Review Chiba Japanese Restaurant - Moonee Ponds

🌶 Spicy Tuna Roll 🍤 Tempura Prawn Roll 🍣 Ebi Prawn Nigiri 🥟 Pork Gyoza 🍗 Chicken Teriyaki Yakitori 🐟 Whitebait Tempura 🍠 Vegetable Tempura Chiba is a Japanese restaurant located in Hall St, Moonee Ponds. Always busy, this has been a go to for locals for years for dine in or takeaway. They offer an A La Carte service as well as 3 different Set Menus ranging from $38-48 per person. What they are most known for though is their signature Sushi Boats. 🛶 Judging from their Instagram page and first impressions on arrival, I thought this looked quite fancy! Sadly as soon as you are seated you realise it is definitely casual and dated, with disposable chopsticks, damaged menus and dirty glasses. The music in the venue is so faint, there is no vibe. It seemed confused as to wether they were trying to be luxe or casual, small changes could makes a big difference here. The Sushi was fresh and you can watch the chefs prepare them at the counter. The Sushi Rolls were nice however for some reason completely fell apart as soon as leaving the plate, barely reaching our mouths. The Gyoza here are massive with great flavour but more like a dumpling. 🥟 The Tempura Vegetable batter was only barely crisp however the Tempura Whiting was perfect. The Teriyaki Chicken was moist but the sauce was overbearingly sweet. After ordering a decent selection of food we were surprised our dishes were paced and everything was brought out almost at once. Considering we were seated at a small table for two, we were having to reorganise and replate dishes leaving us uncomfortable and rushed. We had a 2 hour seating and we were out the door in 40 minutes. ⏰ All in all the food seemed fresh, nothing was bad just very simple. The wait staff were lovely however the actual service needs tuning. Good for a quick, casual meal if it’s close to home.

Our second time to Chiba and more to come. This is our go to place for fancy sushi around the Northern Suberbs. Amazing food presentation and restaurant atmosphere (although Ground floor sections needs improvement as there were delivery boxes everywhere) Sushi and Sashimi quality are standard however the other dishes are superb - especially their Takoyakis 😋 Definitely on the pricier side.

Best sushi place in the west! Soft shell crab rolls are my favourite and the bento box is great for value and variety!

The unadon was good, but the tataki was underwhelming. Overall a good dinner at a decent price with nice servers. I’d recommend making a reservation in advance.

Extremely disappointed after I ordered takeaway from Chiba. Everything was either drenched in oil, or drenched in sauce. Unfortunately, the sushi was not fresh either.. which is baffling as they appear to make it on site. This has been my second negative attendance at Chiba in the last few months, so unfortunately it has lost me as a customer.

Love this nice place! Sashimi and sushi are so fresh and served with great wasabi.

This platter was almost $70. Although we did enjoy the sashimi, we felt it missed the mark by a lot given how empty it felt. The platter was not filled completely with food, there's lots of gaps and we felt that it did not justify the money paid. There's a lot of sashimi platters around that are very value for your money, unfortunately, just not in Moonee ponds. If we were to price this, it should be $55. This was shared between 2 and we had to get extra food elsewhere ater this.

Great food and great service. Love their banquet choices.