Tei Tei Robata Bar — Restaurant in Dallas

I really wanted to knock my girlfriend's birthday out of the park and I read online that Tei Tei was the same quality and tier as Uchi. So I made reservation a month in advance and specifically stated "Its a very special birthday".

When we got there, we were originally seated right next to a large family, even through the restaurant was mostly empty. We requested to be moved to a more quiet area and the wait staff obliged(but why not do that from the get go considering I said it was my girlfriend's birthday??). We placed our order right away, but the food took around 35–40 minutes to arrive. This seemed unusual, especially considering it was a Tuesday night and the restaurant wasn't particularly busy. We started with the Chilean Seabass and the Baby Yellowtail Carpaccio—both of which were fantastic. Then we ordered the Rainbow Roll and the Sashimi Sampler, which took another 30 minutes to reach our table. My girlfriend noted that portion sizes were much smaller and the lightening was much less intimate than it was 2 years ago. Throughout the evening, no manager came by to acknowledge the long wait, update us on our order, or even wish my girlfriend a happy birthday. I’m not someone who expects freebies or fanfare—but when you’re paying premium prices, you expect a premium experience, and the service felt inattentive and impersonal.

To wrap up the evening, we stopped by Barcelona Wine Bar across the street for a couple of drinks. I casually mentioned to the bartender that we were celebrating a birthday, and without hesitation, he offered us two complimentary drinks. It was a small gesture, but it made a big impact—it showed thoughtfulness and hospitality that was noticeably missing from our...

My star rating is solely on the service, because our food was excellent. I've said in other comments that I'm slow to critique servers, because we don't have the full story about what's going on, but our server was "absentee" from the start. We had a reservation for 7p and upon arrival, the hostess seemed overwhelmed and had some trouble finding us a seat.

We ordered drinks, appetizers, and entrees and it just felt like we were rushed the whole way through the meal and then our server just disappeared once the food arrived. My friend was going to order dessert, but someone else dropped off the check without even asking, so we ended up just paying and leaving.

As far as the food goes, it was incredible. We started with the Washu Beef Stone, and the beef was tender and juicy and the stone us allowed us to cook it exactly as we wanted. There were 8 pieces which was more than enough to split between the two of us (which, I could have eaten more if given the choice). I had the spicy tuna roll and miso marinated chilean sea bass (this came a la carte and the server informed me of that prior to ordering). The tuna roll may have been one of the best suhi rolls I've had in town and the sea bass was cooked perfectly.

My friend had the sashimi seasonal special which was bright and colorful and per his comments, was tasty as well.

I would definitely go back, because the service may have been a one off experience, but it definitely made a 5* experience more of a...

I’m really surprised by these 5 star reviews. I was excited to try the place because the ratings are high, most people seem to be regulars, and Japanese is our favorite cuisine.

Overall I felt it was okay, but definitely not better than uchi and nothing close to the fish you get at Tsukiji Market in Japan. I just got back from Tokyo two weeks ago so I distinctly remember the melt-in-your mouth freshness and just pure, briny brightness. You didn’t need soy sauce because it’s that fresh, but i definitely needed soy sauce for our sashimi platter because I could taste the fishy smell that doesn’t appeal to me and also they weren’t melting in my mouth. Well there was a yellowtail piece that did but that was all. So yes, my expectations were Japanese standard high for this place and unfortunately I did leave feeling disappointed. I tried several drinks and was also not impressed, they were either too sweet or reeked of alcohol. Service was good, we were a party of 8. We tried a variety of dishes and the only one worth mentioning was the sea bass which was great.

I’m not likely to return, but if I did, I’d go for one of their whole fishes on the robata grill because on our way out a couple who seemed to be regulars raved about how good it was and it looked like a beautiful...