Kintaro Sushi Hibachi — Restaurant in Eastlake

I had my most bizarre experience at this restaurant last night. It was so awkward that I had to leave and meet my date at at the westlake location instead. I'm not a first time patron either, this was maybe my 4th or 5th visit, but something was REALLY off. I'm a pretty patient and understanding customer. If there's a wait, I can understand or if certain things are out of stock, alright. But how I was treated was so unusual and uncomfortable. The host (maybe also manager) greeted me and asked me if I was there for dining in or eating out. I simply said, "I'd like a table for 2." She pointed at a family/group sitting there and said "I already have people here before you." I was like, "ok" and I take my seat. After a while, 2 groups were seated, then a group of 3 women just arrived and stood at the host stand. They stated to the host that they want a table for 3. They were told the same thing I was that there's someone waiting for a table already. They sat down. My date didn't arrive yet, but the host approached me and asked me if my company was here yet. I said they weren't. Then she asked if I could let the group of 3 women could be seated first after I had been sitting, waiting to get a table after 15 or 20 minutes. That baffled me. I have never had that happen to me because someone I was going to meet hadn't arrived yet. And the ladies hadn't even been there 5 minutes. The host also implied it'd be more polite to let the women sit since they're women 🤷 and assumed I'd be meeting a woman as well (which I was not, my date was a guy.) I didn't bother going into details about my business. I let them get a table before me even though the group protested to being sat first before me. I have never felt such needless embarrassment over something so trivial and old fashioned. I'm sure the host was overwhelmed and the place was understaffed, but just saying it would take maybe 30, 45, or an hour to be seated would've been suffice enough for the scenario. There seemed a lot of disorganization going on and I just didn't care for the chaos. I also never seen the same servers whenever I go. It might take me a year or two to let this scar of a memory to fade away. Or I'll just go to the other locations or more likely somewhere...

So let me preface this by saying: I have had hotpot before. Many times at other places, especially in California. I am not a rookie. We were given two menus and no pens to fill it out. Turns out the flower pot on the table had the pens. We were not told. The server came by 20 minutes later with our drinks asking if we were ready so I started reciting what i wanted and she got flustered and gave us pens. Or at least I think she was flustered. Hard to tell since she barely spoke any English (Nothing wrong with that but it did make the experience a lot more difficult since she was unable to answer any location-specific questions we had). Ok so we filled out our order sheets and waited another 15 minutes for the server to come pick them up. She took them and said something incomprehensible about doing something ourselves. Come to find out after we left she was referring to a sauce station (Would have been nice to know). It took another 20 minutes for the broth and raw ingredients to arrive. Bear in mind we were the only hotpot diners at the time. The broth was fine. I had the Sha Cha broth which is a bit shrimpy because of what's in it (in case anyone's wondering). They did bring a ton of ingredients which was unexpected since every kbbq and hotpot place I've been to brings small portions at a time to avoid food waste. Ah there's the reason, they threaten to charge $10.99/lb for wasted food. So they bring a TON of ingredients expecting you to not eat it all in order to surcharge for wasted food. It's starting to make sense now. Thankfully I ordered mostly vegetables and was comfortable eating enough to minimize waste but my partner was not so ambitious, so I ended up helping them knock their portion down a bit and we didn't get hit with a surcharge. Our bill still came out to roughly $80 after one beer and one soft drink for 2 people all you can eat. Very pricey and not at all worth it in my opinion. I also wouldn't trust their sushi as I watched one of their sushi chefs stop making a roll, blow his nose, and then go back to making the roll immediately after without washing his hands. Seems like a very sketchy thing yo do in our post pandemic world.

TL;DR?...

Ruuuuude! Front hostess lady is so extremely rude I can’t imagine spending my money with people that treat me so disrespectfully.

Tried to order takeout on a Tuesday, got a weird dialtone. Tried them 5 times in 20 minutes. Nothing. So I arrived at the restaurant and let them know their phones weren’t working. She said “no phones are fine. What you want?” I’m thinking okay, maybe it’s a cultural thing, she didn’t even address it. Trying to let them know for helping business. But moving on… as I’m about to give my order she put her hand up to silence me and told me to wait; she put in a different order from her head into the computer system. Then proceeds with mine, she finishes tell me the total and I show her my coupon. She’s like outraged at the coupon. She starts yelling why didn’t you show me that to begin with! You messed up the entire order I have to put it in again!” (I only ordered 4 items) I asked for her name she wouldn’t give it, and she told me goodbye. Whhhhhhhhhaaaaaaaaaat???? I’m thinking what did I say? I’ve been nothing but kind and helpful and respectful. Is she mad I had a coupon from their website?? The Uber delivery guy next to me was in shock at how rude and how that just went down. I was trying to be kind and helpful since my first step in there. He even said he’d never go back to a place that treats people so disrespectfully. Like people witnessed it but apparently this lady is soooo busy at 6pm in an empty restaurant she wants to shoo away customers. I’m still shocked at why anyone would want to treat...