Japanese Village — Restaurant in West Jasper Place

Here's the context for this review. I've been going to Japanese Village locations in Edmonton since their original location downtown in the early 1980s--before Burger King, Wendy's, Arby's, or Denny's had a single restaurant in town. With that kind of longevity, they must be doing something right. I've had teppanyaki dozens of times, in many different cities. I'm not a newbie. So let's see how this location is.

Your first impression is that this is an enormous, high-ceilinged, cavernous space. That's not great for two reasons. First, teppanyaki is one of the most intimate, personal dining experiences you can have. A giant space like this is not conducive to that. Second, there are lot of hard surfaces and roaring exhaust fans above every table that make hearing the performer's patter nearly impossible. It's not just my old ears: two teenagers in our group missed most of what he was saying. It wasn't a big deal for me; I've been to JV so many times, I know all the lines by heart ("Japanese cooking oil from Costco", "Japanese mushrooms from my basement", "onions from Superstore"--like I said, I've been dozens of times). If this is your first visit, though, you're going to miss out on a lot, and this is one of the main reasons to have teppanyaki. Our chef tried, but still his voice was lost in all the noise. There's no background music. Or, if there was, I couldn't hear it. (At least they're not trying to blast you into oblivion like every other restaurant on BRBN St.) All those fans going still can't clear the air well enough, so you're going to walk out smelling like cooking. Don't wear any clothes that have to be dry-cleaned.

Now, the food. Included appetizers are the standard shabu shabu egg-drop soup, garden salad, and two shrimp. The soup arrived at room temperature and was congealed into a gloopy mess. It was literally disgusting, not appetizing. The salad was actually frozen, which means two things. One, there is very poor food quality control. And second, the salads are not prepared freshly for you, but were made hours in advance in stashed in a refrigerator that doesn't seem to work properly. Both of these are yikes for an expensive restaurant like this. I brought up the problems with the server, who had difficulty hearing me (yeah, all those loud fans). But she said she would tell the manager. And that was it. No one came by the table to discuss this any further. It was not super busy (before 6:00 on a Friday), so there is no excuse for this embarrassing lapse.

On to the hot food. Our table was full up with eight people, who ordered just about every possible item: shrimp, lobster, various steaks, salmon, and chicken. If you're the poor sap who ordered the chicken, you're going to wait a long time because that's the last thing cooked. I've never understood why they can't manage to have more meats ready at the same time. The steaks were cooked as requested (medium), but were pretty gristly and chewy.

Curiously, bean sprouts have been swapped out for broccoli. That doesn't matter much to me, but now you don't get the "Japanese french fries" gag. (See? I know all the lines.) The veggies were the first items placed on the griddle, but the last to be served. In the past, you would get your veggies plated first and then the meat at the end, so that's a switch. The problem with this new method is that the veggies sat on the griddle the whole time, getting soggy and limp. Worse, they were burnt. That's never happened to me before at JV.

The chef's performance was mediocre. Once, he dropped his fork. They no longer do the "salt and pepper" juggling routine. Worst of all, there's a bit where the chef tries to toss a piece of broccoli in your mouth. In our case, it went into a customer's mouth, bounced out again, and landed on the griddle in the middle of the cooking veggies. I should have walked out right then.

Overall, a disappointing experience. I would have thought that a location at West Edmonton Mall would be a flagship restaurant. Instead, lower the flag to half-mast for this...

The hostess was so rude 15 minutes late for a reservation as we couldn’t find parking and he said he gave away our table. He said we could sit at the bar but we couldnt order anything but apps, then they told us about ordering food to go but when I try to order the kids meal for my son they said we couldn’t order that to go so we couldn’t order to the bar or to go??? What!? so in order to get the meal that he wanted has to wait 70 minutes for the next table. I was exhausted and frustrated so I ordered my son appetizers to the bar the saving grace was a bartender was amazing! Very polite and very kind considerate guy who went out of his way to ask my son about superheroes and put a smile on his face. That tempura that I ordered for my son because he was starving came out wrong don’t want it it’s not even cooked literally almost an edible but my son was so hungry after waiting 25 minutes for some fried shrimp that he ate It but the batter was not crispy at all and how do you not beg me to keep it I would’ve sent it back. Adam the bar tender was my hero as he it’s kind and fun and entertain my son, totally saved our night! When we finally got to our table we were absolutely starving so we were grateful the chef came out right away. We got an experienced chef he didn’t amazing job bowl of soup was super small and not even halfway full and the sun lid had barely any dressing on it but everything the chef cooked was delicious and he had a good sense of humour same jokes as always but he said them well. however I was absolutely dying of thirst the entire meal and nobody even brought me a water then at the end they brought me two separate bills instead of putting it on one bill putting me in a position where I need to tip both of them and pay twice overall I’m not impressed if it wasn’t my son‘s favourite restaurant I probably...

Disappointed at the last 2 visits. A couple of months ago we went and ordered the steak and shrimp. The shrimp was extremely undercooked. We ate a few before realizing and ended up getting sick later that night. We let the server know that it was undercooked before we left and the shrimp was removed from the bill, but honestly it didn't feel like enough considering how sick we got.

Tonight we tried again and the cooks nails were extremely long and dirty, he also accidentally spat in the food as he was talking but continued to cook anyway. The server was barely seen throughout the experience, and came to check in and do refills only towards the end of the meal. My partner also got the steak and chicken, and when he finally received the chicken at the end he only ended up with about 5 small pieces of chicken. I think the cook forgot that it was part of his order and gave the majority to the other people sharing the table with us.

I do want to mention that the people who work there are extremely kind and courteous when serving. However, it was too hard to ignore the other issues despite their kindness. Especially considering their very high prices.

It's only disappointing because this restaurant was a favorite of ours for years, but the quality of service and food has decreased lately along with price increases. We likely won't be going back again, there are much more quality restaurants in the city with similar or...