Sakada Japanese Steak House — Restaurant in Florida

We visited St. Augustine for the day to get to know the North Side a little better and tour a museum near by. So when confronted with the restaurant decision we noticed the restaurant I had planned on trying was not open but an interesting Japanese establishment was handy so we went in.

The atmosphere was dark, quiet and lovely. Beautiful décor. However, that is par for the course. When it came to our orders, the food appearance, taste and appeal of the drinks before dinner, etc. It was awful. On top of all that the menu does not actually match what you get served.

I specifically ordered a large seafood soup without wheat because of my gluten sensitivity. I expressed to the waiter that I needed a gluten free noodle and I know that soba noodles are gluten free so I ordered them with these in it. When the meal came I noticed the noodles were not soba after a few bites. I was even more upset when the chef insisted soba noodles were made of wheat not buckwheat and udon noodles were made of rice. As I am familiar with noodles now since my allergies started I knew that udon noodles are made of wheat. Obviously this woman was Chinese or something else and was not familiar with Japanese food enough to know the difference. I was angry and confused about this. They did not remake the soup but gave me a small discount.

I left hungry since my dinner date had already eaten his dinner which also did not have the right ingredients indicated on the menu.

This Japanese restaurant is not worth your money. You would be just as well to go to a fast food Chinese place. We were very...

I normally don't like to write negative reviews. Being a chef myself, I know how it can hurt the reputation of a place. However, I also believe that if you can't be hospitable, you have no business being in the industry. Unfortunately, Sakada is one such place. We made reservations but had to wait 20 min for our table. That would've been fine but the hostess (owner?) was rude. We asked for a glass of water to make milk for our baby and she thought that was too much to ask since we weren't seated yet.

One of the best parts of a hibachi restaurant (and the main reason we went) is all the tricks the chef performs at the table and our kids were looking forward to that. However, no such luck. He looked like he really didn't want to be there and cooked and served the food very mechanically.

The food itself was below average and the portions were small when compared to other restaurants. We were supposed to get 4 scallops each. Instead, he was one short... so he cut it on half and figured it was OK to do so. We had 3 orders of filet. 2 cooked medium rare and 1 cooked medium. But all 3 portions were served at the same time. No attention to detail.

Despite the poor service and sun standard food, we were charged the 18% service fee.

Bottom line: there are several better restaurants that serve you with a smile. Avoid this place and...

Coming from Asia, their foods were so bland. Asked the server to spicy up like hot spicy but came not even close as spicy. Asked the server to bring us Sriracha hot sauce that was spotted on the sushi corner and at first she didn't even understand what Sriracha was when I pointed out the bottle at corner she's like ooo. We ordered hibachi steak, fried rice and shrimp shumai. I could tell the shrimp shumai was just coming from an ordinary prepackaged shrimp dumpling that you'd easily find from any Asian grocery stores, so yeah it wasn't that good. Looked like they even boiled it and didn't not steam it. Their fried rice was too dry but also at some point it was too greasy. No veggies at all so very very bland. We did not order their sushi, probably their sushi taste better. The server was not friendly at all, there were only 3 families eaiting there, wasn't that very busy but seemed whenever we asked the server to bring us something she seemed not happy at all. Whenever my husband asked her to bring us to go cup for our ice tea, she only brought one instead of two and didn't even mind to ask us if both of us needed em. We've eaten better, so 2 or 3 stars rating is enough. They could have...