Koi — Restaurant in Gallatin

Not great but not bad. The service was relatively slow, but that's to be expected on a Friday night and I didn't let that influence the rating. We opted for dine-in instead of the hibachi side because we thought it would be faster but probably was around the same amount of time. I got hibachi shrimp and my mom got hibachi vegetable. The food was strangely watery. My Mom drained her salad and hibachi plate of excess moisture. You can kind of see in the pic that the sauce is runny. The soup basically tasted like chicken stock, it wasn't bad, but I've had better. My Mom was disappointed in the salad as hers was basically just a bowl of lettuce with the sauce. Mine had a tiny amount of shredded carrots but was also mostly lettuce. The hibachi didn't really seem like it was grilled or anything, it felt like they just slapped teriyaki sauce on it and called it hibachi. Also all the vegetables were very bland, it didn't taste like much seasoning was used at all. Now I'm a fan of the yum yum sauce, so that was good and covered up the blandness, but in my experience at other places, hibachi food is usually seasoned well enough to not need sauce. I was offered spicy rice, which was a nice difference, though. I also got the Japanese soda to drink which I've had before from other places, the way it was written on the menu I thought maybe they had it on tap, but it turned out to be in a bottle and it didn't have free refills which wasn't listed on the menu either. Since I'd had that before, I would've opted for tea or something else, if I'd realized it was in a bottle and didn't come with refills. But it can be a nice novelty to try, if you've never tried it. And the waiter was great about bringing water without me even having to ask for when I finished it. For dessert we got the volcano brownie. While delicious, it didn't feel accurately named. I was expecting maybe some molten fudge or something but it was just a small brownie piled with vanilla ice cream and whipped cream. The portion sizes are large as most hibachi places are, so it's a nice amount for the price. It is very expensive though, which I wouldn't have thought was a problem had I been more impressed with the food. I don't plan on returning but I wouldn't necessarily say don't try it. I do recommend going for the hibachi show instead of dine-in, though. I'm sure the food is probably the same quality, but at least the entertainment of watching them cook could...

Great food. Predatory practice. I was surprised to find a "service charge" on my ticket. That is a tip. Why is there an option to leave a tip if im already forced to pay an 18% tip? This was for one adult and a child. And im forced to a pre calculated tip? Lets say for a moment im ok with being forced to leave a tip... why would they still have the "suggested tip" section and then have a spot for me to include a tip? It looks like, in my opinion, a predatory practice to trick people who dont notice the service charge and just write in an additional tip.

My second issue, I was there with a a family member. I saw the guy running his card first and the whole time he kept glancing back at them to see... something? If they were looking or something? I dont believe they were doing anything nefarious but it was just super odd. So I gave them my card second, the employee did the same thing to me. So I stared right at them. And they kept looking back still? Again I dont think anything shady was happening it was just kinda odd.

Regardless, forcing an 18% tip on a two party check is not gonna fly for me. Ill happily tip way more than that if the service reflects it. But forcing it on someone and then also deceptively including another spot to tip is gonna mean I dont come back to this establishment. Which sucks because the food was great.

Edit: Koi responded below saying they charge a flat tip for 18% for parties of 5 or more. We were a party of 1 dad and 1 daughter. At the table with us was a party of 3. So yes the table itself had 5 people but we did not pay together or order together. An excuse that only furthers my point of...

Easy peasy lemon squeezy definitely ask for no MSGeeezy! See what I did there?

If you didn't that's ok, just make sure you ask for that. It's like asking for a health makeover. Anywho the food here was subpar. I had to wait about 30 seconds for anyone to greet me and it was dead and no one was there.

30 seconds seems very short in most aspects of life but waiting for someone to take your order at a mall restaurant in the food court is a very long time actually. The items on the cash register table look very outdated however they did have a Yelp sign which I thought was pretty awesome.

It's kind of like getting Wasabi except take away all the cool experiences and it's its Littles Brothers cousins mom's ex-boyfriend's grandmother's child. You get the point. The guy cooked the food right there in front of me and I happen to get the veggie plate. Even that was very Bland and flavorless. Very upsetting that I even spent $3 at this place. Probably will never go here again. I'm not too much of a meat eater, so I cannot speak on that but if all the vegetables and noodles and rice around it are not going to have much flavor I don't have too much faith in the chicken or shrimp or steak.

There is ample space here to eat if you need to sit down but there are also chairs outside of the establishment in the food court designated area. I want to hope that I caught him on a really bad day but being that there was no one there all the food should be fresh and good to go.

Try at your own risk! No lifeguard of food...