Senbazuru Japanese Restaurant — Restaurant in Haarlemmermeer

Let me start with a little disclaimer that we are a bit of a chubby couple and not realy used to 'fine dining' the below reflects our personal experience/opinion.

We went here for our anniversary. Arriving in a big room with multiple bar-like hot plates with 8 seats on each hotplate.

We were being seated next to another couple already there, the rest of the table was still empty.

Lost of menu options but we chose the 'chef's choice B' menu, this means according to the menu to let the chef do whatever he wants to serve us. In the end we kind of regret this choice, we were expecting some experimental unique styled food experimenting with flavours and such but the 'chef's choice' seemed to be a set menu, just not showing the courses in-menu. We noticed this as the other arrived couples filling the seats getting the exact same menu albeit different tiers. The higher price for set 'B' seems to not have offered anything more compared to the other sets.

As the restaurant filled up it became clear that mutiple tables had to share a chef, this meant that after we got a appetizer(not made by the table-chef but straight from the kitchen) we had to wait 1 to 1,5 hour for our next course; The chef first finished cooking the previous couple's food and left for a while to cook at a different table, leaving us hungry and bored, this happened multiple times. After returning the chef put on a nice show with some tricks and cool fire and this resulted in 1 shrimp with some godly avocado sauce, the best we ever tasted... But a far too small amount of food to make us happy.

The same went for the other courses we received, great taste, bybfar leaving us more hungrynthat satisfied, and note: while the chef made our courses the other 2 couples arriving after us did not get any food yet as they in turn had to wait for ours to finish, making us feel a bit bad...

All in all we sat there from 17:30 untill 22:00 and left hungry and sadly unsatisfied... We got some food elsewhere on the way back home.

We're happy we did this because it was on our list but never again.

Advice for the restaurant, increase the amount of chef's or limit your reservations.

Also: offer some sides while waiting(i.e. Fried rice or something,...

This Japanese restaurant is located around 1.5 Km from center market of hoofddorp.

The ambience is really nice and gives out vibes of entering a typical Japanese restaurant. The seating arrangement is not very typical Dutch style. You sit around a big heated plate which is is used by the chef to cook food. If you are a large group of more than 8 people than in this kind of seating you won't be able to talk to each other in group conversations as you will be seating bit far away.

The staff is really rice and was very fast to react to the needs and made sure we were always comfortable. The food is cooked right in fornt of you and you can see how chef transforms normal looking meat and vegetables into finger licking delicious. I am a vegetarian and they even had quite a lot of varieties for vegetarian food as well. The total time it takes to end meals is around 3 hours but with the wait inbetween the rounds and all the chef's action in front of you it times passes by fast. They only provide chop sticks but if you are uncomfortable eating with chopsticks you can always request for fork and knife.

The restaurant is quite expensive and a meal for two can easily be around 130 euro. If you are looking for value for money then this is not a best place for you. However if you are looking for a nice experience to experience with nice ambiance and food being cooked in front of you than...

I am updating my review from 6 months ago when I posted that it was an "Awesome place! Friendly and going the extra mile!". This was for the take away part. We decided to go to the restaurant to eat in, and unfortunately we were quite disappointed: we spent an average of 60€ per person for a great food, but the service and organisation was very bad: We reserved for 18:00 and turned up at 18:00. They sat us down at a table and I ended up in the corner, next to the bottles and spices for the cook, quite disappointing! Then we waited, and at around 18:40 another family came to our table and sat together, and only then did the dinner start! We learned that they only start service when the table is full, not before! very frustrating! there was no communication, no warning, we were there with our young kids, quite hungry and annoyed! no effort from the staff to amend the situation or even realise that they made the mistake! Moreover, the chef at our table was 'shared' with another table! This is the first and last time that I will set foot in that place. For the price, it is...