Kappo Honda 割烹本多 — Restaurant in Fountain Valley

So disappointing! My husband and I came here because we are frequent patrons of their sister restaurant, honda-ya, in Tustin. We recently discovered this fountain valley location and thought we'd give them a try. This was, by far, one of the most disappointing places I've been to in a long while. Almost everything was overcooked.

The chicken yakitori with cheese and jalapeno were dry and overcooked with very little seasoning. The jalapeno slices were so thickly sliced, I just took them off.

The beef tongue was sliced way too thick and extremely tough and chewy. Honda-ya does theirs much thinner and theirs is tender and easy to eat. I will say that Kappo Honda seasoned the tongue well, but it's not enjoyable if I have to chew it until I have TMJ.

The negima (chicken thighs with green onion) was okay. The seasoning was lacking, though.

The kabocha and saboro was pretty good. It's definitely different from most dishes. And the grilled corn on the cob was very good. I do love corn.

The duck was actually pretty decent. It was prepared well and didn't have a very gamey flavor. It was surprisingly one of the best yakitori skewers we had, tonight

I got the chawan mushi and was seriously disappointed with the 1 ginko nut, 1/2 slice of extremely thinly sliced fishcake, and tiny piece of salmon that laid at the bottom of the cup. It was pretty much all custard. The salmon piece was about the size of a nickel. (I think that's even being generous).

The scallops yakitori were far overcooked and chewy. The chicken skin was burnt on the ends and required some chiseling to separate it from the skewer stick.

We ordered the red house gyoza which was decent. I thought it lacked seasoning in the filling. My husband thought it was okay so our decision on this one is up in the air.

My husband also ordered tempura lotus root. He felt it was way too undercooked. The root was really hard and crunchy. I tried a piece and have to agree. We've had far better at other restaurants.

The agedashi mochi was on par with Honda-ya and other izakaya we've been to. I'd be a little concerned if anyone was able to screw this one up, though.

Ah, and finally, the salmon belly nigiri sushi. This was our last order and what dropped what would have been a 3 star rating down to a 2. This was overall unpleasant. The whole thing. The rice was extremely hot underneath, which made the fish very warm. On top of that, the fish left an incredibly unpleasant taste in both our mouths. I don't know how to describe it, but it was kind of foul. Sushi rice must be a certain temperature before laying fish on it and I would expect this place to know better, especially for the reputation and other reviews I've read of this place.

The overall theme tonight was overcooked and disappointing. The staff was very friendly, though, which kept this review from sinking down to a 1. They were on it and always picking up plates/checking on us. Our table was extremely sticky, though. Like, the whole table. Not sure if it's from the cleaner they use or what, but it was a...

My experience was horrible to the point that I needed to drive home as fast as possible just to write about it. I've been passing by this place many times and have always wanted to try out, given 4 stars I expected it to be decent.

Pros: The food is quite good, fair price, but nothing extraordinary to write home about.

Cons: The whole thing starts as we walked into the restaurant. At first my mom and I thought maybe we would sit at the bar area, but then she decided to just sit at the regular table. So we sat down, the waitress came with menus. Turns out that table has little light for us to even look at the menu so we transferred over to the table next to us, which were brighter. The Japanese waitress, tall and slender lady came by telling us we can't switch to another table anymore. We only switched ONCE BECAUSE OF LOW LIGHT THAT WE COULDN'T SEE THE MENU WELL. The restaurant at the time was NOT crowded AT ALL. We ordered 2 tonkatsu ramen and 1 chilean sea bass. My mom has the habit of bringing with her some vegetable whenever she goes out to eat, as recommended by her physician, a little more veggies to complement her diet. Right after my mom took out her small bag of veggies, one of the waitress came over telling us we were not supposed to bring outside food. She mentioned a sign outside restaurant regarding no outside food. Excuse me! A small ziploc bag of vegetable is considered outside food? Are you THAT PICKY? It's not like we brought a bowl of fried rice or an entree from home or another restaurant!

We even told the waitress at the beginning that we were first timers. Usually at MANY other restaurants I went to, they went out of their way to provide me the best service to give best impression hoping I would come back. But NO, even if food here taste heavenly, we vow to NEVER COME BACK. They deserved zero tip from me by the way. I've come to a restaurant that I tiped $20 on a $10 bill before due to exceptional customer service. I only tip for excellent service that deserves my money.

I really hope management look into their customer service. I understand you have your own restaurant rule, but the small ziploc bag of vegetable incident is just too extreme to be applicable...

Not too bad on the wait time it probably took us about 25 minutes unfortunately a lot of times there's open tables they don't come out and get people quickly enough, had a katsu ramen I wish you can get it with chicken inside and so the pork I always get no pork so I pay for it but I don't use it but they will not do any substitutions of any kind which is sad because if it's cooked to order they should be able to put chicken in it instead of pork if you don't eat pork, My son's food was ordered without the teriyaki sauce We were almost done with our food by the time his food came out and the excuse was well they blew it they put the sauce on it, you should have came to us and said hey I know you wanted the sauce on the side but this is what happened and he would have taken it and then gotten more sauce but it wasn't even a choice was given to us so he was eating his food and we were done, my husband and I ordered ice cream they should have comped it but they don't do anything like that there unfortunately, it is not a customer service based company which is a shame cuz we spend a lot of...