I have been looking for good Japanese food in Panama. I am almost always disappointed. Here at Matsuei, I was not disappointed with the katsu pork curry, the salmon teriyaki, and the sake. (mmm!) I loved the food, and it is almost exactly as it is cooked in Japan. I give 5 stars for the hot entrees, and they are delicious. I will however take off one star because the sushi still was offered with cream cheese. No sushi should ever be served with cream cheese! It is not Japanese style. period. So even without the cream cheese, I thought that the portion of fish should be bigger, and the portion of rice should be smaller. The quality of the fish was VERY GOOD. Salmon sashimi is likely my favorite thing to ever order in Japanese restaurants to evaluate quality. And here it is a winner. (It's like going to Thai restaurants and ordering pad-thai. You can evaluate using pad thai as a baseline of technique , flavors, and quality). Bottom line: I will go back. However, it is not budget-friendly.

I tried this place when it first opened (2nd week). The owners are EXTREMELY kind and friendly, and I enjoyed chatting with them. Unfortunately, I found the food lacking. I thought the flavors needed some help. For example I ordered chicken vietnamese noodles. The chicken was cooked similar to take-out Chinese style, and the noodles tasted just like they came from a instant lo-mein package. The flavor was like chinese black bean sauce , when I had even asked before ordering, "is this vietnamese, with lots of lemongrass flavor" They said yes, which is why I ordered it. I was disappointed with the cooking (soggy egg noodles rather than rice vermicelli). The portions are generous, however, so I could eat it for leftovers the next day. Also, I ordered "espinaca", Huge portion, but again, it tasted like steamed , chinese style greens with garlic. I would like to try the pho and hope that it is better than what I thought was a simple take on Asian cooking. I LOVE vietnamese food but for whatever reason those two dishes did not convey the bright lemongrass-cilantro-lime-fishsauce-chili flavors I was expecting.

I wanted to like this restaurant, but several points fall short. I gave 4 points for Ambiance because it is a cute place with a back patio that twinkles, and they put nice effort into making it look like a Country Store, with wooden chairs, accents, and food products both in fresh bunches and in glass jars. However, other factors really did not impress me: Food: Pretty average, or below average. We ordered wines (not stunning). Food: "ratatouille" with plantain chips... asked for bread, it was dry. The spicy shrimp was recommended, but it came out slathered in a globular mayo-mustard sauce, which was not super delicious. This was unfortunate because we were looking forward to that and our friend said it was really good last time (turns out they completely changed the recipe). We wanted the french bread pizza with arugula. We were told there was no arugula so we suggested to put Kale on it (there was kale in the front of the store). The waiter did not know what Kale was , and mumbled again that he could put lettuce on the pizza. Hmmmm come on. So we ordered spinach dip. 4 minutes later he came back to say he doesn't have Spinach dip. Overall super disappointing food. Service was mediocre. Our waiter mumbled a lot and did not seem to know what foods were available to us. Another waiter who was helping another table was also somewhat helpful with the wines, etc. Music indoors was way too loud. Patio was nice. If they can improve the food, I would definitely come back. Really out of the way and bizarre location in residential area. Regardless, glad I tried it!

This restaurant gets high marks for ambiance and quality of food. I was impressed with the freshness of the starter, which was the raw salmon. I thought, wow, this would be amazing in a sushi roll because I have not found GOOD fresh salmon here in PTY. It was only toward the end of the meal that I realized that there was a sushi menu. I think that the waiter should have given us this sushi menu. (It would have benefited them so that we can order sushi!!) . The service was pretty good. Each time they approached our table, they were helpful, polite, and professional. But, I would have liked to have more than one glass of water. The waiters were nowhere to be found for a while, and were instead just chatting indoors. I tried the Thai salad with beef, which was delicious! I was not expecting such tender beef that was actually pretty amazing. But, for the portions, I thought that it was a bit too expensive. $14 for a salad... And my friend had a greek style pasta with feta cheese, which was also delicious , but again a bit overpriced. I think we are paying for the ambiance. A beautiful large restaurant with both indoor and outdoor space, and even shisha (hookah)/ narguile.

Fuimos a aprovechar Open Sushi, lo cual es 6-11 en martes y miercoles por $19.00 Hay tanto opciones para pedir varios rollos, como 25 tipos! Ese es una buena oferta. El servicio es muy bueno, muy rapido, muy amable. Nos gustabamos ese atencion y tambien, una cerveza que viene gratis con este oferta. Los rollos son de 10 piezas! Son grandes, y por eso es un gran precio. Pero, no son tan ricos, lamentablemente. Son "regulares" A mi me encanta sushi de pescado fresco. Pero aqui en Panama es normal a poner demasiado queso adentro de todo.. y eso creo que es malo ... Ojala hayan mas rollos de pescado fresco como atun, salmon, yellowtail, etc. La oferta esta bien, pero no si se vale la pena a comer sushi de nuevo.

Cuando tengo apetito para comida étnica y internacional , búscalo! Aquí en Panamá no tengo taaaanto opciones para comida Asia .. A parte de comida china y Thai, no puedo encontrar comida de Bangladesh o de Burma, como en EEUU... Aquí disfruto comida muy sabrosa y tradicional de Vietnam , y estoy agradecido! Que rico !! Me encanta pho y en este restaurante la sopa es 5/5... Normalmente la sopa no es tan alto en grasa, usamos cilantro (no culantro) y usamos limón , pero por el razón que a veces se hacen pho diferente, o tal vez porque estamos muy lejos del país Vietnam, aquí podemos aprobar comida vietnamita bastante bien. Pedimos también ensalada de mango verde, y rollos vietnamita. Todos son de muy buena calidad. Regresará pronto ! Mmmm . El servicio... Pues, esperaba q nos decieron q no tenemos ese o esa al inicio...Lamentablemente., y servimos más rápido sería mejor ..

Mojitos ... Son buen precio ($6) pero Tiene que mejorar un poquito. ;) Pizzas son buenas, y el servicio ..esta bueno. Voy a regresar con mis compañeros.