There's a fairly new restaurant in Helsinki, Gaijin. It's the same owners as the quite nice (IMO) place Farang, but located at Bulevardi.

Gaijin is supposed to be a northern Asian restaurant, which I guess means Japan, Korea and Eastern parts of China. Well, I went there with my better half and a friend and his better half. The experience was next to horrible.

First of all, when I have reserved a table at a restaurant, I don't expect to be sitting around for 30 minutes at my table with a glass of water in front of me, and not even a menu!

We eventually got around to order their signature menu Gaijin (I think 9 dishes if you include boiled rice as one as they seem to count) with the wine package. For the record, this was 200€+ for two persons, so for that price expectations are quite high.

The majority of the dishes are poor and close to not edible. This comes from a person who has lived in Japan and is used to eating all kinds of stuff. Some dishes (2-3) were really good, excellent, among the tastiest things I've eaten in Helsinki. Sadly the majority weren't up to the standards. Somehow the place felt like wanting to do hardcore quirky Asian, rather than good tasting Asian food.

I enjoyed the flavours of Farang (although I think their tasting menus also are overpriced...) but Gaijin is sub-par. I think the responsibles should be less in TV and look more at what their restaurants are serving. And the service needs to take the noses down a few degrees and smile a bit more.

BTW, if you're coming to Helsinki and surroundings for a longer time in the summer, I can recommend the town of Ekenäs/Tammisaari one hour west of Helsinki and restaurant Albatros. For such a small town, I think the restaurant has a nice wine list, and the quality of the food is quite nice. The terrace is beautiful on a nice summer day or evening.