Address: 6-8 Quayside, Cambridge, CB5 8AB [google maps]
Telephone: 01223 882 288
Website: http://www.teri-aki.co.uk
Opening hours: 12:00-23:00, Monday-Sunday
Type: Japanese, sushi and noodle.
Posh or common: Posh.
Take-it-away: I don't know.
Lavoratoire Garniers: Not bad. By the end of the evening, they're a bit distressed and splattered.
Number of tables: Big ones, small ones, thin ones, fat ones. There are many.
Clientele: Mixed.
Could I take my parents?: Yes.
Service: Varied. Staff turnover is very high, and some are a bit dim. There is a unique way of ordering (see below under Bad).
Price for a main course: 7.90-10.80 GBP.
Portion size: No problems.
Menu choice: 29 starters (11 vegetarian), 48 mains (9 vegetarian). This excludes all the sashimi and sushi, and there are about a million of these; [menu]
Good: I lived in Japan for a while and I love this restaurant. The sushi and sashimi are good, particularly the tuna, I think. I've only had better in a place in Brighton called I've-forgotten, when I ate so much, I was sick in my mouth. Teri-Aki is clean and always busy and offers something more intimate and less corporate than other noodle bars.
Always ask for 'the little beansprout thing,' when you order. It is a little free appetiser but they don't always give it to you automatically.
The restaurant is decorated to a high standard. Also, I once saw Stephen Hawking in here.
Bad: The acoustic is very bad along the long tables, particularly near the back of the restaurant. Ask not to sit here if you want to whisper little love things to your dinner person.
They've made changes to the menu as well. The wine and water is really expensive and they've taken the expensive ingredients out of the vegetarian food. I loved this place a few years ago, and it is going downhill a bit. Too many corners are being cut. The noodles I had last night weren't far off a Pot Noodle. The noodles used to have me saying "oooooo, lovely noodles."
Ordering is an art. You write down your order on a little notepad and give this to a waiter. A waiter will not collect the little notepad from your table, instead you need to hold it over your head and look like you are going to do something embarrassing. You need to fight for service, sometimes. Do what I do. Look like you are a bit of a nutter and talk a bit too loudly like Brian Blessed.
About this Food Blog
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My big, fat paramour loves food and would want a food blog to be about food. She said that a discussion of anything else would be ridiculous. Sometimes, I don't really care what she says. I like good service best, in a restaurant. My friend, Julio Baptista, likes large portions. My mother won't go back anywhere with bad toilets. Once, in France, she pulled the fringe of her scarf through the bottom of a men's urinal and nearly died from the dirtiness she felt. She hadn't realised and put the scarf back on and she got stranger's wee on her face.
People want different things from a restaurant. I focus here on a discussion of good/bad food and lavs and service and other, in Cambridge restaurants.