Wasabi Japanese Steakhouse — Restaurant in Independence

I would like to start this review off by saying my family loves wasabi. I love wasabi. We have been to wasabi for many many years and put in thousands of dollars… last night I fell out of love with wasabi. We were there with a group of 20 for my brother‘s birthday. We were having a good time, laughs and a lot of fun. The food was great. The evening was going well… But then when it came time to pay, the credit card system went down, and many of us do not carry cash… Even I who normally carries cash didn’t have cash on me… They informed us the credit card system was down and they still took our cards anyway when the servers returns They had a piece of paper with our credit card information, expiration date, security code, and our name and they wanted us to sign that form and put our phone number down… Rightfully so, some of my family were concerned with leaving that information on a piece of paper. Obviously, when we scan our credit card, we’re trusting that Wasabi won’t do anything mischievous with it, and employees don’t have access to that kind of information… So some of my family members were concerned that our information was on this piece of paper, which would allow for anyone to get/see our information. I wanted to make sure that it would be destroyed… We were not difficult, we were not angry, we wanted to pay… As I mentioned, we had been to this establishment many many many times spent thousands of dollars people were just concerned about the payment method. when we expressed our concern the servers went off and apparently they were talking to the manager, my brother followed, and I don’t think they realized that he was from our table. when he was standing near them he overheard the manager refer to our table as the difficult table and that apparently we had been difficult all night and that they would call the police if we tried to leave without paying… I would like to make it very clear again we have been to this establishment a lot and once again we had spent a lot of money over the years at this place. We were not difficult. We were not trying to leave without paying… In fact, we were very kind to them the entire night given that the servers were very slow and the gentleman cooking our meal wasn’t entertaining us like normal… We made no complaints about anything. We had no issues about anything. We didn’t not want to pay, in fact we all were sitting around waiting to pay because we wanted to pay… And that is when my brother overheard, them referring to us as difficult and the manager in charge saying that they would call the police if we didn’t pay as if we were going to leave and I’m thinking, how disrespectful to loyal customers..And the concern of leaving our information on a piece of paper that anyone can see and get was legitimate,. So I’m leaving this review to say that I will not be back to wasabi. My family will not be back to Wasabi and I will NOT be recommending that people do not return to wasabi because we did not deserve to be disrespected in that way. It just seemed like last night, the quality of the experience has gone down and it showed in the managements portrayal of us. We’re just having a good time enjoying my brother‘s Birthday not being difficult not being any different than we ever have been there… One comment by the staff just ruined all of that… I’ve been in restaurants for many years and I know that in a situation like that, you wait on the customer and you make sure the customer has a good experience you offer them discounts potentially, you don’t rate them in front of them, and then pretend like they were about to run out without paying… This was unacceptable behavior, and as I said, we will not be returning, and we have a very large family… And I will be passing the news along, and no longer recommending this establishment as it is clearly gone downhill and does not care about its customers… The only thing good about last night was the food, everything else was abysmal, and the manager on staff, or whoever it was that made these comments about us should be ashamed...

We came to the independence location a year ago for our anniversary and had such a lovely time that we decided to come back again for our anniversary this year. Let me just say, the experience was not the same and we will probably not come back. We decided to do takeout since it was early in the evening and is usually pretty busy everywhere. This was our order, which I will review each item. -beef tataki: we ordered it medium rare. We highly recommend this dish as it was cooked perfectly and tasted amazing both times we have had it. Tender and perfection and definitely does not need the sauce that comes on the side with it. -tamago “sushi”: I order this dish anywhere and everywhere I go. The presentation is cute, but the taste is even better. This is a simple dish and not much to add to it. -house salad: I honestly love the ginger dressing they offer with the salad. Salad appeared fresh and a good portion of side dressing is offered. -Texas roll: this is a raw spicy tuna roll with avocado topped with a seared spicy steak, wasabi tobiko, eel sauce, and spicy garlic. Nothing about this roll is spicy. This was my husband’s dish as I generally have a hard time with spicy food unless it is wasabi. He had me try a piece just to be surprised to there being no heat to it whatsoever. The tuna also tasted and looked cooked. Not much flavor to this roll. Highly disappointed. Don’t get this roll if you want any sort of heat. -Dynamite roll: this is a tuna and yellowtail roll with spicy sauce and tobiko. This was another disappointment. Another dish of my husband’s, which he had me try. No heat and not much flavor, but at least the fish was raw. Yellowtail sashimi: my husband has had yellowtail from multiple places, including here. His main complaint is it had too much of a fishy taste compared to every other time he has had it. Alaskan Summer roll: this roll is tempura shrimp and king crab with asparagus, lettuce, garlic, mayo, scallion, and fried garlic wrapped in rice paper. This is a cooked roll. I honestly did not taste the crab, but I did see it in the roll. This roll did not have much of a flavor either, even with scallions and garlic, which are usually high in flavor, so I dipped it in the remaining ginger dressing from my salad to make it tolerable. —Our rolls did not come with ginger or wasabi. Not sure if this is an extra cost or not as most places automatically provide it. We would have purchased it if we had known.

Positives: the portions were good. The salad and steak (appetizer) were definitely amazing. You also can’t really go wrong with the tamago. The presentation of everything was nice! You also have the option to call in for a reservation if you are wanting to dine in, which we did dine in the first time. The staff also seemed friendly. Nothing spilled in the bag and plenty of soy sauce, napkins, and utensils were provided. It was noisy, yet tolerable. Love the small little waterfall in the front and the colors of the place.

Negatives: the rolls didn’t have much flavor at all and definitely no heat on the items that should have been spicy. The tuna was cooked when it was a raw dish and honestly tasted more like crab than tuna (it was definitely tuna though). No wasabi or ginger given, so I’m assuming you need to ask for these items. Prices are high for it not tasting that great. Our main dishes is what caused the negative review.

If it would have been like our first visit, then it would have been amazing. This visit? We would have been better off going to a different sushi location and probably paid less for way more flavor. Such a disappointing visit.

Did we speak with a manager? No, as it was takeout and I have a hearing deficit. Will we return? Probably not.

No pictures as we did finish our food. For the price it was, we were not...

We went to Wasabi's today so there were a total of four people in our party. They didn't want to give us paper menus and, when they did finally give us 1 paper menu it had no prices beside the items. Forcing us to scan our phones in order to get prices for the food that we wanted to order. we're a little older so not big on scanning codes on our phone. The guy that was taken our order was very impatient as far as pushing us to hurry up and order our food without giving us the chance to really look at everything on the menu and, he said if we didn't hurry up and order soon we're going to have to wait 40 minutes to be able to put an order in because, they only have four Cooks so we were rushed the first time. Then we weren't even halfway through a meal when he came with the black book with the bill and stood there and asked that we pay our bill. I said I wanted to finish eating first. I was taking care of the whole bill and he wouldn't leave he just stood there and said we needed to pay so, I kept eating and he kept standing there which was embarrassing and annoying so I had to stop eating and get my purse and get my credit card out and take care of the bill in the middle of eating my food ! This was literally not long after we start eating our food that he bought the black book out with the bill in it for us to pay immediately. I was very irritated so, after the meal was over we asked for a manager which they couldn't find at first. Then they finally found one and we told him about what happened he said he was sorry he's had complaints about that guy before and that he was new which he's not because, I've been there before and that same guy was there taking our orders and we didn't receive our bill until the end of our meal maybe it was because of all the other people if you know what I mean that we were sitting with. I spent over $200 there October 16th 2022 and that's how we were treated. I didn't like it at all and won't be back there again but, I do plan on speaking again to a manager about how very upsetting and disappointed I was. The food was good but, his service was lousy alond with the way that he handled things. The manager should have done a lot more than just say he's sorry they'll talk to him because, I'm sure that has not happened obviously because he is still the same. I will be pressing the issue with someone higher...