Komodo Dallas — Restaurant in Dallas

This place is high end, has a beautiful atmosphere, and is better suited for small, intimate gatherings rather than large groups. It is not the type of place you should go to if you’re hungry since portion sizes are small and expensive. Our server was only able to split checks into 4s so our group of 10 agreed to order family style.

The drinks are aesthetically beautiful and strong—you can feel the effects of the alcohol after a few sips. Good ratio of liquor and other mixers in my opinion. Beer is served in a fancy wine glass.

Fortunes Told is a lychee based cocktail topped with a fortune cookie on the rim. My advice is to remove the fortune cookie right when you get the drink because the cookie will get soaked in the cocktail. Yes, there is a fortune paper inside the fortune cookie. Taste was good. I would recommend this drink.

Japanese milk bread was delicious. The bread was oh so soft and so was the butter. Delicious. Would recommend.

The money bag dumplings was a table favorite. I didn’t get to try it so I can’t offer my opinion.

The lobster dynamite was good. Tasty, but could go without next time.

The shishito peppers are literally just cooked and seasoned chili peppers. It was the only appetizer that was plentiful enough to share amongst a table of 10 people without having to divide the food in half. Would I recommend? I could go without.

The Chinese bbq pork ribs seemed to be ok. Didn’t try this either.

The skirt steak tacos were delicious. The shell of the taco is delicate enough to give this nice airy texture without being too delicate in breaking apart. The skirt steak filling was delicious, so saucy, tasted like moist bbq. Pretty good. Would i recommend? Maybe. It’s good.

Omakase platter nigiri was exquisite. The meat melts in your mouth and the sushi tasted high quality. I would recommend this to a large/medium party. Shoot, even small party is fine. It is very pricey but if you’re only factoring in taste, this platter is something to consider getting. Otherwise, if you’re factoring in price, the platter may not be something to get. In my opinion, the taste/value isn’t worth $280. Taste isnt WOW I HAVE TO GET THIS but it is excellent, I will tell you that.

The Texas Crispy Quail was battered lightly to a nice golden crisp, topped with honey. The meat was nicely fried, tender, and juicy. I’m not a quail person so I feel like I can’t give you my accurate personal opinion on this but I have tried the quail at Hurtados BBQ and compared to Hurtados, this quail is definitely more high end.

The crab low mein was delicious and thoroughly imbued a crabby flavor. There were real crab legs encircling the dish. I would maybe recommend this dish.

The banana pagoda was so delicious. Hands down. I loved the texture of the cold, melt in your mouth icecream along with the crunchiness of the box that surrounds the dessert, and the sliced bananas on the side. I would say this dessert is one those culinary masterpieces that is unique and exclusive to Komodo. Would highly recommend.

The Komodo shot tasted like a mixture of orange juice with mango/tangerine. It didn’t even taste like a shot. It was so good. Would highly recommend (I didn’t feel the effects of this shot though).

The walkway to the bathroom is what you’ll see most girls take a picture in. It is the same walkway used for men and women. There are staff who help turn on water for you and hand your paper towels. There are tic tacs for convenience. These staffers do accept tip.

There is a parking garage nearby the restaurant. Don’t be shy to park there, it’s $7 per hour and the stairway/elevator down to the lobby is hotel like and smells nice. There is no receptionist so don’t have to interact with anyone. There are kiosks to pay for your parking ticket right when you get to the elevator to get back in your car and right at the exit before you leave to ensure I pay. The walk from the garage to the restaurant is not scary and not that big of a distance, it’s relatively safe since there’s valet people nearby.

And as mentioned, there’s...

Overall our experience was underrated and over-priced, with shady and lackluster service. We went here for my birthday dinner on a Saturday for a 5:30 reservation. First of all we received a pretentious text message regarding the dress code, cancelation policy, reservation time period and how long the table would be held if we were late. The day of the reservation there was also an email sent out to submit credit card information within a couple hours or the reservation would be canceled at 1pm. As it was my birthday, we were out and not checking email constantly, when I checked my email at 1:30 I was notified the reservation was canceled and I had to call the restaurant to resend the link. This was just a minor inconvenience though so it was ok. They do not seat you at the table until the whole party arrives; 9 of the 11 were there so we hung out by the bar until the last 2 arrived couple minutes later but when we got to the table it was only set for 9...after the multiple confirmations and the CC link issue. When it came to ordering the waiter asked us, "still or sparkling water", we responded with "still" and he also mentioned that the plates are family style and meant to share. We ordered 2-3 items per person; the drinks were the best part of the whole experience (dude ranch water) and the food was mediocre at best with very small portions considering the price tag. Another waitress was very diligent about refilling our water glasses (this will be important later). After we finished eating, my husband spoke with the waiter privately to order a dessert for my birthday and was convinced on a $100 platter because it would have a nice presentation and we wanted to celebrate, plus most of our guests were still hungry and we wanted to treat them. The dessert, which was few pieces of cut fruit, some mochi, a small chocolate custard and some cream mousse, arrived on a huge platter of ice with no presentation! My husband was so shocked because the waiter said there would be sparklers and smoke from dry ice, they ended up only bringing some dry ice after my husband sought out the waiter and we already started digging into the dessert. This was very disheartening because there was a $45 cost specifically for the presentation. When the bill arrived we were met with a few more surprises; there was a charge for the water we consumed and a 3% service charge that the waiter did not have an explanation for. Remember the waitress who kept eagerly refilling our water before our glasses were even empty, well little did we know it was bottled water let alone an $8/per bottle charge. My husband didn't want to argue there as we were celebrating but in my opinion, this is a deceptive practice, you should let your patrons know that you are charging for that. Also the 3% service charge and the 20% gratuity that was automatically tacked on was taxed as well, so there was just a lot of extraneous costs. The ambience is nice because of the decor but nothing spectacular and its hard to hear other members of your party when you are at a dinner table but they are blasting music. I was expecting a trendy restaurant with great food and vibes but received a hefty bill for an underwhelming...

Wow. Where to begin with the absolute worst dining experience I’ve ever had in my 26 years of life. As a member of the service industry, I would be embarrassed to own or manage or work for an establishment that is this disorganized and unprofessional and then has the audacity to charge $25 for a basic drink with less than 2 oz of alcohol in it AND add an %18 gratuity on it?! So let’s start from the top.

I made reservations a week ahead with 10 guests for my birthday celebration at 9 pm. Half of our party arrived at 9 and the other half at 9:30. They did the initial partial check in and let us know that we’d have to wait for the rest of the party to arrive to be seated. So when they arrived a little late I made sure to let the hostess know. We waited by the bar for another 20 minutes and I asked the hostess again about our table to which she said the previous lady had not fully checked us in which caused the delay. Okay fine, so we waited another 15 minutes. Then they seated us at the worst possible table for 10 guests, barely any room to pull chairs out, right in the path of the wind tunnel the patio created. We waited 10 minutes before I complained as my guests were suffering and trying to put on a brave face. The hostess said she would move us to an adjacent table that had heaters, to just give her a few minutes to clean it and she would ensure we were moved. I return to the table to wait and my husband goes to the hostess stand to try and push the issue further. So now we’ve been sitting at this table for 20 minutes. NO SERVER TOUCHED OUR TABLE IN THIS TIME. the table they were going to move us to? Was still not even cleaned off by the time we left. I waited five more minutes. My husband returned with the manager but at that point… what’s the point? I had ZERO desire to wait another 45 minutes for some overpriced fried rice.

I did not even ask the managers name. I let him know how absolutely atrocious this whole ordeal was. Mind you, I am 21 weeks pregnant, wearing 6 inch heels and I have waited over an hour and a half, STARVING. There was no fixing. This situation at this point so we just left. The poor hostess’s running around like chickens with their head cut off, clearly overwhelmed, doing the best they can with their own management doing nothing to manage the obvious overbooking issue they had. I’m sorry, when I looked at the website I thought this was supposed to be an upscale experience, not another price gouged, Dallas selfie spot!

This is completely unacceptable. The owner and general manager and service manager need to come together and have a real discussion about how to improve their experience. You know they won’t though because at the end of the day it’s all about the bottom line $$$. I wish this was the end of my bad evening but then we had a similar issue at the restaurant across the street. Some of my guests had to leave without even getting to eat to relieve their babysitters. So thanks for ruining my birthday dinner Komodo! No I will not be emailing your guest services or general manager. Y’all have enough bad reviews about the same issues that it’s time y’all figure it out...