Japanese Village — Restaurant in Ottawa

My last two visits haven't been good ones. I liked this place years ago, but the prices have gone up almost 50% and the quality has gone down. The server didn't bring soy sauce with the appetizer and didn't come back around. We were the only table there at the time, so we went and grabbed it ourselves.

I don't care much for the tricks, but if I'm paying for it, it should be entertaining. Today's chef was dropping his utensils, and none of his knives were sharp. He struggled to remove the tails from the shrimp and cut the chicken. The lemons were sliced so thin no juice came out when he twisted them. Our table was laughing, so it was some form of nervous entertainment. I hoped his mistakes were part of an act at first, but the dull knives explained it. He did the usual routine of Japanese ketchup and Japanese cola, but if you didn't know it you wouldn't have made out the words he was saying.

There may as well have not been a salad, the dressing was the only good part of it. The tuna sashimi wasn't fresh, I would've rather gone to an all-you-can-eat for what we ate. The main dishes were mediocre, and only came with one type of sauce, not the two they used to serve. There were no chopsticks, which would've been okay if the fork came with a knife. They'll bring you a butter knife if you ask.

They weren't running any of the fans for ventilation today. The smell was too strong towards the end of the meal. Their computer was stuck in a loop that kept crashing. It took five minutes before the girl pulled out her iPhone to calculate the price.

I don't know what happened, I'm not able to recommend this...

The food was great, the service was the worst I have ever seen. We had a very tactless server. So my friend and I went there for dinner. Since we were not very hungry we just ordered sushi and one teriyaki chicken to share. The waitress was literally bullying us to order more stuff like “is that all you’re getting??” “You’re not hungry??” as I understand she probably meant that the portions were small but her way of expressing that was soo condescending. She made it sound like we shouldn’t have come if we are not ordering more food. She went on to repeatedly approach us and say that we can’t order again once the food is made (in front of us) we said that we understand that and just ordered extra rice she turns saying “but you have to pay for it” we are like “yes, we realize that” it’s not our first time at a restaurant and obviously if you are ordering extra you are paying extra. When we got the bill, we paid and left the receipt inside the little folder, she yelled at us saying “wait I didn’t get my receipt!!!” We told her it is inside the little book and she opened it and looked at the receipt and had to audacity to say “you didn’t tip me??” Never had such a tactless server ever in my life. The management has to pay attention to who they are hiring. The lady with the glasses was our server and she had no manners whatsoever. Bullying us, condescending and then her entitlement to get a tip. For what? We are both very generous tippers but that lady was never going to get an extra...

This is going to be a bit of a difficult review to write.

On one hand, this is a staple and they’ve been here since 1972 and I remember it being “awesome” in 2000s.

For starters, this place is as Japanese as Taco Bell is Mexican. If you’re looking for asian food that tastes like your neighbour hood “Chinese take out” at 5x the price, that’s over seasoned w soy sauce, you’ve come to the right place. The fact that a “Japanese” restaurant doesn’t even have chopsticks laid out, should’ve been our first red flag.

If you’re looking for something a little bit more elevated, a little bit more than approachable “chain” style restaurant, steer clear.

I’ll give them that the chef was nice and the brief “show” of your food cooked in front of you was neat for 20 seconds but thats literally about it.

For two adults and a child, we spent $186 on some veggies stir-fried in strong soy sauce, fairly basic “asian salad” and “good enough” steak for 2 of them.

I personally wouldn’t go back; it’s neither a good Japanese restaurant nor an adequate steak house that warrants such price points.

The staff were trying, I feel like they were a little short staffed but we waited longer than we should’ve unattended.

I completely lost my appetite when I walked by the open sewage pump room, with the completely open view of the sewage pit on my way of the bathrooms.

The lack of parking and difficulty of even a drop off due to the bike lane will be a...