Benihana — Restaurant in Dearborn

My reservation was for February 27, 2024 at 7PM for a teppanyaki side dinning experience with my girlfriend on my birthday (TLDR, would not recommend).

The following is a list of positives & negatives from that evening:

Positives *Seated promptly on time for my reservation *The food tasted great & the compound butter Benihana uses is delicious *All allergies & dietary restrictions/requests were respected to the fullest *The staff were polite & courteous (to my partner & I at least) *If I am in a position where I have to go again, there are regular non-teppanyaki side tables available *They didn't sing for my birthday. Honestly, I don't know if it was their oversight on their part (my partner told the waiter it was my birthday) *There was a parking lot

Negatives *Seriously, I cannot stress enough that we were there for 2 hours just for dinner service alone. We sat down at 7PM & didn't leave until 9PM. We were there for 2 hours & we were not just hanging around the bar or anything. The teppanyaki chef finished cooking, we paid our bill, & left. 2 hours of waiting, sporadically sampling food, & then leaving. That's way too long. *During this time, I ordered a Diet Pepsi. Over the course of 2 hours I received two refills. My partner ordered a cocktail & had to request water half way through the meal (I only recall that they may have gotten their water topped off once, maybe twice?). This would have been acceptable if the meal service was half as long. The restaurant is loud & I feel like the staff spoke softly. *So you are going to Benihana's, you have seen the commercials or been to a teppanyaki grill before. You are expecting a cheerful teppanyaki chef to dazzle you with cool utensil flips, quickly prepared food, & some entertaining bits? Yeah...me too. What we got was a teppanyaki chef that started the night with maybe 3 or 4 spatula flips, he made a smiley face with cooking oil, lit some alcohol on fire on the grill surface, & then made two onion volcanoes (one would not light). That was maybe the first 5-10 minutes he cooked & that was it. From then on out, it was like a switch turned off. The chef made no attempt at being entertaining afterwards. Seriously, I get it. Anyone may have an off night but that was my experience. The chef engaged in some banter with the lady sitting next to me...I don't think the banter was mutually friendly though. She expressed concern that she wasn't going to get her entire order/side sauces (more on that later for me). The lady was direct but polite. The chef's responses were dismissive & he kind of laughed it off as if she was being unreasonable? Honestly I think she was being quite reasonable & I don't think she wanted to joke around either. Experiencing the chef interact with her was uncomfortable & embarrassing. *I did not get all the food I ordered. The teppanyaki steak meal I ordered came with rice. I ordered white rice & was never served white rice. At one point the chef asked after the first or second batch of fried rice (more on that later) if I was getting rice. I thought he meant if I was getting any fried rice but maybe he interpreted that as I didn't order rice at all? Though, during one of the batches of fried rice the chef did give me a small portion of fried rice that was leftover. I didn't know when to expect white rice or if it would be be brought from the back kitchen since it wasn't being cooked so I didn't bothered to ask before the meal ended. *They are great with dietary restrictions but they cook everything on the grill. Usually if there are restrictions, I would expect some of it to be cooked in the back & brought out. The reason service took so long was because they were juggling 3-4 individual dietary restrictions at the time. Everyone should enjoy a good teppanyaki experience regardless of restrictions but, it took so long that people were taking their entire entrees home to eat instead. *The meal before tip or coupon was $110 dollars between my girlfriend & I. I have spent way less for way better food & service at our local...

If you don’t feel like reading all this, just find your nearest Ukai and go there instead. I use to come here all the time when i was a kid from 2004-2009 and i use to think this place was super high end and professional, but after tonight i will not be returning here unless someone plans a birthday or something here.

Believe every other review that says it took 30 min or more for drinks to come because it took every second of 30 minutes for our drinks. No one at the table got their green tea that came with everyone’s entree and when my girl n I asked she said “you guys really want the green tea? Its bitter and takes 10 min for me to steep, i usually don’t bring it out cuz no one finishes their cup.” Keep in mind im paying $45 a plate for my girl n I. My girlfriend and I asked for lemon with our water and the waitress came out with 3 lemons on a skewer. She first asked, who asked for lemon. We both said us, she hands my girlfriend her lemons and then asked the whole table, “does anyone else want lemon” while holding up my skewer like she was going to give it to someone else instead of me. My girlfriend’s mojito came with the ice completely melted and the waitress said we can’t send back alcoholic drinks but i can get you more ice. On top of that my girl said she can’t taste any liquor at all.

The waitress didn’t tell anybody that chicken fried rice is an up charge of $6.50, she didnt even ask if anyone wanted fried rice instead or noodles. The 6 course meals we ordered came with something called a “shrimp appetizer” and “mushrooms” paired with sauteed onions. The shrimp appetizer was 3 baby shrimp and no mushrooms were included. The onion soup that comes with meals was VERY good but there wasn’t real onions, it was the crunchy french onions. The cook was great, he was very professional and was asking a lot of questions because our server wrote down a bunch of wrong stuff. The food tasted good my filet was cooked perfect, the only problem i have is I paid $47 for the filet and scallops. I got 4 baby scallops, and I mean baby scallops that were cut into tiny pieces and on the overcooked side. Still tasted good.

The cleanliness of the restaurant is disgusting, dust and gunk on all the lamp heads, our server had spilled a soup on her trey and continued to dump all of it on the window sill right next to us. There was so much soup covering the window sill it caught me so off guard i could only laugh. The griddles don’t have a corner with a garbage shoot so he used a bowl sitting right next to my girlfriend’s plate to dump egg shells, char, etc. The cook tried his best to clean as he went, but he was only given one rag, and by the time he was cooking entrees, it was completely black where he kept wiping his knife and spatula.

Overall the food tasted great and boggles my mind how good it tastes. But don’t expect anything insane or entertaining or expect to at least get some water before you eat your soup and salad. Please find your nearest Ukai or any hibachi restaurant and go there instead, i cannot stress this enough. Do not copy me and spend $45 a plate and want to leave before you...

I would give zero stars Be aware of deceitful servers when paying bill!! I went for someone’s birthday and we were 7 at a grill but had 3 grills. Each grill had its own wait staff assigned as usual. No one informed that there would automatically be 18% gratuity added to the bill. Which is fine, that’s not the deceitful part. I noticed other tables with black small folders with their bill in it and paid accordingly.

(Now don’t get me wrong, the service was horrible, glasses were not refilled, we waited over an hour to be served, the chef did not put on any type of pretend to put on any type of performance. The waitress was constantly reminded to bring things (which could be overwhelming but she should have remembered considering it was only 7 of us at one table). I ordered sushi for an appetizer and had to ask for if after the chef was done and it was gross. The restaurant was dirty, the grill were dirty. We asked for a fork and the waitress brought out a different type of fork that looked old and was not covered up. The wait staff need more training . It’s ghetto)

I should have known something was wrong when I heard her tell my husband the bill was $169, for two people. (For some fried rice!!! The meat is cut into small pieces and divided however the chef feels. So you don’t receive whole pieces. Whatever rice is left over the airy scoops, they give the remainder to who they are drowned to, so the portions are not even although you pay whatever the price is. ) She came around to each person with a kiosk (not the receipt) and just asked for your card, stood over you as you selected the tip and moved on to the next person. I realized it once I saw others at different grills with their bill and asked for ours. She failed to state the gratuity was already added. My husband had already given the chef $20 cash and ask her if cash was better to tip, (which we gave her) again that was her opportunity to say, it’s added but if you want to give additional tip in cash, that will go directly to me. Instead she gave a sad story about how the entire restaurant would receive her tip. So in all we spent $200 on a small portion of fried rice, noodles, gross sushi and a cocktail. We will pay for good food and always tip very well but this is definitely not worth it at all. Never again.

And the other locations...