Sato is small, and consists of a combination of traditional and normal tables. The seating capacity is about 40. The decor here is traditional, however I have seen more authentically decorated Japanese restaurants. Tonight, we were seated at one of the traditional tables. Each traditional table was setup on a split level floor with space under the table to put your legs under. As they do in Japan, everybody sitting at the traditional tables were required to take off their shoes.

Tonight, we decided to go for the banquet as it represented good value for money. The individual items on the menu seemed a bit expensive for what you were paying. The meals started coming out one by one at about 15 minute intervals. Here’s what I thought of each one:

MUSSELS IN PONZU SAUCE – Ponzu sauce is a citrus infused soy sauce. You could taste the flavours of the ocean from the mussels. Combined with the ponzu sauce, the dish was very tasty.

BROCCOLI IN MISO PASTE – The sweetness of the miso really brings out the flavour in the broccoli. Such a simple dish.

PULLED BEEF TERIYAKI – This was really nice. It reminded me of a wet shredded beef jerky. The serving was quite small, but the flavours were delicate and balanced. I could have had a main meal of this stuff by itself.

KUSHI KATSU – Kushi translated means skewer and Katsu refers to deep fried meat, in this case meaning pork. The pork was was succulent and perfectly cooked. The bread crumbs used to coat the meat was light and not too oily. Dipped into the mild Japanese mustard, the meat was quite delicious.

SUSHI – The nigiri used fresh salmon and tuna which was absolutely delicious. The sushi rice was soft and moist, and perfectly cooked. I loved how they put a light dab of wasabi under the salmon and tuna to give it a strong flavour hit. One of the sushi rolls contained avocado and crab sticks. The avocado was ripe, however, the crab sticks weren’t real crab and were included purely for decoration. The egg sushi was nice as it had a subtle sweetness.

TERIYAKI CHICKEN – The chicken was moist and full of flavour. Like traditional teriyaki chicken, the skin was left on, however the chicken was pan fried instead of grilled which deflates the purpose. What we were left with was fatty chicken skin which wasn’t particularly appetising. The sauce was well executed, however the dish was missing the smokey flavour that I was expecting.

PORK AND VEGETABLE PANCAKE – The menu said there was pork in this dish but I never detected any. The dish itself was nicely presented and cut up like a pizza. You could taste the crunchy texture of the cabbage and carrot, which eaten by itself was kind of bland. On top of the pancake was Japanese mayonnaise and okonomiyaki sauce with bonito and seaweed flakes. These toppings actually gave the dish more depth and flavour.

GREEN TEA ICE CREAM – There are only two desserts available at Sato; Green Tea or Vanilla Ice Cream. The Green Tea ice cream is the real deal and the texture of the ice cream is like chewing on creamy tea leaves. The dessert was accompanied by red beans which was absolutely necessary as someone forgot to add sugar to the ice cream. I didn’t like it because it was quite a chore to eat.

The atmosphere here is quite relaxed and the service was pretty good. The dishes here were probably as authentic as you can get in Adelaide. The pricing is a bit high, but that is no different from any other Japanese restaurant in this town. I was a bit skeptical as to whether I would be full after my meal and surprisingly I walked away satisfied. Definitely a place worth checking out!

WHERE: 131 Melbourne St, North Adelaide