The Oven — Restaurant in Tokyo

We visited this buffet as part of our university graduation celebration and my husband and I were utterly disappointed! Where do I even start? Okay so for the positives, the terrace view is amazing so try to get seats on the terrace. We were able to get terrace seats quite easily without any prior reservations. Another positive, there are a lot of food items and a lot of variety, but to my husband and myself, it seemed like the food options were more international than American per say. Anyhow, on to the negative aspects. We went with our 6 month old who was sleeping in her stroller as we were about to head into the restaurant, so obviously we wanted to keep her in the stroller. But no, we had to wake her up and take her out of the stroller because they don't allow any strollers inside. So then my husband asked so where will our baby sit? The waiter said in our laps or to just make her lie down on the seats and if we can't do that, then we should feel free to go to another restaurant. Yes, that's exactly what he said!! But since we already had a large group (as it was a university celebration that we had planned ahead and made reservations for), we couldn't just head out of the place. So we just had to keep our baby on our lap as she can't sit yet (even on baby chairs). And this is how we spent 120 minutes in that restaurant! Another negative, food is nothing special, just your regular items.......and the halal options...

I was enticed by the taco bar. It looked appetizing, but looks were deceiving. It must be an off day. The salad bar greens were off white and not refilled the entire service. In fact, I don’t think anyone checked the buffet tables to check on the food. Everything was overly salty, but it seemed that it was not over seasoned, but sat at the buffet for so long that everything dried out and the salts concentrated. They had roasted chicken and a pork roast on a rotisserie, but all the meat dishes scattered around the rest of the buffet seems to have been derived from dried out, over cooked, left over chicken and pork rotisserie. The taco meat was also unreasonably salty. The only bright point was the one waitress that helped me out at the dessert bar. I wanted to cook my own waffle, but she was apparently instructed that she do it and not I. The only enthusiastic eye contact and polite attempt at service. But she seemed new to the job and ruined the first attempt. As if it was her first time making waffles but have only watched her instructor do it once before. I was not turned off only because of her excellent recovery and polite service. Nobody else seemed to care and she was the only person working there to smile and communicate with the customers. It was cheap, but the entire experience, except for the view,...

4 years ago this was the rate and review I gave: 4 stars & “Good food with good value and a great view specially at night! Most food consists of various chicken recipes, a couple of pasta dishes, soups, some veggies, a few desserts, fruits, and a brown & white chocolate fountain for dipping. There’s also an array of drinks to choose from!”

But today, a few hours ago, after we celebrated my son’s birthday, I would rate it 2 stars for the following reasons: the food weren’t are as par as the ones before, the yakisoba and the taco filling was too salty and maybe has a little bit more cumin or garam masala for the aroma was too strong, the pasta with white sauce was too bland, the roast pork looks so pale and uncooked, the “maki roll” was too thin and barely have any filling in the middle. Some of the dishes that saved the day were the spaghetti, roast chicken, chicken fritters(covered with orange batter), the chicken soup, and the not so many desserts and sweets. I don’t know what’s happening with the The Oven restaurant but it’s starting to disappoint and unsatisfy it’s customers. They should also remove the word “american” in the buffet coz it isn’t anymore. It’s more like “profit...