When Tokyo moved from Karen, we settled for another Japanese restaurant in the neighbourhood; HARU. Haru is situated at the Karen Professional Centre on Karen road, Nairobi. Haru is nice, but a little impersonal compared to Tokyo. Because of how close it is to home, we find ourselves frequenting it quite often. The vlog that I’ve shared in this post (at the end of the post, so keep reading and check it out) is from just a few weeks ago. The pictures however, are from several different visits. Let’s talk about Haru…

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Ambience

Haru has 3 seating areas: A patio outside with about 4 tables, a sushi bar downstairs, and the main seating area upstairs. The indoor seating features warm lanterns, textured walls, wall paper, porcelain dolls and oriental art. It feels East-Asian, as it should.

Outside, there’s honestly not much going ambience-wise. The furniture is old and there’s not much work put into the table setting. The garden/patio area can be nice, especially with a jiko (charcoal burner) to warm you.

 

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Service

The waitstaff are great, and friendly. Lead-time for food is very short. Something quite refreshing in Nairobi. I once broke one of the clay jikos and they told me not to mind, even though the guilt was killing me.

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Food and Drinks

There’s a complimentary salad with peanut sauce as you wait for your main course to arrive.

Dad often orders a grilled squid starter.

I almost always have salmon sashimi. I sometimes mix it with tuna maki. I’ve also recently discovered and grown to love unagi (eel).

My sister had what looks like avo or California rolls (can’t remember), and dad had teriyaki chicken.

I’ve never ordered wine by the bottle, but their house wine is average. It won’t make you sing its praises, but it won’t make you gag either.

I’ve also tried their Yaki Udon (Japanese noodles with chicken, beef or pork), red snapper and katsu chicken (breadcrumbed chicken with katsu sauce). All were good, although I find the seasoning in Yaki Udon a bit too mild (comes off as bland).

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Menu

Japanese (sometimes Korean) cuisine with a focus on sushi. Seafood treats: tempura prawns, sushi platters, lobster, crab and oysters just to mention a few. Their teriyaki chicken is impeccable and they have vegetarian sushi too. You can get red snapper fish fillet, noodles, kimchi (fermented/ pickled cabbage), sea weed soup and an abundance of other dishes.

They have your typical alcoholic and non-alcoholic drinks. 

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Pricing and value for money

Their drinks are affordable. A glass of house wine is Ksh300 and their cocktails go for about Ksh600.

Last night we (me and dad, dinner for two) went to Haru and ordered: 2 starters, 2 mains and 4 glasses of wine. This came to KES 4400. For all that we had to eat, I reckon it’s a bargain.Their portions are also large and we often have to take home doggy-bags.

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Check out the vlog below and let me know if you’re into Japanese (Far Eastern cuisine) and if you’d try Haru. Japanese cuisine might need some getting used to. But it’s refreshing and healthy!

Edit: Post name edit courtesy of Michelle Muthoni of Treats on a Budget.

Check Haru out on the Eat Out Kenya page, Trip Advisor and Facebook.

Lots of love!

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