Ainoya

I had dinner here in February and May 2015 and also a few times in 2014. The food served is of consistant quality, fresh and tasty. I have tried most dishes on menu and enjoyed them all. The sake list is also good. It is reasonable priced restaurant. At 7pm the place is generally full with diners which is a good sign.

I will preface this review by saying that this isn’t the right sushi-​joint for midweek takeaway. While its very good food, you lose something tangible when you transfer these beautiful, delicate creations into plastic containers, and you might start to wonder if, after all, a Greek salad smushed into the same container for a third of the price isn’t also very good food. In its own way.
I love Ainoya. It will not, in fact, annoy ya — unlike Kirrakaze around the corner, with its premade sushi and frustratingly limited menu. Having assumed Kirrakaze was the only Japanese place in Kiribilli, I basically haven’t been eating it for three years — a damned shame. Enter Ainoya.
It’s just right, from the chilli edemame to the goma-​ae, from the generous daily specials to the perfect spicy tuna rolls, and especially because of the heady draught Japanese beer. It’s not fancy enough to feel stuck up but the food is genuinely artful — as only sushi can be — and the environment and staff are as warm as you always hope for in a local favourite. Its the kind place you want to go back to. And though it’s not cheap enough to gorge yourself at routinely, that’s what the chook shop’s for, right?
Ainoya fills its own vital place in the Kiribilli Eating Curriculum and I’d bloody hate to go back to the version where it was absent.

I think that this place is fabulous. Great food. It has been there for years and always seems to do well.

A guy I used to work with once told me his secret to impressing girls on the first date — he takes them to Ainoya.
The modern Japanese menu is easy to navigate with a range of well-​known (pork gyoza, sashimi, maki rolls) and interesting dishes (una-​don — smoked eel — and takoyaki, which are kind of like fried, battered balls of octopus meat); it’s always busy but never too noisy to hear each other talk; and (best of all) it’s relatively easy on the wallet considering all the seafood is so fresh.
I often go here if I’m headed down the road to the Ensemble Theatre later on as the service is quick, and salivate in expectation of ordering the entrée of grilled scallops in soy-​butter sauce. If you’re a group of four to six or the restaurant’s not too busy, try to grab one of the traditional horikotatsu tables that are built into the floor.
Needless to say, my co-​worker did seem to do well with the ladies.