Pacific Rim Bistro — Restaurant in Atlanta

TLDR: This place is unsafe if you have food allergies or health issues that are affected by food. When we pointed out what had happened, they were apathetic. Only our waitress seemed sorry, but not enough to adjust the bill without being asked.

I had a meal here with a friend during DragonCon. I ordered two items plainly marked as “GF” on the sushi menu. One, specifically the Rainbow Roll, said it contained crab meat. Excellent, I thought. Only after I started eating did I realize it contained crab sticks. Firstly, crab sticks are not crab. They are usually made of whitefish, eggs, wheat, and spices/flavorings. A particular brand now makes gluten-free crab sticks, but those contain potato starch, which I also can’t eat.

I asked two servers to clarify with the chef. The second eventually returned and said she was very sorry, but that roll wasn’t gluten-free. I took the last bite of the roll that I knew was gluten-free and started to mentally prepare myself for the physical pain and discomfort that would ensue. After my friend finished her meal, we asked for our bill, and when we got it, both rolls I had ordered were still on the bill. They had completely disregarded the fact that they had just poisoned me with gluten. If your restaurant mislabels food that will make someone sick, at the very least you shouldn’t charge them for that item. If you want to practice good customer service, their meal should be on the house, accompanied by a GIANT apology from management.

I was flabbergasted, and at that point, I said I didn’t want to pay for my meal. The server returned shortly with the items removed, and I said I’d like to speak with management to explain the importance of getting this right. At the very least, they should immediately start telling people that the Rainbow Roll is not gluten-free. The manager returned, apparently thinking we were trying to get out of paying for our whole meal. He yelled at us. He also said they had been serving this roll as gluten-free for 20 years with no problem. 20 YEARS. We tried to explain why we wanted to talk to him, but he was so agitated that my friend had to force him to take the billfold with her credit card. We never got to have our one-on-one teachable moment with him, so unfortunately, he gets to have it here where everyone can read it.

People are gluten-free for many reasons—some out of preference, but most of us have severe health issues. People with Celiac Disease are more likely to develop colon cancer the more gluten they consume over their lifetime, knowingly or not, even if it doesn’t make them physically ill at the time. CANCER. I have chronic pain. I will spend the next week or two in extra, all-day pain and discomfort because of those two bites of crab stick.

There’s a social contract between restaurants and their diners. They broke the contract. Do...

Good food, poor service, arbitrary policies, amateurish management, surly servers.

Worst restaurant experience in 18 years of attending DragonCon.

Our drinks, appetizers and meals were all enjoyable. However, we barely saw the server who was our main server. She took our food order and visited us briefly after our the main course arrived to ask how it was. All other service we received was delivered by a few other different servers. We saw our server attending to other tables in an adjacent area but our table was ignored by her and other servers. To get more drinks I had to go ask our server for them when I saw her at a nearby register. To obtain our checks more than 10 minutes after we had finished our meals, my friend had to seek her out at the same register and ask for the check to be split.

Our server attempted excuses for the lack of service when she brought the checks. Upon reviewing the checks we saw that a 20% automatic gratuity had been added. That was excessive considering the (lack of) service, so I spoke with the manager. He offered to re-run the cards and give us a discount.

A responsible manager would have delivered the revised checks himself. Instead our server brought them to us. Amazingly she gave us attitude for having complained about our service and seemed perplexed about why we were unhappy. When we explained her absence was the cause she loudly berated us for having been rude to her. Both my friend and I were consistently cordial with our server and the rest of the staff until she became vociferously hostile toward us as we were wrapping up the fiasco.

Our intent had been to give our server a reduced tip due to the inattentiveness, but her belligerence caused us to leave no tip at all.

If you're looking for Japanese cuisine while at DragonCon, I'd suggest taking your business to Yami Yami or...

Terrible evening ended with poisoning. Do not go here if you are gluten free!

My friend and I dined here yesterday and she spent the night with a migraine and body aches. Both will likely continue for 2 or 3 days.

When ordering, she was very specific in communicating her allergy and selected items listed on the menu with a GF designation. After eating two pieces of sushi she realized there was crab stick in the roll, which generally uses flour as a binder. She asked the server to double check with the chef that it was indeed GF. Very casually the server returned with the information that OOPS, it isn't.

Through some negotiation, her sushi was removed from the check. We continued to be polite, if a bit exasperated at the lack of urgency in all our exchanges.

I handed my card to pay. At the same time, we asked to talk to the manager so we could explain the severity of listing an item as allergen-free when it isn’t.

He came to the table with unbelievable hostility and asked what else we wanted since he had already removed the rolls from the bill. Another reduction of the bill wasn’t our intention, but he didn’t let us get a word in to explain.

Instead, he said he’s been serving this dish as GF for 20 years and never had a complaint. He tried to toss the bill back to me and said, “Don’t pay if you don’t want to.” I insisted he take my card, and he stormed off.

All we wanted was to make sure their menus were changed to reflect the allergen in the food. It’s not an unreasonable ask. Some compassion and an apology would go a long way to heal the sour feelings, but I don’t expect either...