Komeya — Restaurant in Houston

I wanted to start by saying, this place has great food and a great atmosphere. The dining area is small, but makes it feel homey and very much like a local place, which I like.

However we had an issue on our last visit. My family and I went on April 5th for an early dinner. On our last visit, we loved the sushi we got. For this visit, we wanted to try their ramen. The spicy beef ramen was very good as it was beefy, but surprisingly light. My wife ordered the miso ramen and while it wasn't anything special, it was solid.

My son has a wheat and peanut allergy. We always ask ahead of time if the restaurant can accommodate his allergy by making a modified California Roll with just seaweed wrap, rice, cream cheese, avocado, and cucumber (for those who don't know, sometimes the "crab" used at sushi restaurants has wheat filler in it). If the restaurant could not accommodate us, we totally understand, and we would have been disappointed but just gone somewhere else for dinner. Our waitress confirmed that they could work with us.

Our appetizer of the takoyaki balls came out first and that was tasty. Then, our son's modified roll came out. The waitress brought it out and was about to set it down, when she noticed it was just seaweed wrap, rice, cucumber, and avocado with no cheese. She apologized and went back to correct it. No biggie.

A little bit later, she came back looking very sheepish, and informed us that the sushi chef has refused to make the roll for us and she doesn't know why. She looked very flustered as to why the sushi chef won't make the roll for us. In between that moment and now, as I write this review, I can't even think of a reason why the roll wasn't made.

I wasn't informed of a policy where no modifications are made, as some sushi places have. If they didn't want to make the roll in fear of cross-contamination, that was never conveyed to us after confirmation that they could accommodate us. This wasn't a price thing either, because we would have gladly paid full price for the California Roll. It was just baffling.

Our waitress was very sweet and tried to figure out other foods that we could give to our child. However, all of the options contained soy sauce based sauces. Unfortunately, many soy sauces contains wheat and we didn't want to risk that.

Luckily, we had enough snacks to appease him, but it was a stressful dining experience. I told our waitress that I wanted to talk to the manager about what happened, and she took down my number and promised to inform the owner of the situation. She profusely apologized for the situation. Overall, she was great throughout this experience.

As of this review, I have not been contacted.

As I left, I noticed the sushi chef sitting in the corner behind the sushi counter with his earbuds in and watching something on his phone. The restaurant wasn't busy at the moment, but it wasn't a good look.

I am trying to like this place. It has good food, a homey vibe, and very much feels like a local place. However, I just want clarity on the situation of why the sushi chef refused to make our roll despite being told that it...

We decided to try Komeya on a Friday night for dinner. We arrived at 6:00PM and were surprised to find the restaurant almost empty. From the outside, it doesn’t look like much. The inside though is very well decorated and is very cozy. It isn’t a very large space, but they have arranged it well. The owner, who we met, is a very nice man. We were quickly seated and asked if we wanted something to drink. My wife ordered a Pepsi, but they were out of it that evening. We both had water. Our waiter was very, very bad. He seemed very interested in the only other table which had two girls at it. We were pretty sure he was hitting on them. There were two other waitresses there on the evening shift and they seemed to do most of his work for him. As we sat, several other tables came in. I suppose their rush starts closer to 6:30. We ordered spring rolls and a seaweed salad to start. The spring rolls were very good. I would say they were more like egg rolls in that they were larger than ones I have had in the past. The seaweed salad was very crisp and fresh. Again, both were very good. Our waiter finally made it back to us and took our dinner order. My wife got the original tonkotsu ramen and we ordered a few sushi rolls for the table: shaggy dog roll, Philadelphia roll, and the volcano roll. He disappeared for a while and soon after, one of the waitresses brought us the first roll. When the waiter came back, he brought us plates, one of which had dried food stuck to it. How gross! He should be checking these things. We had to ask one of the waitresses to please bring us another plate. The ramen and other rolls came out soon after this. The ramen was awful. In our opinion, it was completely inedible. Words cannot describe the soapy taste of it or the putrid smell. We had to wait for the waiter to come back to ask him to take it away from the table. In the process, he came and brought me a different bowl of ramen that I did not even order. That was also awful and got sent back. The sushi, however, was excellent. The Philadelphia roll was very fresh with nice pieces of salmon in it. I highly recommend this. The shaggy dog roll was missing the usual crunch on the outside that I am used to, but had a very good flavor. I would reorder it. The volcano roll was very, very nice. It is a baked roll and was a nice portion. The only complaint about it was that the eel sauce was a little more fishy than expected. That being said, we ate the whole thing. Overall, I have to give this place 3 out of 5 stars. I had to deduct 1 star for the poor wait staff. Even though there were three of them on the small floor, we still found ourselves waiting and trying to find one of them. The waiter in particular needs to step up his game. We deducted the second star for the horrific ramen. If you are going to advertise yourself as a ramen bar, make sure you can produce a good ramen first. We will definitely go back for the sushi, but will steer way clear of the...

As much as I wanted to give this place a better review, I had to be honest. The place was very small and busy, which I didn't mind but when I walked in, everyone stopped and just stared at me with semi-dirty looks. I was standing there for at least 10 minutes before the manager seated at the only table left, which of course was in the middle of the room. It took 20 minutes before the manager, not the waiter walking and chit-chatting with people around me, before I was even offered a glass of water, which of course had to be sent back because the glass appeared to be half drunken and had stuff in the bottom of the glass. After that I ordered a bowl of spicy miso ramen with no mushrooms (im allergic) and what was smack dab in the middle of my bowl???? I called the manager over and yelled that enough was enough. Im allergic to mushrooms, you gave undrinkable water, and didnt even serve me for 20 minutes but went and served a family as soon as walked in 15 minutes after I did. The manager started singing a different tune when I threatened to leave and get the officer that was in the donut shop 2 doors down. Not only did she profusely apologize, she then offered to comp my meal and give me a free dessert, to which I replied no, because it shouldnt have gotten to that point. They gave me a fresh bowl of ramen, I paid and then left. Im not exxagerating anything and Im not the kind of person who likes to mean reviews but I had to let everyone know what happened here. Please do...