Bonsai Restaurant Review

There are certainly good and bad points about Bonsai Restaurant. We'll start off with the bad: no space to move or even sit down to eat without being bumped into, the staff look like they want to be elsewhere, and the decor is ghastly. But the food is good and I recommend the Chicken Teriyaki Bento Box. I do find it out that sushi isn't refrigerated considering rice is a high risk food though...

My colleague and I were looking for a place to have tea and finally selected Bonsai after searching around some other possible choices of different cuisines in the area. At first I didn't recognize the place but after a while it dawned on me that some 30 to 40 years ago when I lived in Southland the premises had been one of our favourite coffee bars for lunch when in Invercargill. Unfortunately the appearance inside now is not all that attractive. We made our choices from the menu. I selected Stewart Island Salmon Teriyaki. It came with a bowl of Miso soup and a side dish or rather gluggy rice. The salmon and salad was delicious and very tasty and went someway to make up for the negatives. I felt that if the place could be spruced up inside and made more attractive then it could have some potential to improve. At the moment it does give the impression of being fairly mediocre.

Went in for dinner at 7pm, their sign said they close at 8pm. After waiting ages to be served, we're told we couldn't have a dine-in dinner but they could do takeaways. Why bother having closing times if your going to close whenever you want.