Restaurant TATSUMI — Restaurant in Haarlemmermeer

We had high hopes for Tatsumi Japanese BBQ given the glowing reviews and attractive pictures. Normally, I wouldn’t go out of my way to write a disappointed review, but we believe this place has potential, so we thought it worth sharing our honest feedback. As fans of the Japanese BBQ concept, which we’d love to see more of in the Netherlands, we were excited to give it a try.

Firstly, the service: you can tell the staff do their best and are friendly. However, there were several issues that detracted from our experience. We weren’t greeted at the entrance, which felt weird and unwelcoming. My drink was taken away before it was empty, and only after 40 minutes was the grill turned on, only for it not to work, so we had to move places—just when we thought things couldn’t get worse. Only 50 minutes upon arriving did we get our meats for the grill, which is quite unjustified considering they were raw and only needed preparation. Waiting over 10 minutes for something as simple as plain white rice was also disappointing, especially since it’s a staple accompaniment for the meats.

Speaking of the meats, they were not of high quality. Despite Wagyu being a highlight on their menu, we thought we'd first try the other meats, which unfortunately did not leave us with a good impression. This experience on top of the long waiting time made us skeptical and unwilling to try the supposed A5 Wagyu.

One of the servers did apologize for the “chaotic” service, which we appreciated. However, typically, such an apology might come with a discount or a complimentary beverage, which was neither suggested nor provided.

All in all, while the intentions were there, the execution missed the mark. Unfortunately, we don’t think we will be...

Food was not easy to justify it. They served the fresh grind wasabi which was great, but sashimi was too cold. Freezing even.. Salade with tuma. I was expecting fresh salade with raw tuna cuts, but i got mashed potato whicb was fine but i never ever saw mashed potato in any Japanese restaurant back in my country/countries in the region.. Meat was oke. They did the cut correctly. Seasoning was oke. Furnace and smoke sucton were exactly the same in my country. First time saw these are used in NL. Great job. But the BBQ furnace temporature was too low.. Please tune the temporature or let customers to make the adjustment if they know how to do. Otherwise, the meats are wastes by not grill in the correct conditions. Onigili and beef bowl were great and correct. Recommend it. Service was very friendly. Appreciate the efforts made. Price wise, it is hard for me to justify. Back to my country, it is similar price but quality and diversity of ingredients are much better than this restaurant serves, however, consider in whole NL that it is not common to see this type of bbq place. Surely, it could be interesting for you to experience once.. 3 stars is not intend to give low evaluation but...

I had the most disappointing experience at this restaurant. I’ve eaten at many Asian restaurants, but I have never had an experience this bad. I ended up waiting 1 hour and 30 minutes just to get raw meat for the BBQ. Even something as simple as white rice and miso soup took forever to arrive.

The service was incredibly slow, and it seemed like the staff didn’t care about how long customers had to wait. By the time the food finally arrived, I had lost my appetite. For a Japanese restaurant, this level of service is unacceptable.

If you don’t want to end up with the same terrible experience we had, please pass on this restaurant. It’s absolutely...