Asian Market Kitchen by Roy Yamaguchi

The Logbook — Real Guest Soundings

Depth Sounding: This is a composite account from multiple guest experiences across MSC Seaside and MSC Seaview sailings 2023–2025, edited to our venue standards for clarity. Individual sailings vary by ship, itinerary, and crew.

Asian Market Kitchen: One Chef, Three Doors, One Kitchen Pass

Asian Market Kitchen sits on Deck 16 of MSC Seaside in the specialty-dining cluster that lines the corridor between the Miami Beach Pool and the Bridge of Sighs. The corridor itself is part of the story — you walk past Butcher’s Cut and the Ocean Cay seafood doorway, glance into the glass-floored Bridge of Sighs walkway, then turn into a room laid out like three connected spaces. Pan-Asian to your left, sushi counter dead centre, teppanyaki tucked behind. Roy Yamaguchi’s name is the through-line; the kitchen pass is shared.

Food

The Pan-Asian room is the one most cruisers book first. The braised pork bao bun is the appetizer that turns up in nearly every recent review — soft steamed bun, pork belly that’s actually been braised long enough to fall apart, a hoisin-leaning glaze that doesn’t over-sweeten. Hawaii Kai-style crab cakes are the other consistent praise: crispy exterior, more crab than filler, a tangy dipping sauce that reads more Honolulu than New Orleans. Mains lean toward chef-driven plates rather than menu staples — a filet over green beans and potato fritters with a teriyaki-leaning glaze that one reviewer called the best non-steakhouse beef of the cruise. Pineapple upside-down cake closes most meals; the kitchen treats it as a signature even though it’s the dish travelers most often flag as inconsistent (some sailings: dry; others: caramelised properly with good coconut ice cream alongside).

The sushi counter runs a smaller menu (nigiri and sashimi rather than ambitious omakase) and the fish is honest. The teppanyaki room is the most theatrical and the most variable: a strong chef gives you a memorable night with timing and humour; a weaker one races through the show and leaves the rice underseasoned. Ask the host who’s on the grill before you commit if that matters to you.

Service

Service depends on which of the three rooms you booked. The Pan-Asian dining room has table service from a small crew that takes the time most main-dining-room servers can’t spare — the kitchen plates four people at a time rather than forty, and the pacing shows. The sushi counter is itamae-fronted, and a polite question about whether anything came in fresh that morning generally earns a better answer than the menu. Teppanyaki is performance-paced; expect the show to set the timing, not your appetite. Across all three rooms, the maitre d’ handles allergies and dietary restrictions early in the meal rather than at the plate, which is the right way to do it.

Atmosphere

The room reads more upscale-restaurant than themed-experience. Dark wood, low light, plated rather than family-style. The Pan-Asian space has a small bar at the entry where parties wait if the kitchen is running behind; the sushi counter feels like a counter (six to eight stools, the case in front of you); the teppanyaki room is built around the grills with banquette-style seating, eight diners per chef. None of the three rooms feels small in the wrong way — they feel right-sized for the kind of evening they’re trying to host. The corridor outside is quiet enough by 7 pm that the noise floor inside stays low even when the room is full.

Pro Tips

• Book on Day 1 in the MSC for Me app. The 7:30 pm and 8:00 pm slots fill first on 4-night sailings.
• Do not double-book yourself by booking sushi and teppanyaki on the same night — the kitchen pass is shared and the timing collides. Spread them across two evenings.
• If you have the 2- or 3-meal MSC dining package, pair Asian Market Kitchen (one meal) with Butcher’s Cut (one meal). The package economics work better than two Asian Market Kitchen visits.
• Skip the room if you’re mid-sailing tired — the show paces require attention, and the better food rewards an evening when you can sit for two hours. Saturday night of a 4-night sailing is not the optimal night.
• The Kaito brand has bled into the teppanyaki room on Seaside, so “Kaito Teppanyaki at AMK” on Seaside and “Kaito Teppanyaki” on Seashore are the same name on the door but different rooms by different teams. If Kaito on a non-Seaside ship didn’t land for you, AMK’s Pan-Asian room is the still-distinct draw — that’s the room with the Yamaguchi-launch DNA.

Conclusion

Rating: 3.9/5. Asian Market Kitchen is the best-known surviving cruise-line chef collaboration with a Hawaii-trained chef. It costs what specialty dining costs on MSC, and on the right night it earns the bill — the Pan-Asian plates are real, the sushi is honest, the teppanyaki is fun when the chef is up. It loses marks for inconsistency between the three rooms (you can have a great Pan-Asian night and a flat teppanyaki night on the same sailing) and for occasional dry desserts. Tip: if you only book one of the three concepts, book the Pan-Asian dining room. It’s the one where the chef collaboration shows up most clearly on the plate.

Related venues: Butcher’s Cut · Ocean Cay · Venchi 1878 · All Restaurants →