I was told by a close family friend that I needed to give this place a try, he told me that they do teppanyaki style cooking and one of the things that he kept raving to me about were the sauces, which they make in front of you, that went really well with the different dishes. He was raving about the food quality, the freshness of the ingredients and how it was a whole caliber above other teppanyaki chains. Walking in we saw the swanky and posh interior, and I felt we could look forward to an awesome meal. Unfortunately, me and my g/f this was as good as it was going to get, and left here very disappointed, which was unfortunate considering my family friend really hyped us up and considering we saw all the positive yelp reviews. I will say we did go do go during lunch and maybe as a result you don’t get the full experience that the dinner crowd gets, but I with all honesty I am basing most rating on the quality of the food we received.
We walked in and got seated fairly quickly, as there was a group of other walk-ins sitting and waiting. I talked to the others sitting there, and found out one couple was sitting there for about 10 minutes and the other group of three people had been there for almost 30 minutes and still hadn’t taken their order. So needless to say, the other groups seemed slightly irritated because of the wait, but I guess I can see how it isn’t exactly cost effective to do teppanyaki cooking for just two or three people. But still sitting that long can be a little irritating.
The soup was a little on the salty side for my tastes, the soy sauce kinda covered up the overall flavors of the dish. The lunch combination also came with some fried rice which was hot, and did have some crispy rice pieces, which was a nice thing, but I felt that the flavoring was a bit on the bland side. The sauces that my friend told us about weren’t being made in front of us, they were coming out of a squeeze bottle, one being miso based and the other tasted a little soy-citrus base… both were good, but didn’t find it much different from the same sauces you get at Benihana. The chef we got that day didn’t seem that into it, he was there and cooking it, but didn’t say very much or do much interacting with the guests at the table. The only reason I bring this up, is that teppanyaki is supposed to be a show, part of the reason you usually pay for this is to be entertained while you eat.
The chef continued on and started to make or meals, I had tried some of the vegetable stir fry that my g/f ordered, probably the best thing I had during this meal, the veggies were well cooked, not over done and rubbery, nice light char on it and pretty well seasoned. If I knew what was to follow I would have stopped eating here. Next came the Steak and Prawns – While I went and asked for medium rare, he served it well down, the steak was a brick and the prawns were overcooked and rubbery. My g/f and I shared a side a scallops which were once again, over cooked. No moisture left in the disk shape brick we were given, it was inedible, we didn’t bother finishing the dish.
I was really disappointed in the meal, I really had high expectations for place based on the reviews and recommendation that I got. I really wanted to like this place because I wanted to come back and do a late night food run and try their Okonomiyaki. But after have such a bad lunch experience I don’t think any amount of booze and drunk munchies could get me to come back on this trip. Ill give them a try down the road for dinner, maybe it will be better experience… But in the mean time I gotta go call my friend and give him a hard time about that recommendation.