Samurai Sushi and Hibachi — Restaurant in Bloomington

I made reservations for a group of 8. My son lives in another state, so to celebrate his birthday, he picked a halfway point for our family to meet. He picked this restaurant. My youngest is also out of state, which is over an 8 hour drive away and he wanted to surprise us and join. I did call and ask if it was ok I added 1 more to our reservation and they said it would work. That was wonderful! Earlier in the day, they contacted me asking if we wanted a hibachi table, or if we were going to just eat sushi. I explained that there were maybe a couple that will order sushi, but the rest will order hibachi food. The manager told me that as long as the majority were ordering hibachi, it was fine. At no time did she clarify what ordering sushi meant. She didn't say that it couldn't be all you can eat sushi, she didn't say that if anyone orders sushi, it's the actual individual order of sushi. Nowhere on the website does it state any restrictions for ordering all you can eat sushi (there is a restriction if you are there on your birthday and it falls on a Friday, Saturday or Sunday, they will not honor their birthday special-we were there on my son's birthday, but it was a Friday. Oh well). So it comes time to order, we are about half way through our group ordering and my birthday boy asks for all he can eat sushi. He is told he can't, unless he sits in another area of the restaurant. The rest of the table is ordering hibachi. As you know, this is a fun experience and performance. We ask if we can stay at the hibachi table since 7 out of the 8 want hibachi, they said no. We ask the manager and explain that we've all traveled quite a distance to meet and we were all excited to try their restaurant. We are trying to celebrate a family birthday and 3 of our 8 guests live out of state to travel here, could we please stay at the hibachi table and let our guest of honor eat the all you can eat sushi. They said No. They offered nothing to compensate, other than moving our whole party (which was my immediate family-3 kids out of state and my husband and I who live in MN and the 3 grandparents) to a table where sushi can be eaten-even though on the phone the manager told me it would be ok. But they did not say that all you can eat sushi guests can sit at the same table as hibachi eaters (unless you are ok without the entertainment). My son, being the big hearted young man he is, didn't want his family to miss out on the experience since they all traveled (himself included) the distance to celebrate him. So he just ordered hibachi so our group could stay. Again, no offer of a discount, or compensation of any kind. We were calmly talking to the manager about how it was never stated, either over the phone during our conversation or on their website. My 70+ year old mom (in a kind voice) told her that she was going to leave a review to share her thoughts. That's when the manager got snippy and turned to my mom and said, "You can't talk to me that way". I was taken back by that response. In summary...easy to reserve online, I appreciated the phone calling asking about our seating preference, I appreciated their willingness to add our reservation of 7 to 8 people. The chef was great and the food was wonderful, but because of the rules of the all you can eat sushi not posted, nor explained during our conversation (other than people can order sushi, but the majority need to order hibachi if seated at a hibachi table) and the rudeness of the manager and no offer to compensate or apologize...I will not...

When I first walked in I was immediately in a state of confusion. There were other guests in the lobby so I knew there would be a little bit of a wait. I walked up to the counter to get on the wait list. I was not acknowledged or greeted for several minutes. I had no idea if I needed to just keep standing there or leave a business card for the to get back to me when they had time. During this this waiting time I was able to see the lobby was not clean at all. The floors were peppered with debris, the front counter was cluttered and messy, and my girlfriend told me that the women's bathroom had much to be desired for cleanliness as well. Lets just say it did not have much in terms of initial curb appeal. We were finally brought back to get seated. The restaurant space is very open, and there is little in terms of acoustical treatment, so it is very loud, so noise from other parties, and noise from the Hibachi tables blended together to be a muddy mess. It was really had for my girlfriend and I to just focus on being at our table, because of all the over stimulation happening. For food we ordered the Vegetable Tempura entree and some sushi. The Tempura was pretty good. We both enjoyed it. The sushi on the other hand was a little questionable. At a glance, it didn't seem to be up to par. We questioned every piece asking each other if we thought it looked ok. There were a couple pieces we opted to pass on due to some discolorations and texture combinations I've never seen in that particular sushi. Our server seemed friendly but we definitely felt like they did not want to be there, which I get it, its work. We all feel that way about work. The problem was our sever never checked in on if we were enjoying our meal or needed anything. So we we were just left with our questionable sushi.

TL:DR: It wasn't the worst experience to be had, but it wasn't a good one either. There wasn't any part of the experience that would...

I don't usually dog on service, but when we came here one evening for drinks and sashimi, it was not good. We were the only ones at the bar and surrounded by no less than 4-6 staff members at any given time. Everyone of them either sitting on their phones or tucked in little groups out of the way conversing. The start was when I finished my first drink and our apps arrived so I asked for another. The person who brought the food didn't even acknowledge my request. Must have to ask the bartender my wife said. I said I am sure they would get her attention, considering I could see her in the kitchen over there where the food came from scrolling on her phone. It wasn't even that our appetizers (Seaweed salads) were gone 20 minutes later waiting to order our entries with staff lounging in the enty laughing together and caring on. But rather, when my wife finally didn't even have water left in her glass, so I shook it in the air at a group who, in turn, ignored me completely. An hour after arriving (the bartender had come and gone twice without even so much as glancing at us), our menus still siting in front of us and one empty drink, and two long gone seaweed salads. I decided we were both starving and needed to leave to go find some food. My feet barely touched the floor, and I had four employees rush over to me and try to stop us from leaving. Apparently, they were used to people up and leaving because not a word was spoken about if we needed something or how are experience had been but the bill was immediately forced into my hand out of thin air and they were very adimit we didn't take another step without...