Bien Izakaya

A group of us dined at Bien Izakaya at the end of last year for our book club Christmas dinner. I was researching ‘BYO Japanese’ in Newmarket and Bien Izakaya popped up — it sounded great!
What I loved about Bien Izakaya was the extensive menu. They had some interesting dishes I had never heard of, for example ‘umekurage’ (jellyfish marinated plum pulp) and ‘ebi toast’ (prawn toast). They also offer a lot of different sides, from kimchi and potato croquettes to small salads and pickles. Each dish is labelled clearly on the menu with a picture, so it made ordering easy.
From the menu, I ordered the seaweed salad, takoyaki and pork ramen. The food was delicious — I cannot fault it. My other companions ordered the prawn toast, teriyaki chicken, sirloin steak, tempura and the $ 30 dinner plate, which included a mix of dishes plus dessert. Every dish was presented well, from the sides to the mains. However, the portions were smaller than I would usually get at my local Japanese, but full of flavour nonetheless.
What we disliked about Bien Izakaya was the BYO corkage — $ 10 for the first bottle and $ 5 for every extra bottle — a bit steep! It worked out to be cheaper to just order a glass of wine off the menu!
Another negative was that the service was average. There was only one waitress working and she was very flustered, plus we couldn’t understand her when she read out the menu specials. Also, our water glasses were never topped up and it was difficult trying to get her attention — this shouldn’t have been a problem because the restaurant is small.
Overall, the food was great, but we were not happy with the service or BYO charge. I probably would not re-​visit, because there are better value for money Japanese restaurants in the area.