Japanese restaurant Kei

December 17, 2019

Kei ia Kuwait's oldest fine dining Japanese restaurants. It is now located on the ground floor of the JW Marriott hotel in Kuwait city. We reached there by around 9 pm. It was a Friday and there were a few customers only.

We were warmly greeted when we entered. The waitresses were smartly dressed in Kimono's (Japanese ward robes) and escorted us inside. There were regular tables and two teppanyaki tables. We chose a teppanyaki table where we can watch the food being cooked (right under our nose!). The table had chopsticks and white napkins laid out. The seating was high but cozy and comfortable.

They gave us the menu cards. It was a long list - Starters, Salads, Soups, California maki rolls, Sashimi, Sushi, Teppanyaki, Teriyaki, Set meals, Bento boxes and of course desserts, We settled down and took some time to decide on what to order.

For the soup, we ordered a miso soup. Miso soup is a clear soup made of tofu, spring onions, seaweed and leaves. They served it nice, fresh and hot.

For salads, we ordered a salmon and crab salad. For starters, we ordered California maki rolls, Prawn dumplings and Sashimi. And Jasmine tea - a kind of green tea. For the main course, we ordered a mix of chicken, prawn and beef teppanyaki dishes.

The tea first came - in a handle less mug. It was hot and refreshing though unsweetened.

The teppanyaki chef came in with the ingredients of our order. He soon started to prepare the food on the "teppan". First he placed the vegetables on the hot grill in neat rows.

While the chef cooked the main course, they served the salads, California maki rolls (it comes with shrimps and avocados inside), then the sashimi and little later the dumplings. We saw it was fried dumplings and not steamed dumplings. They readily took it away and later came with the steamed ones.

I asked for the cutlery instead of chopsticks. I did not try the salads or the sashimi as I have an allergy to cold food. But I did enjoy the California maki rolls (wasabi and ginger) that were slightly warm since it had shrimp tempura. I dipped it into soya sauce to which I had added a small amount of wasabi. The prawn dumplings were steamed just right.

While we ate we watched the chef cook what was our main course. Unfortunately, we didn't ask for the acrobatics. After the vegetables, he added a heap of vegetable strips.

That actually comes with a bowl of white rice and 3 types of different sauces.

They served it nice and hot. The food was nice and freshly cooked.

It came up to average of 15 KD.

Overall experience was too good. I highly recommend readers to visit the place