Robata Japanese Steak House — Restaurant in Clermont

DO NOT GO HERE ! , I can’t speak on the hibachi side , but I’ll never be back. Food and service is sub par. Went there with wife and friend , we elected to have food from menu instead of hibachi. The menu is huge , which is usually a red flag. And good luck with food allergies , such as raw tomato … at a Japanese steakhouse.

I ordered chicken katsu and my wife ordered chicken teriyaki . The photo that you see is the chicken teriyaki , or what their interpretation should be. They brought out the miso soup first and that’s how the soup looks after a minute or two until you stir it again , and again , and again. So is it sub par miso paste that they’re using or is it something else in the broth that is preventing it from actually staying homogenous.

Her chicken teriyaki looked like someone took half of a butterflied chicken breast and cooked it on a flattop , slapped it on top of some red onions ?? And what can be described as a sauce but didn’t even resemble your traditional teriyaki sauce ( which is just soy sauce plus sugar and a few other things) , and the little halved cherry tomato garnish , on every single dish that came out to us , even though I told them that I had a raw tomato allergy multiple times.

They upgraded to $3 fried rice instead of plan white rice , and there were no veggies or even egg in the fried rice. So imagine soy sauce only fried rice that was oily.

Lastly let’s get to my dish chicken katsu, the one I wasn’t even able to eat because they F’d it up so many times I told them to cancel it , which also upon viewing came on a bed of sautéed red onions like the chicken teriyaki dish. Chicken katsu is just a deep fried chicken breast / cutlet , sliced and served with usually a Japanese curry / golden curry sauce. Not too difficult right ? The dipping sauce that they sent out first was some sweetened asian-esque sauce that was out of a bottle and when the food came , it had raw tomato on it like in the photo. I’m severely allergic to raw tomato if ingested. I told them multiple times at order “ no tomato , tomato allergy “ so I ask them to take it back and make a new one ….. 2 minutes later it comes out with no tomato … you and I know that the kitchen took the tomato’s off the plate and sent it back out. When it came back out within 2 minutes I cancelled my order as I know the food could be contaminated.

The place looks like it used to be a Chinese buffet at some point and someone said hey let’s put some hibachi tables in here. Whoever is cooking needs to work on their skills / proficiency if you’re going to call yourself a Japanese steakhouse. Any chain hibachi Japanese steakhouse would put out a better product of what they interpreted a dish might be. I’ll even say that a hole in the wall to go Chinese restaurant could put out a better Japanese food product than this location. I know I sound harsh in this review. But you could drive into winter garden or orlando and have better food and service for what they charged here.

Also for service. We maybe saw our waiter maybe 3-4 times the entire time , and that includes food delivery. Good luck trying to get a drink...

If I could give this restaurant "0 stars" I would.

Upon arrival the interior is acceptable and roomy. They could have jammed a lot more tables inside but chose not to so you are not sitting up against other diners. And it was not crowded at all.

But it ends there.

There is no real ventilation so when cooking is being done your eyes begin to burn from the oily smoke.

Service was piss poor and slow. Couldn't get plates or napkins, drink refills, or ginger and wasabi. And forget about the server clearing the used plates from your table to put down the next courses.

I ordered the all-u-can eat sushi menu for $24, and would have been better off just tossing the money in the air or going to a bad Chinese buffet. What I received was horrendous to the point I did not want seconds of anything much less to eat my fill.

First off, the menu options were severely limited for your money and compared to other all-u-can eat non-buffet restaurants of this kind.

Everything was tasteless and inedible. The house salad was wilted. The seaweed salad was sour. The rice that made up the sushi rolls was mushy, tasteless, and somehow gritty. The rolls fell apart or were sticky like glue. You couldn't taste the difference between the rolls with deep fried shrimp, crab, and lobster in them. The raw selections were off color and tasted off. The pork katsu was over cooked to the point it was so hard I couldn't chew through it, and it tasted only of burnt oil. The yakitori arrived with overly large skewered chunks of chicken that were "raw" in the center. When I showed the server and asked to have them cooked a little longer, the server took the food back to the kitchen and never returned it, or returned with a fresh order.

At that point I had had enough and didn't want to attempt any other dishes for fear of getting sick, so I asked for the check. I sat for at least 20 minutes and asked 2 other servers to bring me a check so I could just leave. No one did. It was then I was asked if I wanted a drink refill. You can imagine I was steamed and insulted.

On the drive home I began to feel sick, and unfortunately was still hungry.

Now, over the years I have eaten at more sushi restaurants than I can remember in numerous cities, and states, and to date this was my worst experience. Do yourself a favor and eat...

To be fair, I was the first customer for the day, having arrived around 11:15am, shortly after the restaurant opened for lunch. Unfortunately, they did not appear ready for customers at that time. The bar area was not stocked, materials were stacked haphazardly in view from the dining area, cleaning supplies were visible along with a cardboard box on top of a filing cabinet next to the fountain drink machine, and a beverage cooler intended to display Coca Cola beverages was intentionally located in an area visible to diners but was empty. Although it was shortly after opening, it was - after - opening. If they need an additional hour to be truly ready for customers, then perhaps they should open at noon instead.

Although the staff was working in the back when I arrived, they did notice me, and I was seated relatively quickly. The booth I sat in was aged, cracked but not torn. If any effort had been put into decor, it was all in the bar area with some nice brown and tan hues giving way to basic off-white and dark gray everywhere else. Unfortunately, the atmosphere of the dining area did nothing to inspire confidence in the cleanliness of the kitchen.

That said, my meal of chirashi, which absolutely requires quality fresh fish, was good even if the rice could have used more seasoning. I would argue that krab has no business being on a chirashi plate when spelled with a "k," but that might just be me.

Service was efficient. It was not friendly, nor was it unfriendly. It was like a babysitter putting out plates of PB&J sandwiches with little time or tolerance for foolishness. This may have been because there was still so much work to be done to prepare for opening 20 minutes ago.

I could be persuaded to go back at a time when the business is more accustomed to serving customers and therefore better prepared. Still, I would not volunteer, and I would not go out of my way for another meal at Robata. There are too many other great options that are ready to provide a great experience whenever they are ready to take my money in...