Genji Japanese Restaurant

If you’re wanting to have a big boozy BYO complete with Karaōke look no further. Genji has a private room down the back which seats about 40 pax and for all you smokers, there’s direct access to the back porch. The set menu is $ 30 per person and includes a miso soup as well as a bento box complete with edamame, tempura, sushi, salad, rice and your choice of protein. The food is a bit flavourless and I think a bit on the expensive side for a BYO — although, after 5 years of cheap BYO’s in Dunnas, I would probably consider any BYO in Auckland to be expensive.
This place is definitely set up to deal with a rowdy crowd — the staff are incredible tolerable and you pay on arrival, eradicating the risk of being the last one to pay and being stuck with corkage for 10 people.
Personally, this is not my favourite but if drinking and perhaps a bit of drunken Karoake is the aim of the game then the back room of Genji is well worth checking out!

I recently went to Genji with some friends for a casual dinner. I gotta tell ya, I won’t be going back anytime soon. We went after a suggestion from another mate, but he had hired out the back room and had a massive (very boozy) BYO, so his memory might be a wee bit biased.
There was just a group of four of us and the experience was meh. The menu is pretty standard, they’ve got everything you’d expect, just not as tasty as you’d like.
There wasn’t much of an atmosphere at all, and even on a Thursday night, it was pretty dead. The staff was pretty meh too. They weren’t really having a good time, and you get the feeling they know their place of work isn’t the best.
The thing is, the food is average but it’s not even cheaper than many other far better places. Basically, if you’re already on Ponsonby Road, make the effort and go a wee bit further for a far better experience at one of the nicer places.

I’ve experienced better. Way better. I have no idea why I’ve come to this restaurant at least 3 times, but I have, and every time I’ve left feeling kind of dissatisfied. Am I ordering badly? I don’t know. I mean, the food is okay, but the whole place is just kind of sad. The décor, the vibe, the air is even weird in there. They’ve got this karaōke room out the back which I’ve heard is fun, and some private dining rooms, so the place is good for groups, but I probably would never book a dinner here. Like I said, you can get better Japanese elsewhere for the same prices. Even in the same area. Try it, but don’t blame me if you come out feeling depressed as hell.

I went to Genji for a dinner with my boyfriend after a long day. All I wanted to do was enjoy a glass of wine, some conversation and most importantly some delicious food. As I was in need for excitement and a bit of cheering up we decided to go all out and have everything from the salads to the sushi to the main meal. The salad was absolutely delicious, I had the seaweed salad and I loved how it was nicely shredded. My main issue was the sushi, I had a different types of sushi and unfortunately there was just way too much mayo or sauce on the sushi. This reduced the tastiness and freshness of the sushi for me. I suggest that if you don’t like too much sauce, you request that the chef makes the sushi for you with no sauce so that you can put the sauce for yourself.