Tokyo Japanese Steakhouse — Restaurant in Amarillo

Long story short: confusing menu, TINY portions, confrontational rude staff

Went out with some friends last night for one of their birthday. After being at the restaurant for an hour and a half (not complaining about time, it’s a show) I was given the teriyaki. I asked the chef if it was teriyaki and he said it was. So I let him know I had ordered hibachi. They wanted to cook me more chicken, but it is almost 9:30 on a Wednesday, I’ve been at the restaurant going on two hours, and all my friends are eating. So I asked if there was some way to discount my meal (I even offered to pay for something I did not order).

They wouldn’t discount, and my only option was to have some prepared in the back to send me home with (this by the way did not even fill half of a to go box…a full meal of hibachi fried rice amounted to half a cup of rice, skimped on the CHEAPEST part of the meal. The chef also struggled to get enough vegetables to everyone at the table). I’m not upset at this point just kinda bummed it happened but it’s fine because my waitress and my chef did what they were allowed to.

All the sudden. Some random waitress who is not a manager (hopefully) and not MY waitress comes up to ME and started to tell me how in the future I should remember that they put teriyaki on the hibachi and that I was given what I ordered. She kept saying “if you want plain chicken” while making a face like what I was asking for was disgusting. She proceeds to tell me to “remember that for next time”. When I told her I only thought that it was teriyaki chicken because it has teriyaki on it and the chef said YES it is teriyaki, she bulldozed over that and proceeded to tell me how to order next time. NO WHERE on the menu does it say teriyaki is on both types of chicken. This, by the way, strikes me the same as calling wings lemon pepper wings but putting Buffalo sauce on them and expecting your customers to tell the difference between lemon pepper and Buffalo. ALSO, some friends had gone there recently and verified they had NEVER been served hibachi chicken that way. Such a stupid argument I shouldn’t even have to have.

I’m infuriated that this waitress really thought she was going to check me. I wasn’t rude, I intentionally didn’t make a fuss because I don’t want to ruin my friends birthday, and after the issue is settled, this girl comes up to me like she’s mad or something???? She’s a pretty girl, short curly hair, but definitely one of the WORST experiences I’ve ever had. I was already leaving unhappy, she made me leave...

I will never eat here again.... cant give a less rating ... we were meeting friends for a farewell.we get there about 5min after they had taken orders. they had just started with soup. The chef had moved his cart in. There were 2 seats available. The waitress said we needed to sit at a table to order. And we could not eat with our party. 2 seats were empty... but we were not allowed to sit. So we should left then. But we stayed. Then the waitress took our drink order. Then took our appetizer order. We got our main dish....did not get our appetizer...so she apologized. So i cancelled the appetizer Unimpressed. Then i changed my mind because i figured we snack on it later. Portions were decent but the food was salty. Very salty...the steak was decent. The rice was over cooked and very salty. Had better rice a roni.The noodles tasted like they were served with spaghetti sauce mixed with soy sauce.i cook and eat alot of Asian food. This is not Japanese food. This is americanized asian food. Might aswell be Taco bell of Mexican food. Some Asian guy with tattoos kept staring at us eat. I think the food was mediocre.We get home...i try what looks like french fried onion rings for green bean casserole....the fried Calamari...witch were thin sliced i think cuttle fish.dipped in plain flour...of all the things that needed salt....Geeez. oh please dont let get started on what they called ginger dressing. More like a watered down thousand island dressing with ginger powder.

The owners seem to have thought about the social dimensions of fast food so much that they now see their target audience as problems to be solved, not customers to be pleased. I would not eat there again even if it was free. That is all please do not be impressed with the hype. Ask around. Or if you must suffer try...

Generally, this restaurant is fantastic, and I would give a 4 or 5 star rating. Today is a 1 star. I took my children there for lunch today to celebrate school being out for summer. Wait time was expected today. We were told 35 to 45 minutes and were seated in 30 minutes. That was the bright spot for this visit. It was another 20 to 25 minutes before anyone came to our table, and then only because my wife waved down someone and asked. The woman was the owner, who half ignored her, and then about 5 minutes later came back and hurriedly took our orders, mumbling something about the servers and that she was the owner. It took another 5 minutes or so for our drinks to arrive. Soups took a while to get to the table. Just as soups arrived, so did the chef, who hurriedly flew through cooking. The fried rice might have stayed on the grill 60 seconds before he hurriedly slopped it around to everyone's plates, only to find that it was horribly salty and overseasoned. Everything else was cooked and thrown at the plates in the same fashion. We had to ask for sauces, much to the chagrin of the chef. My daughter's hot tea finally showed up halfway through the meal and my son's appetizer showed up just as we were finishing the meal. We watched the same chef come out and serve another table a few minutes after us, and it was like watching a completely different chef and show. He did things for that table that he didn't even slow down long enough to do at our table. It was very evident that they forgot they had seated us, and from the moment they realized it, instead of trying to make up for it in any manner, they railroaded us through as fast and sloppily as they could. We spent $86 on this meal, and it should have been half that or less by the service we received....