Tokyo Steak House — Restaurant in Ankeny

We celebrated Father's Day there tonight with my crew of 6 and absolutely loved it! We dined here several years ago when we first moved to Ankeny. We had the entire hibachi table to ourselves (party of 5), which is kind of a bummer, but it was a slow night. Not gonna lie, it was forgettable, that's why it's been a while since we've revisited. Now I'm kicking myself for not going back!

We've dined numerous times at Ohana in West Des Moines, and there's some clear differences.

Ohana offers a choice on salad dressing, Tokyo does not (we didn't ask, so not sure that is a choice) it comes with ginger dressing. Half of our crew loves it, half is a ranch crowd. The prices at Tokyo are very reasonable for the amount of food you get, Ohana is a bit pricier.

Tokyo's fried rice is literally the most addictive food I have ever eaten. We all agreed! Scrumptious! Everyone used to love Ohana's fried rice, and I studied it to figure out how to make it, which I nailed. On the ride home everyone said, "I hope you paid attention to that fried rice, because your fried rice is now peasant food." I did, and challenge accepted. Though I will need to purchase their Yum Yum sauce, because it's like no other!

We were very well taken of at Tokyo, constant refills of water, waiter checked on us and was available. At Ohana, the wait staff comes around at the beginning, then disappear. We always order Sake at the beginning, but midway, this girl wants a dirty martini, which I have never gotten at Ohana because no one came around. I got my martini at Tokyo.

Our Itamae at Tokyo was very entertaining, fun, and I loved that he picked on my dad. My dad asked if there was going to be an onion volcano, and there was! They don't do those at Ohana anymore citing a city code that prevents it. 2 different cities, I get it. The Itamae at Ohana have been telling the same tired jokes for over 20 years.

We've ordered scallops at both establishments. Ohana has that luscious scallop sauce, Tokyo does not, but Tokyo has the best Yum Yum sauce that we have ever had, made up for it because it was served as a dipping sauce for everything.

Let's get to ambiance. Ohana is a well decorated beautiful restaurant, but dang it gets loud and it's busy, which can be fun or awful. Tokyo is small, quaint, in need of a refresh.

Hands down, Tokyo wins for us. Thank you for entertaining us and giving...

Our feeling is that the owner of the restaurant has given up on it. This was our second visit for hibachi and I can't think of any reason to ever return. Our first visit was not impressive, just so-so. The disappointment was unanimous among our 7 member party. Be prepared to be very underwhelmed with customer service skills or not greeted properly at all whether you are calling to make a reservation, walking in the door, or the chef arrives at your table. It's just a very weird environment for a business in the hospitality realm. Ok, so the staff isn't super welcoming, appreciative, or especially pleasant... but what about the food and drinks? 7 thumbs down. The cocktails were super lame. Each of us that ordered one was displeased. They were not made correctly. The soup and salad were pretty boring. For some reason the soup had barely any flavor. I've never had that happen before. The food was no where near worth the cost. The show was just ok. However the chef accidentally flung the 2 prong hibachi fork at my daughter as he lost control during his routine. Luckily she was not injured but someone could have lost an eye from this mishap. He quickly said sorry and moved on but didn't ask if everyone was ok or seem concerned. It set the tone for us to be frightened throughout the rest of the "show." The food was gross for the most part. The rice was the only thing that I would say rivals other hibachi restaurants. The chicken was dry and hard, very overcooked. The food in general lacked normal seasoning. There was gristle and chunks of fat in the meat. Multiple items made on the hibachi grill had a very off flavor to them. Either too much oil, the wrong kind of oil, or rancid oil is what my best guess would be. This strange flavor overwhelmed the flavors of the food. One of the kids complained about the chocolate milk and sure enough they barely put any chocolate syrup in it. Everything about the visit indicated a complete lack of care for the guest experience. At the end we were presented with the 18% required gratuity on our check after suffering one of the poorest dining experiences I've had in a very long time. Nothing about the visit was even remotely near the quality of Ohana's but the price was pretty similar. I consider that a...

My husband and I decided we REALLY were craving Ohana...unfortunately since they are extremely difficult to get into lately we had to settle with Tokyo Steakhouse in Ankeny. We got there and immediately the hostess seemed extremely hostile. She was harassing the group in front of me because they now only had 7 people instead of 10 that their reservation was for. She refused to seat them until their entire party was there and honestly wouldn't even give them the opportunity to explain that it is now only 7 people and not 10. She finally seated them and I stood at the hostess stand being ignored for a good while.

She finally got to me and I informed her we had 3. Very angrily she ran to the back room to check and said "I can seat now."

PERFECT! I called my husband who was waiting in the car with our toddler to come on it. He got in and we waited another good while before she even acknowledged that we were there. She took us back to where she was seating us and it was apparently this little scrunched up spot not even close to the grill (borderline infront of the other grill) at this point I was questioning if it was even worth it and the hostess said "sit down or leave" uhm.... excuse me?

So of course when we asked for a high chair to put our toddler in she sighed and LITERALLY shoved the chair in our direction and ran off. Good lord. Whoever she is....she needs a lesson in customer service.

Anyway, food was ok...definitely not Ohana level but it satisfied our craving. We were sat with the group that was harassed by her before me so we got to have a good "discussion" about her attitude.. Waitress seem overwhelmed but overall was great and the cook clearly had skills but I could tell that he was most likely being told from management to get in and out and not take the time to interact much.

Tbh.. we probably won't go back due to the rude behavior of the hostess and the fact that is just wasn't at Ohana level for flavor of food (they don't offer the chili garlic and chili oil and my Lao hubby needs that flavor 😆😆). She needs to check her attitude...