Kobe Japanese Steakhouse

It had the potential of me liking it enough to come back during my stay in the city, but sadly I will decline. An outline of my visit (I know it's long but I was there for a while):

I came in and the young man at the host desk seemed confused by me being the only party, so I said I'd sit at the (sushi) bar, where I was silently greeted with a smile by the sushi chef, (whom I later learned is called JP) who was busy making a huge platter. I ended up sitting there for over 5 min before JP paused in his work to find a waiter for me. I got a sticky menu (seriously guys, please wipe these) I ordered water And when she returned, I already knew what I wanted and said, "I'd like to get the seafood udon." To which she asked me, "Is that a roll on the sushi menu?" 😐 No.. It's a dinner menu item. (Is she new?) It was evidenced once more that my waitress didn't know the menu when I had to go find her (as she never checked on me the whole time) to ask for the house salad that came with my meal. My empty/dirty side dishes remained at my spot the entire meal, and my waitress, Kate, (who'd never introduced herself at the beginning, I had to inquire her name when I asked for my salad), never returned to my table, and I saw her leave with a couple others without a word later. Her replacement, who's name escapes me but I think it starts with an "A", came over and removed my dirty side dishes and said he'd be finishing taking care of me in her absence. Good job, "A."

And as a side note, I'm not sure if this is normal at this restaurant, but having your waitstaff sit at the bar so close to customers folding napkins/utensils and chitchatting like they're not even at work was very unprofessional and a bit annoying, especially since they were neglecting the customers in the room (like me, Kate) and could probably be doing something else to be productive. I hope I just came on a bad night.

Really, the only reason I gave 3 stars instead of 4/5 is because the food was very good and cooked expertly, and JP took good care of me (accommodating my request for extra spice and seasoning) even though I wasn't even his customer. Next time I'll just go for the sushi and give JP all my money directly.