TENGU — Restaurant in Okinawa

It has been a while since I dined here, and I meant to leave a review about it a while back. I was just going to let it go, but recently I visited another Yakiniku restaurant that uses the same grills and I felt compelled to go back and write this one finally as well. Then I also remembered how the staff treated us due to their equipment malfunctioning.

First, I have visited a many many many Yakiniku restaurants across Japan now as I have lived here for many years and there seems to be a trend with new restaurants using this Healthy Roaster. I am not sure if it is a cost saving decision because they are supposedly smokeless and the restaurant would not need to install the elaborate ventilation system or what, but the Healthy Roaster ruins the Yakiniku experience. The sizzle that you expect to hear from grilling meats does not happen when you put the meat on this contraption that I will not call a grill. It is more of an oven, and an oven does not give you the same flavor as grilling meats on a gas or charcoal grill! The meats take forEVER to cook on this thing but somehow the heat is so overwhelming that it often burns your hands because the tongs are not long enough. I’m ok with some rare meats too and even eat some raw like yuke or liver sashi (uma), but the Healthy Roaster makes it difficult to tell if any meats are cooked well or not and some meats I just prefer a little more cooked like tongue and horumon. The description for any Yakiniku using this thing should say “Baked Meats.”

Now, as if the terrible meat baking machine wasn’t enough, this one seemed to begin malfunctioning. It was actually operating like a real grill and we were pretty happy about it. However the staff noticed that our grill was producing smoke from what was supposed to be a smokeless meat cooking contraption and they came over and asked us to remove all of the meat from it. We did and they came over and filled the thing with water on the side where there was a little hole. I guess the tubes that go across what would normally be the grill are filled with water to keep it from producing smoke? Anyway, the garbage meat cooking contraption still continues to work like a normal grill after and was still producing smoke. So… here’s where I finally said never again. They bring us a bucket of ice and tell us that we need to clean the grill and that it was producing too much smoke. So that was all of a sudden our problem? I immediately said hell no, just move us to a different table with a working contraption. But my wife kept saying it’s fine, I’ll do it, and she did. Now I know that the ice is common at places that use charcoal because the oil dripping down into the coals and flame creates more flames, but this was straight up indentured servitude. My wife was literally doing their work in order to eat there.

In hind sight I should have asked to talk to a manager, demanded a discount, or something. But my wife likes to avoid confrontation like that and we walked out. Terrible experience overall. The grill made the meats suck until it broke, the staff needs to learn a thing or two about customer service and customer intimacy, and an apology was never offered. -10...

The food quality was really bad, some of the meat were still frozen when served. Moreover, the color were too black and the meat is hard and spit some out. Even we ordered the higher quality meats. The texture of meat was still not good. It’s really disappointing. We will never come...

It’s a clean and comfortable dining environment, the cost-effective meals are both good to go with young children. I’m glad to find this place and have lunch here 2times while we stay in American Village. It is highly recommended when you’re...