Shogun — Restaurant in Conroe

What a day to be disappointed in service.

Tonight for Mother's Day, my husband took my mother and us out to dinner at Shogun in Montgomery. He made reservations for hibachi at 6 since he knew today would be a busy restaurant day.

We get there, are greeted warmly by the host and taken to our seats pretty immediately. It's 5:55. At our seats, the waiter shows up within minutes and takes our drink orders. Less than 5 minutes later he comes back with our drinks and takes our appetizer order: 2 edamame and 1 shaggy dog roll. He did warn that the roll would take a bit of time and we understood. No problem.

He brings out the edamame and takes our dinner order. By now it's about 6:15. Great pace so far. But that's where it ends. We continue to get our soup and salads, then the roll. We finish apps and now we are waiting on the chef. 6:30. Ok, still doable. We get told that we are next but they only have three hibachi chefs for the 8 tables that they are seating. 6:40. We get told by the waiter that the chef will be right out. At this time, my husband's dinner arrives (he wanted sushi not hibachi). 6:55, still no chef. Thank God the hubby's dinner was supposed to be cold!!

Now I am aggravated. I go to the restroom and then ask to speak to a manager up at the bar area. After waiting a few minutes, manager comes back and I ask if they are having a staffing problem tonight. She says yes, so sorry. I tell her I understand. Except we have been here an hour and still have no chef. She says let me check on that.

Here's where I want to lose my mind. Up till this point, yes, I am aggravated. But after this conversation, I am at ridiculous amounts of pissed off. She tells me, so here is the situation. You ordered appetizers. And we don't put your food order in until after the appetizers are served. Plus you got sushi which takes longer. I say, so what you are saying is, it is MY FAULT that it is taking so long because we wanted apps? She said no that's not it. It's just we don't put orders in until apps come out.

I them asked her why they wouldn't just communicate that they are short staffed amd that, while we can be seated right away, it will be a while before the hibachi chef will be able to make it to our table. That's when her CSR voice came out and she said yes ma'am I will be sure to do that next time. I know at that point she isn't listening anymore (if she ever was) so I went back to my table. Which, by the way, now had a chef at, as well as 2 other tables. The three chefs, that finished their previous tables at different intervals, all came out at the same time to work at the tables.

Hibachi service was eh at best. If you have been to hibachi you know the chefs usually interact with the guests and put on a little show. He does the onion train fire and thats about it. Is it because he is exhausted being 1 of 3 on a busy Holiday? Maybe. Is it because we conplained about service? I dont know.

Food was pretty good, with the exception of my mother's lobster tail. That was so overcooked you could barely bite through it. When she brought that up to the waiter, he just said ok, sorry and dismissed it. No offer of trying to make it right. So she went to the manager to have the lobster removed from the bill. At the same time, the waiter came back and said that they can redo the lobster for her to take home. I advised, talk to her, it's her food. She chose to have it removed.

I don't know if they were doing this for all the moms, or something happened at the table next to us, but the moms each got a small sweet treat at the end of the meal and the waitress told them Happy Mother's day. I thought it was super sweet. That of course did NOT happen at our table. But, like I said, I do not know if that was a Mother's Day thing or just something that particular waitress did.

So, was it a complete disaster? No it wasn't. Will I be back? Absolutely not. You should not be filling all 8 tables when you only...

New restaurant, first visit. Interesting note: this particular location had no listing on Yelp, yet on Google there are currently 38 reviews with a 3.8 star average. So I had to add this business. Anyone know why this wasn't on Yelp? It's been open about a month. This place was under construction forever, I mean like two years, including that odd period in seemingly all the local restaurants' construction when it's all but done and then just sits there for six months (like Denny's is doing right now, right across the street). I've been told that it's a permit thing and blame the City of Conroe, but don't know for sure.. I went with some trepidation because, let's face it, Shoguns all across north Houston have a reputation for marginal quality and service. I didn't really give their service much of a test as I went for a late lunch on a weekday. The rooms are beautiful, very clean, bright, and Japanese without being too cliche' (except for that cat waving its arm on the sushi bar, but isn't that almost mandatory?). I had the sushi/sashimi lunch combo and everything was very good, if not a bit muted. Clearly fresh fish, and an onion soup with a surprising depth and complexity. Alone at the bar I still had to signal to the knot of servers chatting by the cash register - I really thought someone would look up eventually. The price was somewhat higher than I expected - sushi/sashimi lunch combo, no extras, no drink, about $30 with tax and a solid tip. So this should be a 4- or even 5-star review, except for one thing that has me confused and disappointed: they spent big bucks to be on the water and on a very nice build-out. They've added a very attractive covered outdoor patio, with long tables and a view of the small bay lined with condos, Starbucks, and boat rentals. I thought for sure we'd be boating over here when the weather improved, enjoying the fresh air and the view. Nope! Every table is lined with large ashtrays, comically so - an almost aggressive display of ashtrays, making it very clear that this will be for smokers only. I suppose you could eat out there if you weren't one, but who can dine when surrounded by cigarette smoke? I think that this is a clear and intentional signal from the top of Shogun, not some manager's guess at customer preference. That many huge ashtrays lined up across that many tables is Shogun's way of saying "We want smokers to eat, drink, and smoke here, and we don't care if non-smokers stay inside". And I might get that, it's a business decision, but when you're on prime lakefront real estate, with boat docks in front of your store, do you really want to discourage the outdoor diner who doesn't smoke? Seems kind of, well...stupid? So, bottom line, I'll go back to Akashi, where I can get comparable quality, service, and prices, but can dine outdoors...

This visit was from Sept 2022. (I thought I already posted on Google-oops!) Finally had a chance to try out the newly opened Shogun. What a great experience! We went for an early dinner around 3:30 on a Wednesday. It was almost empty and it gave me a chance to look around without disturbing anyone. Very tall windows allow plenty of light and great views to the Lake Conroe inlet that it faces. I saw many different sized tables and chairs out on the covered patio to accommodate plenty of folks during this great weather. (Contrary to another reviewer, not an ashtray to be seen.) We were immediately greeted and seated in a booth.

Water and sake's were served within minutes by our awesome server, Fransisca. We opted for dinner Bento boxes; One Unaju (Eel) and one Shrimp Tempura. We were frequent customers in the Spring location years ago when it opened, and back then the bento's came with tempura vegetables instead of teppanyaki veggies. So we requested to sub the teppanyaki and they agreed for a $1 upcharge. We also subbed Miso soup for Onion soup. The Miso soup was delicious. We were so happy about this because 2 other well known Japanese eateries in the area make it like dish water! My husband was born and raised in Japan and we enjoy it as much as we can when we can get it made well. I would have liked it hotter. The salad was crisp and fresh. The dressing was yummy as well. I could drink that stuff!

Our server Fransisca timed everything just right and always had a smile on her face. It was really nice. I had forgotten the dinner bento comes with tempura shrimp already. I had a mound of shrimp (Yummm - you can never have too much shrimp!) We were so stuffed we brought half home and ate it today. My husband had the Unaju and it was tasty but not served as a filet as usual; but as slices like sushi. It made for a small dinner portion and he wasn't happy about it. (Especially because it's his favorite.) The seaweed salad was tasty, as was the crab meat puff. We never got the Harumaki (Japanese Spring roll) and never realized it until just now. But we did get the sauces for them and they were tasty too. We both felt the Tempura Shrimp could have been cooked a slight bit longer, but it still had good flavor. The tempura vegetables were crunchy and tender - perfect. I was unaware that I paid extra for fried instead of steamed rice ($2.50). It didn't taste fried. The oranges need to go seedless but were a nice and sweet palette cleanser. wink

All in all, we are happy to have a Shogun so close. Everyone was friendly and attentive. It was clean, comfortable and satisfying with a great view. We will be back to try...