Kuro — Restaurant in Atlantic City

On 3/16/24 this restaurant was the definition of a restaurant nightmare experience for my family and I. We had reservations for 8:45 pm, party of 11 plus a toddler. The restaurant was not busy, they had many empty tables and very few tables occupied by 2-4 people. The facility seem cleaned with an open view kitchen but very poor lighting. We were not welcome warmly but were sat promptly. I noticed tension from two of the tables to the right from us. It was obvious they were waiting for their food a while and were not having a good experience. The menu is small and overpriced for the few portions sizes I was able to see. The waitress seem extremely hyper and unease. She seem highly distracted as well. She took note of what we wanted to drink and promptly took off. She did not walk, literally took off in such of fashion that we were not expecting. We had some questions regarding the menu, which she later answered. She took our food orders and took off again. Time went by and she finally came back to tell some of our family members that the restaurant ran out of multiple dishes they had ordered. My family ordered other menu items despite of the quick disappointment. Two of our family members dishes came out while the rest of us were still waiting. The portions seem small in my opinion but they say the food was good. Then other 3 family members that ordered different sushi rolls received it all together in one big dish. I thought that was strange and not appropriate since the rolls were not ordered to share. The rest of their orders never came out including mine. The toddler’s food never came out either!! The sushi I ordered was spicy tuna and that was not what I received. There was only enough soy sauce, ginger and wasabi for two rolls. I had to grab the soy sauce from another table. The waitress finally came back after another long wait and informed that the restaurant had also ran out of other dishes my family had ordered. At that moment three family members walked out of the restaurant. One family member asked for his bill charging one beer he consumed since his food didn’t come out either. The waitress came back to try to figure out what was the food that came out and see who was missing what. I tried to explained her what I had not received, but she was not listening, and accused a family member and myself of receiving the Goyzas we ordered. She attempted to talk over me in multiple occasions. She was so difficult to talk with, that I had to firmly tell her “you are not getting into a debate with me, if you be quite, you would be able to listen that only one person out of the three received their goyza dish” and show her that we had no goyza empty dishes in front of us. I noticed a female employee with a suit standing two to three feet away from the waitress listening to the fiasco but did not interrupted or offered to speak with us. I said to the waitress, “I want to speak to a manager” and she just stood there, so I asked the woman in the suit if she was the manager and she said yes. I explained her the situation and that I wanted my bill for the one sushi roll I had consumed, so I can get out of there. She was able to see that we did not have the plates the restaurant utilizes to serve goyza in front of us. The manager said we could leave and that she would take care of the bill. This was my cousin’s 50th birthday dinner celebration and it was ruined by the disgusting service and poor management. This restaurant was the worst I ever...

BEWARE- This is a long read but may save you money in the long run - I wanted to do something special for my husband’s birthday and after viewing the tasting menu for two at Kuro, I thought it would be the perfect thing. While waiting to be seated for our reservation I asked the hostess about the tasting menu for two to verify and she said yes that goes on every night. We were seated in Katrina’s area. Katrina gave us two options 1. Order off the menu on our own or 2. Try the menu mapping option. I asked if this was the same as the tasting for two as stated on the site ($75.00 per person) she said yes. Katrina asked us a few questions and the food started coming out. I saw some of the things coming out were different than what the site stated would be served. I thought maybe this has changed or based off our answers we get something else since we said we liked spicy, and a few things were spicy. Our last item was the hot stone with Wagyu. The amount was clearly an ounce or less, no big deal it was delicious either way. I paid the bill (larger than I thought it should be) and tipped Katrina.

Here's where things got really sketchy. Kuro closed at 11:00. At 12:01 am I receive a phone call from an unknown number, they leave a message. Its “Samantha” the manager from Kuro stating, “I’m calling to let you know that Katrina was your waitress and the vouchers you used didn’t go through and neither did the penny tip you left her”. I called her back and let her know we paid with my bank card and tipped Katrina well because she did a great job, however there was another Danielle seated next to us and maybe there was a mix up. “Samantha” apologizes, and we hang up. Two minutes later I receive another call from the same number, and they left a voicemail…. “Hi Michelle this is Samantha I’m calling to let you know that Katrina was your waitress and the vouchers you used didn’t go through and neither did the penny tip you left her”. SAME EXACT MESSAGE. Now I’m aggravated because its after 12:00 and this is HIGHLY unprofessional. I call Samantha back and ask if this is a scam because this all seems a bit too weird. She starts sounding nervous. I told her it was extremely unprofessional to call people from a personal line which she states it’s not so I asked why a manager wouldn’t answer the phone as “Kuro”. At this point a guy in the background starts hacking his brains out while stating “this is some good s**t”. VERY PROFESSIONAL KURO. Samantha or whoever was acting as Samantha must have freaked out because a few minutes later I received a text from her with a photo of her manager’s card. Again, she was very focused on getting me to believe this was not a scam.

It gets even better… I now check my receipt; I was charged $105.00 for the Wagyu hot stone ALONE. I did NOT ask for this dish, I asked for the tasting menu for two several times. Like I said earlier the meat they brought out was only an ounce IF THAT. When you look on the REGULAR menu it says “Three-ounce minimum for Wagyu hot stone” the receipt says $35.00 per ounce. So not only did I pay about 125 per person I also got harassed after hours which should never be allowed. The food and drinks are...

We were very disappointed in this restaurant. I am giving it two stars because without a reservation we were seated immediately and were appreciative for that. I don’t know if that’s because we showed an xwild card or if we would have been seated anyway. We had been excited to eat at Kuro after reading the reviews. We love Japanese food and especially Asian fusion. I love Buddakhan , Nobu, Izakaya and many Japanese restaurants and assumed that this would be a similar experience. Unfortunately, the short ribs were just too heavy and saucy although very tender and the wagu tacos that got great reviews were in a fried shell and due to issues I have, I can’t eat fried food. Also, I ordered sushi and have had better elsewhere. Unfortunately, our waitress made our experience worse. I asked her after receiving the tacos (although my husband ate them and he said they were delicious, ) if I could place another order and they could prepare them by just giving me the unfried shell. The waitress kept insisting that they weren’t fried and after going back and forth for a few minutes verbally with me, she finally said they are prepared all at once earlier and there aren’t other options. That’s fine with me, I totally understand but I felt like it was an uncomfortable conversation. (The shells are definitely fried. ) Upon ordering, It was explained that they bring the food to you as it’s prepared so we understood that but we had finished our meal and the salad was never brought or a noodles my husband ordered although we asked for it a few times. It was explained to us that they may be backed up in that section of the kitchen so that’s why they didn’t bring the salad. So after eating our meal and we were full the salad still had not come or noodles. At that point, we were ready for dessert, not a salad. We then found a different server to mention to cancel it. The other server was kind and said no problem. A few minutes later our waitress came over and said the salad is now prepared and wanted to give it to us and she suggested we take it to go because they had already made it. The salad was put on the table and drenched in dressing and we had ordered it without dressing. We told her either way we would need to send it back because it was ordered without dressing or dressing on the side only. I guess she then told the manager we were sending food back . The manager Emily came to our table so then my husband explained the situation. The whole situation was just uncomfortable. We have eaten at all of the restaurants in Hard Rock numerous times including Council Oak Fish, Il Mulinos and the steak house. We have had great experiences with the food and staff at all of the other restaurants. At kuro I felt as if we were insulting them by asking for things a certain way or not fitting in exactly with how they do things. Most of this was coming from our server. Between the food not being what we expected and the situation with the waitress, we would not return. We left, went elsewhere and enjoyed dessert and...