I've always been a fan of the Matsuo chiraishi set lunch - for approximately $18, you get a generous serving of fresh sashimi and chawanmushi, soup and dessert. The selection here beats any of the other chiraishi I've tried in town for the same or slightly higher price range. Service however, tends to be spotty during lunch. Some people who come later seem to be seated faster than others, depending on ethnicity or VIP-status. Might be occasionally frustrating.

Recently went to Matsuo for dinner the first time on a Wednesday evening. Partner and I didn't make reservations, so were seated at the counter. The place was packed for a Wednesday evening, with a large proportion of Japanese. Service was actually more polite (perhaps because people spend more in the evening??)

I had a $40 set dinner which came with sashimi, tempura, nigiri sushi, chawan mushi, miso soup and dessert. The sashimi was amazing - very fresh and even better than the lunch stuff. For the price of the set, it was very good value indeed. Will return for more dinners, I think.

Hard to beat value lunch sets, wide variety too. However, what we had liked about here is the fresh sashimi they served each time.

However, our latest meal was a disappointment. Sashimi was rather average, salmon/tuna/scallop/squid/white fish/octopus. Sweet prawn/amaebi was alright and ikura was surprisingly firm which was fun to eat!

Had wanted to eat more varieties (eg uni/saba/anago etc) but many were unavailable.

Standard of service has improved slightly.. but it is hard to find a reason to visit again.

Have always been a fan of Nara but decided this time round to try out Matsuo with my colleages after all the great reviews on its food.

Apparently they have a different set meal for each day of the week -
Monday - Raw fish with vinegared rice
Tuesday - Think it was Sushi plus something else
Wednesday - Unagi with vinegared rice
Thursday - Teriyaki beef with vinegared rice and salmon sashimi
Friday - Raw fish with vinegared rice (same as Monday)

The Teriyaki beef was ok but nothing fantastic in my opinion. Sashimi was fresh and great albeit few - only 3 slices but can't expect much at the price of $15++.

All in good food at reasonable price but environment really not conducive and service only so so ... no refilling of our green tea and difficult to get the staff's attention.

Personally would rather pay a bit more to enjoy better ambience and service at Nara.

I really like sashimi. Sometimes I do wonder if it's just for the wasabi (goes really well together) but after Matsuo I know that's not the case.

Having read so much about the place, I was really excited to find a lunch companion one fine Monday. I was really excited about the lunch date and really worried about not being able to find a seat etc. I guess heavens knew how much I wanted to eat there cos' there was rain and probably explains why there were seats left! ;) The place wasn't easy to find though, my friend and I took quite sometime finding it!

Chirashi came and everything was SO good! Esp. the scallop! It's so sweet on its own, I hardly ate much wasabi! I had to eat the wasabi with the rice instead!! =) Miso soup was unlike the normal "instant powdered" kind. And of cos' the watermelon thick and juicy. What was bewildering was that we were served 2 skewers of bacon wrapped asparagus. My friend and I, innocently thinking that it's part of the set lunch, happily consumed it. It was when we were paying the bill den we realised that it was charged seperately. I wonder who didn't get their food?

Anyways, I sure hope to go back there soon! Though it seemed like it's just a plain, same eatery but I liked the feeling of authencity and well, the food is just too good. The Japanese there is good testimony. Mental note that I can't bring too many people here at once. Might be difficult to find seats. =)

Had a great value-for-$$ dinner at Matsuo.

Ordered the $40 set dinner, which though not ostensibly expensive, was not exactly cheap cheap either. But the generous set was totally worth the $40 paid, perhaps more - so value-for-money!

The set includes:

1. Sashimi
2. Chawanmushi
3. Choice of grilled Saba, Tempura or Tori Karaage
4. Miso Soup
5. Sushi
6. Fruits

The sashimi and sushi were fresh, generously thick cut and of a good variety. There was salmon, maguro, mekajiki, hamachi, hotate, ikura, amaebi and even a slice of otoro sashimi, I believe.

We tried the tempura and the grilled saba. While the tempura was fine, I highly recommend the grilled saba - nicely grilled and sweet, best savored with a squeeze of lemon and grated daikon (radish).

Little touches liven up the miso soup (a piece salmon and clams)and the chawanmushi (unagi among the usual crabstick meat).

All in all, had a satisfying meal of quality food and generous serving. Mosts of the dinner sets range from $30 ++ to $55 ++ and there's another special menu of more premium dinner sets (includes appetizers of oysters..etc) that range from $80 per person and above, minimum two to order.

Was there real early, so we were the only customers and found the service alright, nothing to fuss about. Ambience-wise, simple like your usual small-size Japanese restaurants' pedestrian decor.