Shinta Japanese BBQ Mississauga — Restaurant in Mississauga

Compared to Shinta in Toronto, this location is far off from what the experience should be.

Firstly, we came as a group of 6 and we usually order for the group but the waitress insisted that we break the ordering up into a group of 3 and 3 or a group of 4 and 2. This was probably more confusing and more work for us to basically double order instead of splitting the dishes ourselves amongst 2 grills. We are all good friends after all and don’t mind sharing and passing items along the table for everyone.

Second, the ordering process took way too long. What is usually a 5 minute process for us to run down the menu listing off items we want to order, instead took 15 minutes. The waitress essentially listed every item on the menu verbally to ask us if we wanted to order it and seemed a little pushy for us to “try” things on the menu (like we got upsold at a AYCE?). It’s okay to be thorough for your job, but when you tell us there’s a 2h dining limit then proceed to take 15minutes to order, it really takes time away from me spending time with my friends, enjoying the food, and the seating time limit.

Third, the lighting was so bright. I was sitting under a pot light and it felt like a spotlight shinning right into my eyes. We told the waitress about it who did not offer any solution except to sit in the window ledge (not even a proper seat) away from the light. For people for may be more sensitive to light, just know they apparently cannot dim the lights because the ceiling is “too high”. It was extremely uncomfortable to sit there, perhaps if I had a hat to block the light.

Fourth, the servers seemed inexperienced and were very timid when bringing out the dishes, every time she would say in a very apologetic voice “I’m sorry” when putting down our dishes. The lack of confidence was quite apparent.

The food was as expected but came out very slowly. We found ourselves waiting for more dishes and then waiting even more to call a waitress to take our order (which takes a long time to go through the menu again).

Overall the entire experience and ambience was lack lustre. It does not live up to the Shinta name and reputation that they have created for themselves in their 2 original locations. We should have gone to the North York location.

Unfortunately, they also applied automatic tip. If it’s automatic, please at least provide a good experience, especially if it’s a large group out on...

It's on par with Takumi which is a few buildings away around the block. They are attached to Haru Shabu Shabu which is a hot pot place.

They have two pricing tiers for AYCE BBQ - Silver and Black. Silver is $100/person for wagyu beef and Black is $46/person for Angus beef. Apparently there is 10% off if you pay with cash Mon-Fri. They only take debit or cash.

The service was great. The food came out quickly, fresh and ready to be cooked. Hot items were fresh as well. I recommend the chicken kaarage! If you like eating the raw garlic, they give it to you very thinly sliced which makes it easier to eat but makes you eat more if you love it.

Decent portions of the meat and side dishes. At other places we always need to order multiple rounds of lettuce since you usually only get 3-4 prices but here it was a decent amount, maybe 6-7 pieces. The meats were marinated well and super tasty. The cheesy corn was very cheesy.

They have a few sushi dishes as well. 4pc for each one and they were good! One sushi dish which I was excited to try was eel and foi gras but that is included in the silver menu, so we could not get it.

They offer 4 different flavors of melona bar ice cream (Taro was a choice and was available!) or vanilla soft serve ice cream in a cone. I don't know if you can get both as we just grabbed a melona bar.

One thing I wanted to mention was a staff member was walking towards us and my husband raised his hand to let her know we needed some assistance. As she walked towards us and was about to pass him, he realized she wasn't going to stop so he just asked her for a refill of water as she walked by. She didn't stop or really acknowledge him, but said, "okay" across her shoulder as she went straight to the table in the back. One member who was cleaning up a table nearby came to our table, picked up the water jug and refilled it for us. We thanked her and thought the other lady was pretty rude for no reason. It was not busy at all so no excuse to brush us off like that. The other table was not a big party to attend to but either way, that's not a valid reason.

Other than the above comment, there's nothing special to really write home about. It was a good first time visit but not sure if we would visit again unless we were...

Was excited to try this place. Should’ve just stayed excited. From the moment we sat down, the experience steadily rolled downhill. Firstly, the ordering system is anxiety inducing. It’s all-you-can-eat, but instead of marking what you want, you flag down a server and hope they remember your order correctly - spoiler: they usually don’t.

Before ordering, we flagged a nut allergy at the table and asked if any marinades had nuts. Our server responded with zero confidence that all the marinades had peanuts. No allergy warnings on the menu, by the way. I acknowledge that we probably should have left at this point but we stupidly stayed.

He told us there were three beef options that were nut-free, and maybe a fourth. I said: “Okay, we’ll take those three. If the fourth is safe, please then add it.” Three minutes later, six cuts of beef show up, three of which are covered in marinades, aka peanut roulette. One of the marinaded ones, by the way, on the SAME plate as the nut-free ones.

We call him over and ask "don't these have nuts?” He confirms yes. We’re confused. He then says, “you can order anything without marinade.”...that would've been great to know before we ordered. We ask him to swap the nut ones for unmarinated versions. He says he can’t because they’ve already been made.

Eventually, he takes two away, but says we’re stuck with the third. Cool...nothing like a little cross-contamination panic to spice up dinner 😭

Then we re-ordered a cut that just had soy sauce. They brought... something else entirely. Oh and remember that fourth item he said he’d check on before adding? He added it anyway and then let us know it actually wasn’t nut-free.

We were never offered water while other tables got jugs and glasses.

Meat and sides generally were average at best.

I'm no food safety expert but they also served raw chicken on the same plate as beef, and didn't give separate tongs for it.

Would not go back, would not recommend. If you have a nut allergy and you decide to go, my thoughts and prayers...