Itadaki — Restaurant in Bellevue

We heard about this place on Instagram and wanted to try out their lunch special. For $9.99, you can get a burger with fries, which is pretty decent for something that's not fast food. For what it's worth, I do recommend getting a burger if you want to get a taste of what this place has to offer without splurging too much. Unfortunately, we didn't take a photo of our burger, but we did take photos of the rest of our food.

The calamari was fine, and the sauce that came with it was good, but would I get it again? Maybe not. What I wanted to try was the clam miso soup, but they were out of clams, so next time. The $39.95 lunch special beef combo was a grill experience that you do yourself at the table. It's designed for 2, but not everyone will find it filling enough, especially if you missed breakfast. The wagyu was delicious, though, so I would recommend if the price of having to order more doesn't concern you. And lastly, we got the wagyu dan dan noodles. Most Chinese restaurants have special Dan Dan noodles, but this one wasn't special, which was how I wanted it. They do not cheat you on the wagyu because I found myself scooping for wagyu in the soup even after all the noodles were gone.

Now for the service, there's room for improvement. Judging from how not all the tables were used, I would guess that they were understaffed. We found ourselves waiting longer than we would have liked to be greeted by our server with our waters after being seated. It was hard to get any servers' attention throughout our meal whenever we wanted service, whether it be adding another menu item, asking for another utensil, or even the bill. We understand that the staff may have been busy or felt overwhelmed, but we noticed that a lot of the times, they would walk across the restaurant with their eyes forward to avoid eye contact or looking towards the tables to avoid getting flagged down. It grew frustrating because not only did we want to leave to stay on schedule, but we also noticed that there was a growing queue of guests waiting for tables by the door. We know this is something that can be worked on and improved upon by the next time we visit.

On a lighter note, the atmosphere itself was wonderful. The mountain glasses fit the theme of the restaurant just right, and the wood is a great touch. Walking in, you feel a sense of calm away from the outside world. The variety of seating areas was interesting and could definitely fit the potential for various party sizes. The restroom was clean, although darker than I would've liked. The toilet paper was soft. The paper towels were just napkins, but they did the job of drying. The whole restaurant was very clean, and it's not easy to keep a grill place clean and free from grease and strong scents.

Update August 2025: Since April, prices have gone up and the burgers are now like $16. I tried the Hawaiian Waygu burger today, and honestly, too much sauce, not my jam, would not order again. I did like the Gyu-Katsu. That one is a safe choice. I've had it twice this summer and the first time it was medium rare, but this time it was more well done. The carbonara is alright, but the gyu-katsu is better. Calamari is alright, not a must-have.

After my first visit, I've learned that they offer tap, still, and sparkling water. Be careful what you choose if you don't want to be charged for water. The server don't always list out the options.

For parking, you have to remember to ask to get your parking validated. I've always had to ask and never once did they ask me. Validation is good for 4 hours...

I am writing this review out of genuine disappointment, especially after having such a wonderful 5-star experience with Itadaki Yakiniku just a month ago. During that visit, we enjoyed the prefix menu and had an amazing time. However, when we returned this time, everything felt drastically different.

We had specifically called to make a reservation for the prefix menu, inquired about the price for the kid’s prefix menu, and were under the impression that the prefix menu would still be available. Upon arrival, we learned that the menu had been changed to à la carte without any prior notice. It took us about 20 minutes to understand this change, and even after placing our order, we didn’t receive any meat until nearly an hour later. Considering this is a high-class BBQ restaurant, the raw meat still required cooking, meaning we didn’t have our first bite until 1.5 hours after. My niece was so hungry she ate half a bowl of rice while waiting. By the time we finished our meal and left at 9 pm, other tables who arrived around the same time had long gone.

The change in menu and the service issues were frustrating. The kitchen seemed overwhelmed by the à la carte system, as the preparation and timing of orders appeared to vary widely between tables. Since the staff cooks the meat for each table, we experienced significant delays, as they couldn’t keep up with different tables moving at different paces. This lack of organization and flow is disappointing, especially for a restaurant positioning itself as high-class.

To add to this, while the waitress apologized for the wait and initially informed us the bill would be reduced by 30%, the manager later offered only an $80 gift card (15% of our bill) instead of the discount. After we pointed out what the waitress had said, the manager reluctantly provided a 30% discount using a gift card. It wasn’t about the money for us—it was about the lack of cohesiveness in the service, the disorganization, and the poor communication among the staff. For a restaurant striving to be high-class, these issues are simply unacceptable.

I may consider returning for the prefix menu in the future but will likely request the server we had during our first visit. Based on this experience, it seems that to truly enjoy dining here, you need to rely on an experienced server and a well-trained team to avoid the long waits and overall disorganization that...

Why can’t I leave no stars. We were seated promptly as it was at Tuesday at 1:25pm. We drove an hour on my birthday to have a nice meal. I’m not a treat me special cause it’s my birthday person but just saying this cause it’s part of the day. After being seated we were waiting for 15 minutes and no one acknowledging us or brought out waters. I went back to host and asked who our server is and could you send them over since no one had come over to help us. He said he would and they would be right over. After a few more minutes the host came up and took our order, he then apologized cause they were busy and the had a “VIP” in the house. We ordered 2 cheese burgers, 2 sodas, and Dan Dan noodle. There were 7 other tables being served in the whole place and it seemed only one in our section. After another 5 minutes or so the host then brought out drinks to us as well, still no server had come up to us for any reason. The food came out, we got one burger and the noodles, I asked about the other burger and the random waiter said this is all they gave them and shrugged and walked away. Luckily we ordered 3 dishes so we at least both had something to eat. My wife finished half her burger and mine came out by another server, this turned out to be our server, and the only reason I know is because I asked the host before we left who our server was. We needed drink refills at this time and he didn’t ask how our food was or if we wanted refills. Nothing. The burgers were ok, nothing to write home about, and the noodles were pretty good. We finished our food and then proceeded to wait, after a few minutes we set a timer as we discussed what to do about the tip and decided after waiting 10 minutes we would go pay up front. After 10 minutes I went to use the rest room before our hour drive home. Came back and it had been 13 minutes since we set the timer so we went up front and payed the host and left, no tip was given, and we ALWAYS tip but we just didn’t know why we should in this scenario as we didn’t have a server, I should have gone back to the kitchen and given it to the cook or maybe the host. As we were leaving the host tried to apologize for the service, we told him not to to worry about it it’s not his fault our server couldn’t handle 2...