso soup without spoons..

All in all it was a horrible experience, if your looking for decent Japanese food I'd say look outside Edinburgh, and absolutely not to Tangs.

Went here for dinner as our first choice for Japanese was full and Japanese was what I was set on. Wish we'd made the effort to walk a little further to *anywhere* which wasn't this restaurant.

My partner and I both come from NZ where the Japanese food is fresh, amazing and cheap, so perhaps we are a little spoilt. However, even those who have no knowledge of Japanese cuisine should steer clear of this place.

I will give them the edamame, they were quite tasty. The pork gyoza were gristly and too slimy. My teriyaki chicken was incredibly oily with the most watery sauce and none of the delicious, sweet teriyaki flavour. Rice was dry and heavy. Hands down the worst Japanese food I have ever tried. AVOID!

I have eaten at Tangs 3 times now, and it has always been excellent. The Sushi and Sashimi are the best I have had outside Japan, whilst the great winelist gives lots of suggestions with matching different wines to the dishes, and the wines themselves are very good quality and at a fair price.

The tempura is another favourite of ours, really light and crispy. The Miso Black Cod is another dish that I really liked.

Tangs often seems to be full of Japanese diners, so I guess he now has quite a following. The recent refurbishment has also given the whole place a very pleasing ambience. We will be back!

We only went to Tang because there was a gentleman who advertised it in a negative review for another japanese restaurant on the List and it was our almost last stop on the way to exploring the local Japanese cuisine.

Athmosphere was quite nice and stylish and, being so central, it could have easily become the flagship of the Japanese cuisine in Edinburgh.
If it wasn't for the food...

As I have this thing for ramen, I've ordered the Miso (my favourite) cashew (?) ramen and was quite disappointed as it was the worst I have ever tried in my life, and I have eaten a lot of it. Apart from the complete lack of taste I was quite surpised to find nori on top of the dish and it does not mix with miso, believe me, although the taste of miso was quite quite distant. The noodles themselves were sticking in ugly shapes as they were clearly overboiled. The pork slices were actually prepared chinese style - quite sweety and 'meaty' but that's not a surpise judging by the name of the restaurant. And with real ramen, one bowl is enough to last you for a day and I have often struggled to see bottom with my belly ready to burst from just one bowl, whereas I felt quite hungry finishing the Tang one and moving to katsu don.

Katsu don, another one of our favourites, was quite disgusting with fatty 'meat' drawned in oil and rice which felt like cous cous. There was not a molecule of the sous that actually makes the real taste of katsu don.

Service was ok but far from cordial.

If you haven't tried anything Japanese in your life, probably you will be satisfied. If you want the real thing, look elsewhere. So far, I have only found one place in Edinburgh that fits the bill.

I'm not usually one for writing reviews, but I was so impressed with Tang's that I felt I needed to, especially after reading the terrible review left by 'yum yum'. Anyone reading these reviews deserves to know that there is a chinese restaurant in Edinburgh called 'yum yum', so chances are that the person who left the review simply felt threatened by the competition and felt the need to stoop so low as to write an unfair and untrue review simply to put off potential customers.

The truth is, Tang's is one of the best restaurants I've ever been to. It was very easy to find and looks fantastic- very light, warm, and welcoming. The staff straight away were very friendly and gave us a choice of whether we wanted to sit upstairs or downstairs. The menu is quite long and complex- typical of traditional Japanese cuisine- but the waiter was more than happy to explain it to us and gave us a couple of recommendations. My partner and I took quite a long time reading it over because there was just so much choice, and the staff were absolutely fine with taking us much time as we needed.

We ended up ordering five or six different dishes including squid sushi, which was so fresh and succulent, pork and vegetable dumplings, which were one of the nicest things I've ever eaten and melted in your mouth, a rainbow sushi platter which, again, was absolutely delicious, and a couple of different seaweed and pickle salads.

Sushi is my favourite kind of food but I know some people have their reservations about it, my partner for example previously didn't think sushi was filling enough and left you still feeling hungry. After our meal, however, even he was full and blown away by the quality of the food. I really can't say enough about this place, it was even reasonably priced- which is a rare occurrence indeed. If you get the chance to visit Tang's, do it!

For Edinburgh this is actually a pretty good attempt at Japanese food. The sushi was pretty tasty, the soup we had really good, service friendly and priced reasonably. My wife is a Taiwanese chef who has eaten in Japan and even she liked it. Definitely recommended.

Cracking food at an understated venue. I was really impressed and definitely go back. Tradition means you get the dishes at the same time and it worked great mixing the vegetable dumplings, beautiful squid karaage (light and crispy fried) and hot pot with rice, veg, beef and egg. Would get a 4th dish to share between two next time but only getting 3 meant I could go for a good dessert (baked chocolate chees cake with vanilla ice cream). all polished off with some Asahi beers. Must visit.