Japanese Village — Restaurant in Calgary

Tired and long since worn out. I remember the ads back in the 80's as a kid, and this was the place to go to watch the show. About 6 years ago up in Edmonton, we took my father out at one of these for dinner. It was ok, but there was none of the show that they used to do with flipping utensils around..etc. Fast forward to last weekend, and we went to the Calgary location for my birthday thinking the kids would enjoy it. six years later, the entire script was EXACTLY the same.. the same jokes..yuk yuk.. the same pranks.. EXACLTY what we saw in Edmonton 6 years ago. Zero flipping or spinning things around, just a tired old comedy script they have memorized and just want to get through, most of the time mumbling. At every table there was a birthday.. they don't do anything other than stack a bunch of onion rings, call it a cake and light the grill on fire. It's no different at any table.. and that's it. For the price, and this isn't cheap, you should get better. It's like they want to save money on heating a grill up, so you are crammed around a few they have on. Literally half the restaurant grills were empty. So instead we have 12 people on one side of one, 12 people on the other side crammed in. 24 people in a booth. What incredibly irritating is that they could have simply turned on other grills in the place and cut the crowded tables down in half. When you have this many people around a table, there simply isn't enough grill space to do a good job. So when they do veggies for example, that's it because they can't fit anything else. You get a pile of cooked veggies, and then they start the protein. The onions were an extremely thick disc, that they cut in half once so you have these huge undercooked pieces. But it makes the whole meal discombobulated eating different things one after another vs all at once. After the steak and fish, and chicken, they then throw a pile of sprouts on the grill.. which ends up just being a pile of cooked sprouts on your now empty plate as your last food item because you aren't going to sit and let your $35 steak go cold.. and you have no idea if that was the last thing or not.... wha?? Literally 5 minutes after serving the ice cream, they come around with the bills and a machine. There is no sitting here.. oh no.. it's pay up and then get out. I have never felt so rushed anywhere.. like cattle they just want to run through as fast as possible. It was actually insulting after paying what they are asking.

I doubt they will actually work on anything. What used to be fun about this place just isn't there anymore. It's sad because I really like the concept. If you have gone once, there really is zero compelling reasons to go a second time. For the money, you can have WAY better elsewhere, and not have to cringe laugh at the stale "wd-40" from...

Good food . Fun atmosphere. After living in Japan for the past two decades I'd say this is a western take on Japanese cuisine and teppanyaki. No Japanese restaurant would ever rush the customer to move along and advise them that there are people waiting to get in. That never happens in Japan. There's also a zero tipping culture in Japan and we were all forced to pay a tip which was automatically added... I'm not complaining about the tip as we really enjoyed watching the cook. Typically I enjoy tipping but I was disappointed to see that it was automatically added.

( You have the right to tell them to remove the tip )

I also felt that they rushed us to leave after the cooking presentation and our plates were still practically warm as we had just finished enjoying our meals. Our host lady came to us advising us that there is a table waiting to sit at our teppanyaki booth and we will have to go . We were only there for about 45 min and there were a few empty booths available. I was also upset that they actually charge quite a bit of money to take a souvenir picture and sing happy Birthday to your group celebrating special occasions. And forget about getting a complimentary dessert for somebody celebrating their birthday as that definitely won't happen.. I don't even think they have cake but they do have delicious ice cream.

One of my favorite childhood memories was going to Japanese village in the '70s. They put on a great show. They gave outstanding service. They offered a beautiful FREE Polaroid framed to capture the occasion. This needs to come back .

The man cooking was fun , organized and professional , but the rest of the staff made us feel rushed and un relaxed.

The Japanese food in the Shopping mall food court is comparable and about 70% cheaper for the same amount of food and quality . I'll probably tip that hard working kid in the mall $ 50 on my next shopping trip and walk away...

Food delicious. So disappointed in Japanese Village management staff. January 19/18. When we made the reservation we said 2 adults, 3 kids with 1 high chair. We had to change our reservation from 11:45 to 12 because we got held up, and were told on the phone it was no problem. We were asked by a man working if we needed a high chair, and I watched him set the high chair up at a table further down in the restaurant. After he seated 3 or 4 groups before us, he finally took us down and he had set the high chair, with no tray, on the corner of the table (counter, whatever you call it there) . I don’t mean on the end, but at the corner so there was only the tip of the corner of it in front of the high chair. When we questioned him about it, he asked if we were buying a meal for the baby. We were planning on the kids splitting a meal. He said something along the lines, well that’s what you get. I told him we had been many times under the same circumstances and had never had this happen. He just shrugged and said, well that’s how it is (or something like that) . After he left we were trying to figure how to sit everyone and I went and asked for the manager. The fellow said he would send him down but he never showed. That’s because the guy who sat us was the manager, we think the owners son. We have been going there for 35 years, since my daughter was 2 and had not once been told that babies can’t actually have table space unless we buy a meal for them. Ridiculous and so rude, the way he spoke to us. If the kids hadn’t been hungry and we were downtown, we would have left. Now I wish we had. Saving grace ... excellent meal prepared by a fantastic and friendly cook,

We will be...