Food Blog | Kimura-ya Japanese Cuisine | Business Bay | Dubai

Kimura-ya is a Japanese Izakaya-style restaurant with a very wide menu and a casual atmosphere. Overall, I would say that this is a really cozy restaurant providing an authentic Japanese dining experience.

Is it Halal?

My understanding is that this is a halal restaurant serving up ramen with chicken broth. In addition, I didn’t see any pork on the menu, so I think this is a fairly safe place if you’re concerned about it. Eat at your own discretion, and double check accordingly.

Where it Is

It is located in Business Bay, more specifically in The Oberoi Hotel on Al A’amal Street, Dubai. Indoor parking is fairly easy to find and remember to get a chop when you finish up your meal. Once you park, go up the lift to the Ground Floor, head to the receptionist area and then take the staircase up on the right and you will be able to see Kimura-ya.

Address: The Oberoi Hotel - Al A'amal St - Business Bay - Dubai - United Arab Emirates

Operating Hours:

Daily: 12pm - 1am

What it Costs

Click here if you would like to take a look at the menu.

Overall, I would say that they have a pretty wide menu with a lot of choices as to what you want to eat. From sashimi to donburis, udons and ramen. They even have a all-you-can-eat shabu shabu offering available here, but we basically had mostly a-la-carte items.

My family of four ate for a total of 538 dirhams - although we took advantage of an offer from Zomato Pro in order to get a discount. Do note that they do accept both Zomato Pro and The Entertainer discounts if you have them available.

We had 3 main dishes: I had most of the Wagyu Curry Udon (AED60), my parents shared a Shoyu Paiten Ramen (AED65), my little sister had a Kaisen Don (AED85 - this is similar to a Chirashi Don) and we had a few dishes to share.

We had Yakitori Platter (AED60), a salmon special platter (AED133), a spicy tuna roll (AED 70) and we finished off the meal with a Matcha Ice Cream (AED25) and a Kurogoma Ice Cream (AED25) to share. We shared a bottle of water for AED15.

Including the 10% service charge, 5% VATT and 7% municipality fee, the bill came up to AED 538.

Strictly speaking, I would probably say that this is on the expensive side of average (meaning I would say this is around normal pricing, but on the slightly more expensive side) for a meal of this sort. But I would say that the quality does speak for itself and this is a pretty nice Japanese meal to have in Dubai.

How it Tastes

They also offered kakiage tempura that serves as a small tit bit before everything else arrived (complimentary), so I do appreciate that about this place.

For starters, I would say that I actually enjoyed the Yakitori a lot. There’s a lot of different things on the platter from liver to other portions of meat but I would say that their seasoning and sauce is pretty good. so I would probably say that this was my favourite starter.

The spicy tuna roll was meh for me and the salmon selection was decent, but nothing in particular to write home about. I think the main appeal of this place would be their hot food and their shabu shabu (although I haven’t tried this myself.

My choice of main was the Wagyu Curry Udon and even as someone who doesn’t like udon that much, this caught my eye in the menu and I thought it tasted great. Don’t expect some really premium wagyu beef, but at AED60, I think this is pretty value for money. The sauce doesn’t taste like those commercialised box-style Japanese curry sauce (which is usually my barometer of a good Japanese curry) and the beef goes really well in this combination.

I also had a bit of the Kaisen Don and I think the selection of fish is pretty good and I would say that the quality of the sashimis offered is decent. For me personally, I still like my Wagyu Curry Udon a bit more in comparison to the Kaisen Don.

I’m personally more used to pork bone broth ramens - so think thicker broths - so I would say that this is slightly thinner in terms of broth, but it isn’t that noticeable for me, personally. But there’s a decent chunk of ‘liao’ or ‘meat/vegetables’ together with the ramen to make it a good combination.

Ice-cream wise, I honestly think that the Matcha variant is a bit more worth it. I’m saying this because just look at the pictures. Based on quantity alone, the Matcha Ice Cream seems to have more and I wouldn’t say that the quality of the Black Sesame Ice Cream makes up enough to make it the same price, but if you’re a fan, go ham!

Star Rating

7/10. This is a solid 7 out of 10. Good food all-around, service was very proactive in clearing dishes and checking up on us, there’s a small price premium you pay for authentic Japanese food, so I’ve pretty comfortable placing this at 7/10.