Arigato Japanese Steak House, Tampa, Florida, Japanese Restaurant Details

Food:

Several years ago, this place was amazing. Today, ild have to stop in again, as the ratings are poorer?

Food:

First, let me say what's good about this place. It's spacious, so, unlike some of the other Hibatchi places I've been to, you're able to enjoy your dinner without being distracted by the shenanigans of the next table over. Our chef was good and personable. He was constantly joking with my 8-10 year old siblings (my parents decided to go through the child raising again after the first three of us graduated from college) and playing with their expectations of Hibatchi; doing things out of order to surprise them, for example.

Now, what was bad about this restaurant. The food was quite substandard for this type of restaurant. Sure, I've grown more sophisticated in my tastes for asian food since I first had Hibatchi as a kid some nearly 20 years ago. But as recently as a few years ago I went to a hibatchi place and while I had, sadly, grown jaded to the spectacle, I did enjoy the food. Usually my favorite part of hibatchi is the salad. I've bought bottled ginger dressing before and it's never quite as good as what I've eaten at hibatchi places. The dressing at Arigato didn't taste anything like that or any other similar dressing I've ever had. They screwed up the miso soup - miso soup is usually just a powder you add to chicken stock. Somehow they screwed that up. The Yum Yum sauce was anything but. The chicken and steak were bland. Really, the only thing I thought tasted good was the rice, because it was a little crispy, but most others thought it was a little too overcooked.

All this by itself would have made for a bad experience, but not worth writing about. This is only my third review via Google's system - I'm not a prolific reviewer whether it's a positive OR a negative review. I don't have the time. But Arigato stepped over the line. My mom's soup had a fly in it. Hey, I know - if you want perfectly clean food go make it yourself; all restaurant food is probably slightly more gross than we care to know; blah blah. But when you have something egregious like a bug or other cotaminant in someone's food, I expect something a little more than "I'm sorry." We're not talking about food that wasn't tastey or didn't come out exactly as I asked for it. I've gotten meat that was way overcooked compared to what I ordered and I've never sent it back to the kitchen. When food takes hours to come out and the manager apologizes, I'm placated. But when there's a BUG in your food, I expect AT LEAST for that food to be free. Not everyone's meal - I'm not expecting to bankrupt the place or something. But at the very least, my mother's meal should have been free. What did the manager offer? A free drink. Sorry $8 != $30. When you mess up, you need to take responsibility. You just failed the most important aspect of customer service - you bend over backwards so that the customer wants to return. My young siblings love hibatchi. It's not out of the ordinary for each of them to want to go for their birthday (that's why we were there). Each time you're talking something like $150 plus tip (or more - we took up an entire table). So that's at a minimum $450 per year lost plus whoever doesn't go now after reading this review. And given how empty that place was (should have been a clue - also wish I'd read the other Google Plus reviews that shows this place has been in decline for a while now), I don't think you can afford that.

Food:

This place has gone down hill because of the POOR management and therefore poor staff. My party of five arrived at 6 pm and was seated by 6:10. The taking of our orders, and serving of our soup and salad were staggered. When the chef arrived, he reconfirmed our order, and for some reason left our table. He returned moments later to tell us that he’d have to check with his manager regarding the grill that was not hot. (Note: at this point, the intelligent thing would have been to ask us to move to another table). He returns again and says that the grill would take 25 minutes to heat and we’d need to move, so we did, with no help. Next, he said “I’ll be right back.” We were thinking we’d start right away which was the whole purpose of relocating to a new hibachi table. (Note: our raw food now has been sitting out and close to one of the girls in the party for over 15 mins) When the server comes over, I told her the chef left and she had the nerve to ask me “We’ll, where did he go.” At this point, it’s obvious that this team needs to be trained in customer service, with all the movement and confusion; a manager should have come over. However, that only happened because I requested to speak to him; that’s when it became clear that we would not be eating at this hibachi place ever again, or even that evening. His body language was smug and lackadaisical; he didn’t apologize but only offered excuses around the time of the experience which he claimed is an hour and a half. It was 7pm, so we’d already waited 45 minutes, so I asked him exactly when our “experience” would actually start. I cannot recall word for word what transpired, but I told him I was cancelling my order in part because he did nothing to assuage the situation. In fact, he turned my stomach with his rude and dismissive responses. My party agreed and we all left. Thank goodness for Anthony’s Coal fire pizza!

Food:

We used to go to Arigato Tampa many times before it burned down years back and was excited to see it back. We went last night for my daughters 28th birthday at her request.. we had a party of 7 with 2 kids. It seemed clean.. friendly but tables cramped, and it started with a communication issue between the chef and his waiter Corey. Corey took the orders, brought drinks, all was fine. Then the soup and salad.. all good. Then the Chef comes and goes over our orders from Corey's list and there was a mistake on over half of the orders at the table, he blamed it on Corey, seemed ok but distracted always asking Corey for more chicken and other things ..he needed... there was 3 people at our table had scallops that only 1 got them.. then the second reminded a second time and got theirs.. the third person got theirs after the Chef finished cooking he went to the kitchen and brought him some back... the rice was burned.. the other food was ok except not very much veggies and they were all chopped up super small ...my daughter ordered a specialty drink in one of the special glasses for her birthday.. she was told they don't have those anymore.. she can get the drink in a regular glass instead of the take home special one.. she got a beer instead... then we ordered the cake with the photo... $10... well used to be everyone came over and would sing in Japanese and English.. the guy brought the cake with a candle and plates and put it down and said... ok does everyone want to sing now.... and guess what... no photo.... we drove all the way from Brandon.. could have had Kobe instead.... not happy $250 dinner.. was just barely ok... the little kids had fun..

Food:

32 oz Rice Bowl! Only $6.99! Problem is: it's 29.25oz of Rice and 2.75oz of meat. I called and asked. This is standard. "That's why it's only $6.99," is what the manager told me.

If they're this misleading about this item, I can't imagine what else they're lying about. Wonder if my wife's was really Filet?

Hostess and Bartender were nice. The place looked nice, but I just wonder what else they're hiding...