Sapporo II Japanese Restaurant — Restaurant in Frederick

While I DO have high hopes for this restaurant in the future, they are definitely not ready for prime time, yet, and I will explain why (if you care to read on). While others might slam them for far less, and probably give them a one star review, I don’t believe that would be fair, and would hurt them unnecessarily. That is not, and never is, my intent. But, I do want other prospective diners, who look up reviews to make a decision for where to eat, to be informed, and know what’s going on. Here’s my breakdown:

Decor/cleanliness: Decor is very nice; it's new, clean, and has interesting architectural details. Wooden Sushi bar is beautiful!

Service: It was very clear from the time that we sat down, that all of the servers were completely “in the weeds,” which did not let up until we left, nearly 2 hours later. That’s how long it took to get through our meal, and not by our choice. We were not in a rush, but we were also not looking to sit there for an unnecessarily long period of time. Now, to be fair, we know that this restaurant is fairly new, and it was Saturday evening. That said, it has also been open for more than four weeks already. Multiple servers stopped by, at different times, not knowing where we were in the dining “process.” We were asked, on several occasions, whether we were ready to order, when we had already placed an order, or nobody would come around when we were ready to order, and had clearly placed our menus at the side of the table. We had difficulty placing each one of our orders in a reasonable timeframe, and we were patient, knowing they had not been open for too long. As it related to the food, with an extremely long delay and poor execution on our food (which the owner was clearly aware of) she did end up comping my Sushi dish (super skimpy at $17). My hope is that, in the future, they will understand that they were clearly slammed, and will slow down their seating, asking people to wait, in order not to sacrifice the quality of service and food that customers are paying for during this type of dining experience.

Food: We ordered three appetizers (fried calamari, edamame, and seaweed salad) which took ~15 to 20 minutes to arrive after that order was placed, and came out "piece-meal," (not together). Appetizers tasted good. For our main courses, my wife and son both ordered hot dishes, which are made in the kitchen, while my daughter and I ordered sushi, typically made-to-order at the sushi bar. My sons noodle dish came out first, and we expected the other dishes to arrive right after. Sadly, that’s not what happened. About 10 to 15 minutes after that, and I’m not exaggerating, then my wife’s dish showed up, and she had ordered chicken teriyaki. this dish was served on a sizzling hot skillet, on which you would expect either fajitas or bibimbap to be served. Those of you who experienced myriad East-Asian dishes a fair amount, will know that teriyaki sauce contains a lot of sugar. As soon as the dish was placed in front of my wife, I told her that that the sugar would burn from that blazing hot skillet, and the burnt sugar would not be enjoyable or palatable. Sadly, I was right; replacing her dish with something else would have put us another 20+ minutes away from her eating (she did not say anything about her dish to the owner). About another 10 minutes after my wife’s dish came out, then my daughter sushi was presented, which was as ordered. Another five minutes after her sushi came out then my sushi was served, last.

I started off by saying that I do, indeed, have high hopes for this restaurant, and these issues can all be overcome. I know that they can. I’m hoping that the owner see this, take this review to heart, and works on improving the things that need to be fixed. As another previous reviewer, who is a local guide, wrote before me, albeit much more succinctly, I will wait a few months before going back, but I will try them again since I believe that they will improve, and I look forward...

Omakase, unfortunately, mediocre at best. Instead of a sushi dinner, we opted for the expensive Omakase, course B on the menu a sushi experience. A meal where attention to detail and execution are paramount. We were sat at the sushi bar, and immediately, I had considered leaving. The first thing I look for in any sushi bar is cleanliness, and whereas the counter I would be eating from this evening was seemingly clean enough it was evident that at some point soy sauce had been spilled on the counter and ran down the face of the counter because it was still there in its dried form. The bar had small decorative ceramic soy sauce containers at each setting and each one had multiple dried soy sauce streams from the spout, down the face of the container, leaving you to imagine them getting filled but not cleaned. The top of the sushi bar, the counter from which the chefs serve from, looked as though it had not been wiped down in days. Initially, there may have been six customers at tables and no one at the sushi bar. So I decided to convince myself that maybe the current conditions were a result of an earlier lunch rush. This meal is supposed to be an experience, and part of that experience is the interaction with the sushi chef. That was 100% void at this meal. Other than hello and goodbye, the only time the chefs spoke was when offering the next course, and they said what it was. Each and every time, we had to ask them to repeat themselves as they spoke at a whisper. Remember I said the place was not crowded, and I can't say enough the importance of interaction with the chef. There was no description of the cut of the fish presented or why it was chosen, no basic bantering to find our likes and dislikes. My takeaway of the situation was that we had a sushi chef, training two apprentices. Not necessarily a bad situation, but I believe this is where execution and attention to detail went by the wayside. Our first offering from the sushi chefs was Toro, 4 pieces sashimi, and 2 Nigiri. Receiving this treat I felt initially better about the situation. But then picking up the 1st piece of sashimi I found that the pieces had not been cut all the way through and the one piece I picked up was followed immediately with the other 3 still attached. Presentation out the window I had to sit the piece back down and separate with my fingers. Now if you weren't aware, this type of meal is quality over quantity and overall found no issues with the quality of the fish that we were given, though one course was a piece of squid, the last thing one would expect from a meal like this. The presentation on the other hand, was lackluster. Unfortunately I cannot recommend this meal as presented last night. If you have had the pleasure of Omakase before, you would not take further recommendations from me, and if you have not had the experience, you...

Finally went to try this place last night + didn't get to: I am a Lazy Fish loyalist so, now that they've closed for renovations we planned to try Sapporo II -- my husband even made a reservation.

We entered their lovely space and were confused by the amount of time that we had to wait at the host stand. Ahead of us, a Door Dash delivery person was waiting for an order.

A kind but frantic-looking server -- whose guidance we were later grateful for -- informed the Door Dash person that she would need to wait about 10 minutes. That same server then informed my husband and I that, due to a staffing issue in the kitchen (she said that "chef left"-- of course I can't be certain what this entails, but my assumption is that the head chef quit), and all food was taking a minimum of 45 minutes to arrive after being ordered and most ticket times were closer to 1 hour: due to a combination of poor staffing, a busy dining room, and lots of to-go and delivery app orders.

The server then indicated a table near to the entrance where it was clear that three of the four guests had already finished their meals and one guest had not yet received any food -- obviously not an ideal experience for those diners who looked dismayed.

My husband and I asked for a moment to discuss while we looked around the room and observed other tables in similar states of chaos.

I was a restaurant manager for many many years and the owner/manager's approach to the situation at Sapporo II last night is incomprehensible.

It is grossly unfair to your servers to put them in a position to have to inform guests that they cannot be served. A manager or owner should have been greeting guests at the door to handle this.

Additionally, when a staffing issue occurs on-site, the revenue centers that you shut down are delivery and to-go. It is antithetical to the principal of dining out to allow those services to continue at the cost of poorly serving--or in my case, not serving at all--on-site guests.

The server returned to us and we asked her a few clarifying questions and she apologized profusely--which I assured her was not her responsibility.

In the end we decided to dine elsewhere (Isabella's, for the record + it was great as always).

Sorry Sapporo, unless you find a way to turn this around, we won't be back. It's a pity, I hear the food is great.

See also: I don't know this to be true of these owner/managers but I know far too many who undervalue and subsequently under compensate their staff: if this is you, Sapporo II, this is a mistake.

Take good care of your people so they can take care of your guests -- and when it goes wrong, please try to be proactive in handling it.

I'm giving five stars for service because the server did everything she possibly could to help us despite this absolutely...