Hi all! The past couple months have been busy with family and friends so I haven't had much time to post. You missed me, didn't you? ;)
So we have all heard about my terrible experience at Sake... if they ever get better, someone please let me know. I am really addicted to sushi (giving up sushi was the hardest part of my pregnancy!) so I was really curious about Taka. It opened recently next to Fresh Chops and Goodwill. I even had a 20% off coupon that I had received in the mail.
The decor inside is nice, but the layout is a little strange. They have several hibachi tables and a sushi bar. We didn't want hibachi, but we couldn't sit at the sushi bar because my daughter's high chair wouldn't reach that high. They don't have a regular table to sit around if you want to go out to sushi with a bunch of friends. Before my daughter was born, I didn't mind sitting at the sushi bar if it was just me and my husband, but when you have a group of friends it is really hard to talk if you are all sitting in a line.
Anyways, although the restaurant was completely empty except for one family that was sitting at a hibachi table, the hostess motioned for us to sit at the same table as them. I thought it was strange but I sat down. They looked uncomfortable. We looked uncomfortable. I also feel bad subjecting other people to sitting with a toddler. My daughter is really well behaved at restaurants for her age... but she is still barely older than one.
We looked through the menu and found no mention of sushi anywhere. After looking it over a few times, we finally looked back and saw the pile of sushi menus next to the hostess. She saw us looking at her and said "oh... did you want a sushi menu?" and gave us two. We then realized she hadn't given us a pencil so my husband went back up to her to get one out of the little jar.
They have a lot of decent priced rolls between $5 and $6 and also some specialty rolls that are more expensive, but not unreasonable. We marked the rolls we wanted. When our waitress came, my husband asked her if the nigiri prices were for one or two pieces. She had no idea what we were talking about. She had no idea what nigiri was. She kept asking us what number we were talking about. My husband looked confused and said "any of the nigiri... are the prices for one or two pieces?"
The prices seemed in line with places that serve two pieces of nigiri per order... but we never did find out. She went to ask someone and then returned with "it could be one piece or two pieces." When we asked her what she meant or which ones she was talking about, she answered with "Sometimes it is one and sometimes it is two." ... wha?! I'm still not convinced she has any idea what nigiri is. If anyone goes to Taka and gets nigiri, please let me know how many pieces you get.
We finally selected some rolls: 1 spicy crab, 1 spicy salmon, one Jazz roll (spicy tuna, crab, avocado), one shrimp tempura roll, one Hollywood roll (yellowtail, salmon, cucumber), and two eel and avocado (we always get a couple of these now because my daughter likes them). We handed our sushi paper to our waitress and she stared at us. Then she said "oh... you don't want anything else?" I'm pretty sure she doesn't have a concept of how much sushi a person usually eats. Seven rolls is actually a lot for us, we usually get six. I'm also pretty sure our waitress had never eaten sushi before.
Then the teppanyaki show started. I have nothing against teppanyaki or the show, but it isn't really something I had planned on taking my daughter to.
At first the chef was swinging knives around and making lots of noise. My daughter's eyes grew very big but she seemed interested, not scared. Then he made a giant fireball. If my daughter wasn't strapped into the high chair I think she would have jumped about 4 feet in the air and landed on my lap. She was terrified. She didn't say anything but it was all over her face and her arms were flailing towards me and my husband. We took her out of the high chair and asked if we could move to one of... you know... the empty tables?
We moved ourselves to the table in the back of the restaurant. Not trusting our waitress, my husband waited a few minutes and then went and retrieved our water from our previous table. She finally arrived with new silverware and said, "oh... I would have gotten that for you." I'm sure she would have... eventually.
A bonus about sitting in the back of the room (aside from the fact that we were away from any giant fireballs that may scare my daughter and we got to sit at our own table) is that in this location we had a second waitress we could flag down who seemed more competent than the first.
Our sushi arrived. Our original waitress brought it to us and said "they said they didn't have yellowtail." We looked at our plate and there were four rolls. I scanned to see what was missing and asked where our eel and avocado rolls were. She looked extremely flustered by my question and stammered, "they said everything was here except for the yellowtail!" I don't think she had expected to answer any more sushi related questions. My husband then said, "we ordered two eel and avocado rolls and they aren't here." The waitress scurried back to the sushi chefs with our sheet. I think it was an honest mistake because all of the rolls we had marked were on one side of the page except for the eel and avocado rolls which were on the other side. I just found the situation kind of amusing. Usually when you order sushi, the waitress puts the rolls right in front of you and points to the various rolls and tells you what they are. Our waitress seemed to have no idea what sushi was at all.
As we waited we looked around the restaurant. There were two (non related) families sitting next to each other at the second hibachi table looking at each other uncomfortably.
You know what can ease the pain of a bad service experience? Good food.
What? You spilled water on my head? Okay!
The rolls were really good. The spicy rolls were flavorful but not so overly spicy that it hid the flavor of the fish. The Jazz roll was delicious... a tasty roll with fresh fish piled on top. The only roll I wasn't too fond of was the eel and avocado roll. The actual eel and avocado tasted great, but the sauce on it tasted weird... kind of like what I imagine eating flowers would taste like. All in all, I was really happy with the food.
While we were eating, our waitress brought us a plate with two tempura shrimp pieces on it. My husband and I were confused and told her that we didn't order it. She looked again looked flustered at the question but told us that it came with one of our rolls. It did? We found that to be strange, but hey... free is free. It was really delicious, too!
I'm pretty sure I will get (takeout) sushi from Taka again. The sushi chefs are really good.
When our bill came it came out to $38 which I found reasonable for the 6 rolls that we ordered. We couldn't find our waitress so we flagged down and handed our bill to the other waitress.
My advice for Taka would be to educate the chefs on the food they serve. Maybe it didn't seem important because it was assumed that everyone who wanted sushi would sit at the bar, but people with children in high chairs or booster seats can't sit at the bar. Also, when you advertise yourself as "Taka Japanese Steakhouse & Sushi," not everyone is going to come in there looking for hibachi or teppanyaki. It is strange to have no regular tables at all that people can sit at. Oh and people don't like sitting with people they don't know. If there are empty tables... sit everyone separately! I understand if the restaurant is full and there is nowhere else to sit.. but it is really uncomfortable when you are in a quiet and empty restaurant seated right next to a family you don't know. Lastly, when a family with a toddler is done eating, please take and process the check quickly... there is only so long a kid that small can stay on her very best behavior :)
To summarize... the food was good and the service was bad. Oh... and I forgot to use my coupon. D'oh.
