Watami — Restaurant in Brunswick

Ok so I found this place on a whim, it was late afternoon and on a Tuesday in March so Brunswick was a ghost town, but I was hungry so I googled open Asian eateries and I found this place! I have eaten at many different authentic Japanese , Chinese, Thai, Asian,Cambodian and of like restaurants and this one was really something I needed to write a review on. Ok, I did love the Menu’s that the owner created with life sized index cards for pages which were really amazing except the ambiance made it hard to be able to see it because of the lighting and the fact that this restaurant is in a converted basement of a building that has been retrofitted with the use of paint over pipes and concrete walls and other unique ways to hide the fact that your literally in a old buildings basement eating a expensive meal that is mediocre at best. All that aside, when it came time to pay.. before I was even done with my meal mind you…. The woman serving us that proudly said she was the owners mother ( I think is what she said ) went into great detail to explain to me that if I did not tip the customary 18-25% printed on the bottom of the receipt that she was going to lose money because they are forced to pay tax’s to the U.S. Government at 18% of the total amount including a assumed 18% tip along with the inflated meal ticket regardless of what the customer tipped, insinuating that my tip of 15% cash was not enough and that I was in some way cheating her and she wanted more in the form of a credit card tip so as not to upset the tax gods looking at their carbon copies of that days transactions. Not only did she talk about this at great lengths , she was also kind enough to continue waiting expecting us to tip again along with the already received 15% cash tip in some sort of strong arm attempt at ill gains, all this while she is still talking about how we should tip more with a card based on the fact that during her tirade we agree that the food was decent, and that alone in some way deserved more money to rain down from the pained basement ceiling and waste water pipes overhead into her clover or square credit card statement. This is why I give this place one star overall even though I gave the food...

My girlfriend and I were very excited for Watami's opening, but ended up having a disappointing experience. I just wanted to leave some constructive criticism in hopes the restuarant is better in the future. I've separated everything into sections.

MENU: They didn't have physical copies of their menus yet so we had to view them online. Menu was hard to navigate due to there being several listing errors such as duplicate items (since writing they've already corrected). Be careful, it wasn't clear that items have different pricings and sizes depending on what time you go. We ended up being charged more than what was listed on the menu because of this. One of the managers kindly fixed that for us when I mentioned it.

FOOD/DRINK: We ordered Tonkotsu Ramen and bubble tea (pictured included). The Ramen was bland and tasteless, the best part were their soy sauce eggs. For the price the toppings were limited and in small portions, they included; 1 mushroom, 1 piece of nori, half an egg, and 3-4 thinly sliced pieces of pork. The bubble tea was good, I enjoyed the tapioca pearls and hope they expand their selection. Also liked the custom cups they came in.

PRICING: For the Tonkotsu ramen they charge $14 for the lunch portion and $17 for the dinner portion which we ended up getting. For the amount of toppings and quality of the food I felt dissatisfied. Bubble tea was $5.50 for the smaller size which I felt was expensive but standard. In order to compete with similar places like Little Tokyo or Aki they either need to lower prices or increase quality.

SERVICE: The server and management were very nice, but there were a few issues. We waited 25-30 minutes for our ramen and 45 minutes for our bubble tea. It's kind of strange to be given your drinks as you're getting ready to leave. We only ordered 1 Ramen to share but we ended up getting two bowls. I didn't mention it because I just wanted to eat at that point.

I understand that it was their first day open so I'm hoping the food and service will naturally improve over time. If you were planning on going I would wait a while for them to gain their footing...

Food: Had to throw my entire takeout order away.

Many people, myself included, have broccoli intolerance. Watami, you are in the restaurant business, you should know about things like this.

I ordered Sake Mushi. Online description said, "Sake broth w. shrimp, fish cake wakame." Turns out it is loaded with broccoli. Threw it away. (I looked at the lonely shrimp, but couldn't stomach it either - a darkish over-frozen piece).

I also ordered Tofu Fried Rice. You guessed it, it came loaded with broccoli. In the trash it goes.

Dinosaur Egg description read, "Deep fried with abo, spicy tuna, crabmeat w. special sauce on top." I could only discern the deep-fried part. If there was tuna or crabmeat there, it must have shrunk beyond recognition. Oh, and the main ingredient, about 95% of the "egg's" weight, is a whole avocado. Why don't you list it in the description? I don't eat avocados!

I've just thrown out $40 and have nothing to eat for dinner.

Service: I pre-paid my takeout over the phone. When I arrived to pick it up, it was sitting on the counter but I couldn't pick it up because out of 5 employees standing around it could only be dispensed by one person who was taking a long order from a group of people. He told me to wait. When he finally turned his attention to me, he handed me a check to sign. Why?! The whole idea of pre-paying is to avoid the wait and physical contact. This is the first restaurant that made me do this, and I order a lot of takeout food.

Atmosphere: Dull light, unfriendly vibe, unnecessarily long wait - I am honestly wondering if something happened to this place after all the good reviews had...