Kobo Teriyaki — Restaurant in Chehalis

If you have seen any of my other reviews, you know I am EASY to impress and very generous with my reviewing. I try my best to give benefit of the doubts, devil's advocate, etc.

It's simple to say I wasn't impressed. I came in with high hopes. It looks so quaint and cute. The waitress/order taker was very kind.

However, we sat down for our food. I ordered an avocado roll, the prawn tempura, and a miso soup. My lover ordered the chicken yakisoba, gyoza, and a miso soup.

To start, the roll was loose and sweet. Something was off about it, but it was fine. The tempura was good, especially dipped in teriyaki. The gyoza, reportedly, was the best fried gyoza they've ever had - seeing as it's usually not well done. Okay! It's not great but pretty average.

Then the Yakisoba came out. The waitress is sweet as always. However, it was bland. It was like it had been frozen and reheated. Not at all freshly made. My love ate some of it, but it was just not good. When I tried some, the chicken was fatty, the veggies were barely cooked, and it was like there was no seasoning to be found.

And finally, what I had been the most excited about, my miso soup. Which, I've never had miso soup given to me at the END of a meal before, only the beginning, but I was so ready for this saving grace. How do you mess up Miso, right?

It was terrible. It was absolutely shameful. It was sour, off in color, and just didn't taste like miso soup AT ALL. The tofu was way overdone. The size was good, I'd have loved to slurp up all of it, but I couldn't. I tried adding salt, then adding soy sauce. Nothing. It was the worst miso soup I've ever had, and I had to wait twenty minutes for it. It was not rich. It was not yummy, and it made me so sad.

None of this is at all the fault of the waitress/server. She was perfect. But whoever is cooking needs to get it together. I wasn't aware this was fast food. I was tempted to ask for a partial refund for the yakisoba and miso soup. Only the appetizers were good.

I rarely ever leave bad reviews. This place has a lot of potential to be something really good.

To top it all off- we ordered our food, sat down, and waited 8 minutes. Then we got the gyoza, roll, and prawns. Then we waited another almost 10 minutes for the yakisoba. (Which is all fair and good, I don't mind waiting. That isn't the problem). The issue is that as we were leaving, some 30 minutes later, another family had ordered, and had just sat down, before being served what I presume was their orders, seeing how large the sums were. Though I could be wrong. Either way, the time it took for us to even get our appetizers, vrs the other customers, left me baffled.

JAPANESE FOOD SHOULD NOT BE "FAST."

I spent almost $60 on this. Not worth it. Will never be going here again.

Some other notes:

Very clean, aside from a few tables with used plates.

loud banging coming from the back? I have no idea what was going on, but i couldn't hear the person right next to me, and we were in the far end of the restaurant.

Plastic spoons? For the soup?

Some decent decoration, again it was a very quaint sweet...

I'm not sure if they are under new ownership, I have gone twice now, hoping that the first was a fluke, but the California rolls have been cold and not fresh. It tastes like Safeway or Wal-Mart prepackaged garbage. If a restaurant is advertising a restaurant value item, it shouldn't be something pulled out of the refrigerator last minute. This time, I went back in to get a fresh order, waited 5 minutes to get another of the same product. When my husband ended up calling, they said that they will pre-make them and refrigerate them every two hours. So, essentially they are giving you cold, soggy rice, no meat, overabundance of cucumber and barely any avocado. It's obvious where they cut their costs. A year ago, this would never have...

Liked: Good portion for the price; well-balanced flavor in the food; clean and simple restaraunt; fast, friendly, regular service. Disliked: The flavor is not as bold as expected, the food looks cheap and like they just heated it out of a package, and the vegetable portion was almost solely cabbage. One carrot slice and two broccoli florets in a pile of cabbage just isn't qualifying as mixed veggies. Verdict: Good if one wants fast food if just getting out of work, but one shouldn't bring a...