Ryoma Japanese BBQ — Restaurant in Sydney

Was really hoping that this place would be good, but it really let us down. My friend and I had ordered takeaway a couple of times and were impressed by the quality of the food. So we were keen to have a dine in experience with a group of our friends. Unfortunately, we were extremely unimpressed by their service. Upon our restaurant experience we had multiple mishaps:

Last minute cancelled our booking – We made a booking (by physically going into the store) and asking for a booking for a group of people later that night, around 8pm (as we knew it would be too busy to come during their peak hours). So we organised all our friends to make their way to the restaurant, with the understanding that our booking was confirmed. Then 5 mins before our booking, we get a text message from the restaurant saying that our booking has been taken by a last minute online booking. However we had all our guests already at the venue. This was so badly organised, especially when there is a $250 deposit for the table.

Dirty cutlery – Throughout the night quite a lot of our utensils seemed not 100% clean, but we aren't the pickiest group so we just let it go. But, what got us was when we asked for two pairs of scissors to cut our meat and the staff returned with 2 visibly used scissors (there was oil, left over burnt meat all over it)

Rude staff – We know its busy and just putting a hand over to grab things is fine, but there was a particular staff member who repeatedly shoved their shoulder onto our friend when reaching for things on our table. We don't expect the 'upmost service', but for a $90 buffet you would expect at least just common etiquette.

The amazing food quality we will not fault, but the service was terrible. Would not recommend coming here in person, but ordering takeaway is fine. Rather go into the city for a cheaper buffet, with...

4 stars for the food, but no star for customer service of the shop manager.

Have been to this Japanese bbq restaurant multiple times, knowing they are not famous for it's customer service but our last visit was absolutely shocking.

Walked in a Saturday night at around 7:40pm, no greeting from the shop manager but waving his hand signaling us to close the door behind us - what a great start of our dinner :( Brought us to the table and told us we could order from the iPad at the end, which was a new setup from our last visit, but no explanations/ instructions were provided. Fine, we've been here before, and certainly could work our way out and order.

We had the buffet for $89 per person, the meat quality was good for its price and the services from the waitresses were nice. However, the shop manager always had a long face when attended our table and answered all our questions arrogantly. No last order reminder and they just cut out our session and stop us from ordering more, was told that there was a reminder on the iPad, but to be fair, who would look at the iPad while we were all busy cooking and eating? At the end, the staff (not the manager) was willing to place the order for the ice cream after a bit of negociation, but this shouldn't happen if proper signal is given to customers!

Ice cream served, then the manager asked another staff to take all the dishes and clean up the table while we are STILL EATING!! He was saying now the dessert is served so we need to take all the dishes off. Cannot agree on his logic but had to ask him to stop doing it and left us alone.

All in all, very poor customer service thanks to the store manager, and surely they won't have my...

Food is great, great Jbbq, no doubt about it. Customer experience can improve.

We feel that the restaurant could benefit from better customer experience and training. The staff had to keep confirming if we have ordered the dish once it arrives and they also kept asking if we have finished the Lettuce for some reason but the Lettuce is actually the dish (they thought it's decoration of another dish - it feels like staff not familiar with dishes). We've been rushed a few times to finish our meal towards the end, that's okay I understand that the buffet is 90 minutes and there are bookings after us. It would have been a more comfortable experience if we had the warning earlier or even at the beginning of the meal and not only 20 minutes before we leave because we were really enjoying the food and they all of the sudden we have the stuff whatever we had on the table into our stomach under 20 mins. Also it would have been nice to also get told that it's CASH ONLY if you don't have Wechat pay/Alipay at the beginning of the meal, so we wouldn't have to run to the ATM after in the cold after we return the table and come back to pay.

One more suggestion is because my girlfriend and I are huge fans of Jbbq and had jbbqs all around Sydney, we see that the variety of food is still missing a bit here compared to the other ones. Such as scallop Sashimi, fried oysters, soups and perhaps more snacks, very sad that the scallop to grill is also sold out - that was our favourite! The drinks variety tho, super!! And we loved...