Sakura Teppanyaki & Sushi

Decent hibachi
Typical hibachi food, dry chicken and same old fried rice. I stuck with a sushi/sashimi platter but tried a bit of everyone's dish. The service here is a little slow even though they weren't that busy. The show is ok, a little short and unenthusiastic. Gets 3 stars because the hibachi prices are incredible and the sushi slices were huge!

This place is disgusting! This review is for hibachi only. We came here one Saturday night with no reservations so we couldn't sit at the hibachi table which was fine because we could still get hibachi food at a regular table. I ordered the hibachi shrimp. The food was terrible! Maybe I'm just accustomed to good hibachi food but this was the worst I've ever eaten. The shrimp were tiny. The rice, veggies, and noodles all tasted like smoke. Where's the good hibachi in this city?? It's not here.

I chose this place to take my brother out for his birthday this past Saturday. Needless to say, I figured a teppanyaki place would be a great celebration and experience for my brother.

We arrived on time for our 7pm reservation when the hostess then informs me that they are running behind and it will be another 45 minutes until we get seated in front of the hibachi and suggested that we sit at a regular table. My brother is a humble man and insisted to me to just take the table. This greatly disappointed me. Had I known that we would have to wait another 45 minutes to sit in front of the grill, I would have never made reservations here. In fact, that was the whole point! I mean, 10-15 minutes I understand-- but seriously?!

I'm a restaurant manager myself, I understand the busy rush, and I understand how seating works, I had a 7pm reservation, you should prepare for that. If there's a small wait, I understand, but you clearly underestimated the amount of reservations you booked or walk-ins you took for the night. This was very disappointing and no one did anything to resolve the situation.

For the meal, I got my plate before everyone else did for 5 minutes.Then 2 of my guests got there's, and followed after another 5 minutes for my brother. By the time my brother got his food, the rest of ours were cold. The food itself was mediocre, my sea bass was rubbery and did not flake off like you would expect a sea bass would do. My steak was fine. Nothing special all in all. Perhaps if I had a show in front of me, the mediocrity of the food can be forgiven but we didn't even get the chance to enjoy that experience.

The positives? Yes, there are some. I'm not here to bash, I'm here to give the honest constructive criticism someone in the same industry feels. The ambiance was cute, trendy, and would be a great spot for dates. They have a fun selection of over-the-top sauced up maki rolls which we all love to indulge on. We had the Snow White and the Spiderman as appetizers which were good.

I kept looking around waiting for a manager to touch our table or someone to come by for me to complain to. In my opinion, I don't care if a guest complains, as long as you give me the chance to fix the situation for you. But it was clear by the end of the meal that they were way too busy to assist us with anything.

When we got the check, the server gave us a $20 gift certificate to use in the next 4 days. I don't know if this was supposed to resolve our situation or just a promotion to all guests as the server did not specify. I  don't plan on using it. For a $200 dinner, we left un-satisfied and I was greatly disappointed to have brought my business and brother's birthday celebration to Sakura. This was supposed to be special for a hard working man like my brother and it did not live up to the expectation I wanted for him.