Tony's Teppan Yaki Japanese Restaurant — Restaurant in Christchurch

Booked a table for my family, 3× children aged 2, 8, 10 & 2× adults (my partner & me)

We had a 6pm reservation seated on the south side of the grill with the window behind us, absolutely great seating.

Our two youngest just ordered a sushi meal each. Our 10yr-old ordered the all you can eat. Received 4× dishes the entire night with an outrageous waiting time. 1 dish then 20 min wait for the next. It needed to be renamed "All you can wait". When he left, he said "Dad I'm hungrier than when we walked in".

My partner and I both order a set menu each. Again, long wait between dishes. Just glad our two youngest are very patient, and we managed to entertain them their whole experience.

Not only were we unsatisfied with the waiting for our meals, everyone in the restaurant had jerseys & puffer vests on. We took ours off as soon as we got inside, like you would normally do when you enter a restaurant. Only to find it was freezing. They had 3 gas heaters in the corner near where we were seated but remained off. We could understand why everyone was wearing their jackets inside.

The food was outstanding! Exceptional cooking when it did happen for us. My 10yr-old is not a very picky eater. He eats most foods, but he did mention to me "dad I don't like onions but I'm so hungry ill eat anything".

So, after 1hour and 50 mins, we went to pay for our experience, and we were charged a ludicrous $200.50, absolutely gobsmacked by the price of our experience. Food exceptional, but definitely would never recommend it to anyone. In fact, I would only ever tell people not to...

After several great experiences at the Riccarton Tony's, we thought we would give the Ferrymead one a go - we had been recommended this one by a few friends.

Absolutely disappointed and let down. Our experience simply tanked.

We made a booking ahead of time, intending to try out the all you can eat offer. Upon ordering, we were informed that it was no longer available for the evening as the kitchen was closing (this at 8pm), and we had been advised this when booking (there was no such conversation). Fine. We ordered set menus instead.

We were greeted by a Tepan chef who was uninteresting and uninterested. Half the meat selections we wanted for our meals were unavailable. Just as the starters started arriving, they adviaed us they had RUN OUT OF RICE! How does any self respecting Japanese restaurant run out of rice?! At this point, I was ready to cut our losses and walk. When it came time to serve seared seafood, our scallops and whitefish were served raw in the middle. They also completely forgot the tofu serving we ordered.

To top it off, even though they're advertised as being open until 10pm, they started shutting up shop at 9pm, moving chairs and closing the restaurant around us. For $40 a head, we felt portion sizing was minimal and one of us left with a nauseous stomach to boot.

All in all, we found this experience a highly disappointing experience and somewhat unprofessional. From the moment we entered, we felt like we they were trying to rush us so they could close up early. The best part of our evening would have to...

We booked a table for 7.30pm on a Friday & 1 member of party was late - we ordered drinks & starter whilst waiting & mains at 8.10pm. Initially told we couldn't order the set menu all you can eat as it finished at 8pm - as we had not been advised prior they did allow us to order. At 9pm we were told the kitchen was closed so no more food - this was fine as we were finishing up but still had 1/2 bottle of wine. For the next 30mins the staff closed the restaurant around us including noisily putting chairs onto every table around us. When we paid I let them know the food was good but we felt that it was rude to be trying to push us out of the door before finishing drinks and was told that we should not have stayed so long as they had a sign on the door saying closing at 9 (we did not see this other than the standard hours which stated 10). We should have been advised this either at the time of booking or even whilst being seated. Very...