Saiko Teppanyaki — Restaurant in Gold Coast City

What my partner and I thought was going to be a lovely tasting lunch turned out to be the complete opposite. We’ve wanted to come here a few times but our daughter wasn’t a fan of the fire so we finally had a chance to come while she was at school.

The First Lady to serve us (sorry nobody was wearing name tags so we have no idea who served us) she was great, very friendly.

But the second lady to come take our order seriously looked bored.

And there was also the staff member who served our sides, her perfume was so strong I had to pull away from her.

The guy who was making our food put our stuff on to cook and he realised he didn’t have everything he needed so took a walk around the kitchen and left our food sitting there to cook. I watched as my calamari over cooked.

I’ve added a photo of the bench they have, I feel the build of the place and this being where the main attraction was you want a less cheap look.

The decorative bowls they serve the miso soup in are also cheap quality that it’s hard to take the lid off and the lid actually fell into my partners soup. But also the miso soup ratio was disgusting! The salad they serve with your meal was iceberg lettuce with a small cut of tomato and small carrot. Usually it would be a little more presentable and more colours added. Call it a petty complaint but you want to wow people so that they’re amazed.

So not only was my calamari overdone it was chewy and hard to eat. The sauces were bland . I couldn’t finish my meal but my partner not wanting to be wasteful finished it for me but even he says it’s not the greatest and was hard to eat.

And the worst part of our experience, please keep in mind we were the second group to walk in since opening. I walked over to the bar and the woman who first took our order (the bored one who looked as if her job was a chore) asks me if she can help me and I told her I wanted to pay for my order. She asked what table I was at . I said “seriously, you don’t remember me? I was the frost customer you served today. She then wanted to charge me 2.5% to use my Amex. I told her I’m already paying nearly $40 for my disgusting meal.

We will not be back and I will not be recommending this place to anyone. It was a...

Booking was easy to make online, but it did require me to provide my credit card details to secure the booking ($10 booking fee per person). So the money will be deducted for no shows.

We visited for dinner as a party of 10 (7 adults and 3 toddlers). I had requested highchairs in my booking. There was a bit of confusion when we arrived because they tried to seat us in the traditional style seating (which won’t be practical because the kids booster seat can only be strapped down safely on the corners of the table, which meant they won’t be able to eat properly - see photo)

After some time a table was set up for us outside (there is outside seating in the middle of the upstairs area of The Kitchens) - it’s still considered ‘inside’, but just not inside the restaurant. We didn’t mind this because we had 3 kids and a pram, so we appreciated the extra space.

I think it took a while for the food to arrive, but understandable as we had so many people. For those who ordered the dinner banquet, their miso soup and salad arrived quite promptly.

I ordered a la carte: prawn tempura (which arrived as an entree), prawn and chicken fried rice and saiko wagyu. The tempura was not crunchy at all and the batter got soggy and started falling off the vegetables. The vegetables were mostly undercooked/raw. Luckily the fried rice and wagyu was very tasty and a good portion.

Others on the table who ordered the dinner banquet (teppanyaki beef, prawn and scallops) commented that their meals were too salty - this was reflected to the waitress.

We also ordered 4 Virgin mojitos (weird that they omitted straws in two of them) and a cocktail.

Service was good in general, especially from our waitress. There was a waiter who served hot soup and salad, reaching over one of the toddlers. We mentioned this to him and suggested choosing an open space/gap on the table to serve food.

One of us asked the same waiter for a small bowl for the baby (to eat from), and he brought us a ceramic serving plate? - I have reason to believe that this waiter is new and maybe have misunderstood/has a language barrier? Not sure! But we were quite clear in saying it’s...

If you are looking for an amazing teppanyaki show, then this is probably not the place for you. Upon booking we made a special enquiry to say that we were looking for an entertaining show and if this was something you could NOT accommodate then please let us know. They assured us it would be a good show and unfortunately we were disappointed.

We made this special request as last year for my birthday we had a disappointing teppanyaki experience and didn't want to repeat the same experience.

The chef didn't engage with us, did only a few tricks and seemed to be cooking various different meals for everyone else in the restaurant at the same time. If you weren't looking at the chef you would have missed the couple of tricks he did do.

The food was quite disappointing as well. The seafood was cooked nicely, however the fried rice was mushy and tasteless and the steak given it was sliced into various pieces ranged from medium rare to well cooked.

We spoke to management and the chef about the problem and they explained the situation, but at the end of the day we wanted an exciting entertaining experience, which we requested upfront and they could not deliver. They never should of taking our booking in the first place.

They did reduce the price of our bill but at the end of the day I was still disappointed and close to tears as I felt like we were promised an amazing show and it was another disappointing birthday teppanyaki experience.

If you are looking for a great show stick to Benihana, Asami or...