Sarabeth's Tokyo — Restaurant in Tokyo

It’s a standard procedure for restaurants in Japan to serve mineral water when you’re seated. However, the staff didn’t.

Not to mention my friend was seated for 10 mins. When I was seated, they still didn’t provide any mineral water. It was a summer night, I was dehydrated, so I drank my mineral water from vending machine.

As soon as I drank a sip, the staff approached and said no outside drinks. Without saying sorry for not bringing mineral water for us first.

So I asked him back in Japanese: why didn’t you serve us mineral water then? He then just say okay I’ll bring it here, without apologizing.

So I talked to another man in black suit about the thing happened just now. I also told him it’s not my first time eating in Tokyo Sarabeth’s, I’ve been to the one in Shinjuku or Nagoya. His explanation was different Sarabeth’s has different serving procedures, only Tokyo Sarabeth’s serves water after you’ve ordered, and they usually serve water first during lunch time. I also told him I’ll write an e-mail to ask Sarabeth’s if it’s true that they train different branches different procedure, or it’s just pure discrimination because both my friend and I were speaking Chinese. He then apologize and mean no...

IT WAS A HORRIBLE EXPERIENCE. We came at our reservation time which was 11 but we had to wait till 11:15 to even get acknowledged from the staff. Then despite having space in the resteraunt the manager took us one level up to the bar and gave us a picnic table and chairs to sit on. The manager said that since we only made the reservation early morning on the same day somehow it was worth less than other reservations. The bar itself was secluded and we were the only patrons there. I mentioned to the manager that his treatment felt very unwelcoming and we were considering leaving which he was fine with. It was only my spouse who stepped in and argued with them to honor the booking and seat us in the proper seating area. We were then able to get a table for 4 in the regular dining area which was was OK for our family of 6. All this haggling left us with little time to order and left us wolfing down our food and still got 40 minutes late for our next appointment at 12 noon. The food was nowhere of the quality of Sarabeths NYC, maybe we had lost our flavour after the...

The ricotta pancakes were good but I was put off by how unfriendly the waitress at the front counter was. Being a foreigner who could only speak fluent English, I wrongly described in Japanese the number of seats needed. While waiting outside, I decided to go in and tell her the correct number of people. I was with my little one in a stroller so I didn’t wanna leave my baby outside alone. I opened the door to tell her but she immediately asked me to step aside and wait outside. That wasn’t very nice of her as the other customers turned and looked at me as if I was desperate to get in. I think she could have tried to understand what’s going on first (even if English isn’t understood) before shooing a customer out. It’s not the only franchise so I wouldn’t visit this one again if I’m given a choice. Another waitress who looked more like a manager showed me nicely another exit where it was more stroller friendly. That...