Katsuya - Yorkdale — Restaurant in Toronto

Visited on Friday, Jan 31/25 at 7:40PM for dine in.

I don't what happened - but this restaurant really dropped the ball and I'm honestly pretty disappointed.

It was my first time at Katsuya but my friends had been there before. We sat down and scanned the QR menu at 7:43pm, there were MAYBE 4 other tables of guests inside the restaurant.

15 minutes had passed and the sever had not come over, so one of our party of four went to the back to ask if she could take our order.

A little later she came back from the kitchen to say our orders would take 15-20 minutes longer than usual and would bring our appetizers out first. When she did bring them out (eventually) the crab croquettes were warm, filled with a lot of potato and cheese and not much crab. We were given a side of French fries for free I guess to thank us for waiting.

We waited a very long time for our food... Two tables left and were not cleaned in the interim and it just seemed extremely slow.

One MAJOR observation was the kitchen seemed to be prioritizing Food Delivery orders over people in the restaurant. Several food delivery people were seen coming and going with large orders vs the people dining in who were waiting to be served.

Keep in mind we saw one server and one cook in the back, even the server was cooking - eventually a 2nd kitchen staff showed up later in the evening.

We waited well over an hour with no indication of when our food was coming so that same friend got up and asked how long our food would be. Server said less than five minutes. We were about ready to leave at this point because service was abysmal.

The food was honestly extremely mediocre. It was also luke warm by the time it arrived to the table. Nothing special. I can't say anything good about it. We were all extremely hungry so we ate it in a hurry so we could leave. *time was unfortunately not recorded but the entire experience took over an hour thirty

I'm not Japanese but I think I was most offended by the Takoyaki which was a doughball - deep fried - and crunchy on the outside. The ratio of octopus to dough inside was just upsetting. I have never had a takoyaki DEEP FRIED and crunchy before.

This should not happen on a Friday night. I'm pretty sure even the food delivery drivers were angry.

I will not be returning to Katsuya.

Regardless of if everything went right tonight I really was not impressed with the food. It was just so lifeless, the pork loin was nothing to write home about, very few sesame seeds were given to me for my Japanese set and the portion of rice to katsu was just pathetic. Another friend even pre-ordered a second bowl of rice which never came and we were convinced there was no point of even trying to get more bowls.

We should have just left after our appetizers.

*honestly it is not the servers fault she was the only one working - in a way I blame management for not handling...

This place used to be my favourite spot to eat! I was so disappointed with the entire service today. My family and I get there and wait a long period of time to get our order taken while the server was busy talking over the phone, he had headphones on and ignored us the entire time while waiting. The table behind us was dirty and was not cleaned from the people that were previously there. It was dirty and disgusting to see the entire place to in such conditions. After waiting for so long our server who is the same guy who ignored us, proceeded to take our order while he was still on a call with the headphones. We ordered 2 DIET COKES and 3 Red chicken carbonara. A few minutes goes by and he comes back with a Coke Zero and a Canadian drink, we proceed to tell him that we ordered 2 diet cokes and minutes afterwards our food finally comes and it is not the right order. We proceed to tell him and he says we did order that and so we tell him that we did not and is not possible to take customer orders properly if you have headphones on the entire time. We ended up leaving and not touching or eating anything because we were not gonna pay for something that we did not order after such bad service it’s not worthy to come to this location at all. The servers and the staff does not...

Ever so close to a perfect experience, if not only for an isolated circumstance that happened during our time eating there.

I love the concept of this Japanese fusion restaurant. They have fun, interestingly crafted meals. Two of which we had ordered are the Carbonara Udon $17.50 and the Brick Cheese Katsu $22.90. The meals are not only cool and exciting, but the taste of the food can also properly back up the gimmick.

The Carbonara Udon has creamy carbonara sauce and comes with 2 tempura pieces. For the Brick Cheese Katsu, I ordered the Gold & Silver Katsu to be able to sample both the Cheddar cheese wrapped inside the pork loin (Gold Katsu), as well as the Mozzarella cheese which is the Silver Katsu. It is a great combination of hot, fried food with a cheesy, creamy filling.

Service was honestly a mixed bag. On many occasions, we found ourselves having trouble getting the waiters' attention because the staff are situated at the far back of the narrow restaurant. It was a good thing thay the staff are very courteous. They attended to and took care of an isolated request we had during the time we were there.

The menu may be a bit more pricey compared to other similar establishments. Almost all of the meals start off at...