Saka Japanese Restaurant — Restaurant in Keene

For the kids with no attention span, here's the summary: Good fish, a lousy service experience. Picking up sushi lunch takeout, was told "We are out of rice and fish." Full story below.

First time here, Saturday lunch. Nice day, headed to an outdoor event and wanted to grab some sushi takeout to eat there. I called at 11:05, placed an order for one sushi lunch and one chirashi lunch. I was asked for my name and phone number. "15 minutes." No problem.

We got there at 11:25. The restaurant is very pretty. Someone spent a ton of money on tile and stone, and the place was spotless. I gave the manager my name, and he informed me it was going to be a little while longer. When asked how long and why, he offered "20 minutes. We are out of rice and fish."

For a place that purports to serve sushi, this is a big freakin' problem! Hoping I was being entertained by the most deadpan comedian on the planet, I actually asked "you're kidding, right?" I was assured he was not. Some of the fish for the chirashi was not ready (presumably still frozen) and they had no sushi rice made.

Note that I was not offered any explanation, no alternatives and barely any apology. Note also that they had my phone number, and could have called me to tell me they couldn't fill my order, but instead waited until I walked in the door. Time to get creative and start negotiating. I had to play 20 questions to figure out what they could make He finally agreed that they could make the sashimi lunch, so I switched my order to two of those, which were a few dollars more expensive.

After about 15 minutes the food arrived, with 'free salad' for my trouble, and we ran off to our event.

The sashimi was very nice. Fresh, big pieces of fish, nicely presented. The free salad was a box of soaking wet iceberg lettuce with some tomato and cucumber slices. Thankfully the miso dressing was on the side, so that I could tilt the box and drain the 3/4oz of water out before dressing it.

I know that stuff happens. What matters to me is how management responds when things go sideways. This manager could have done many things to help the situation and I would have been a lot happier with the outcome. They could have called when the problem was discovered and proactively offered me options for what they could make. They could have displayed some empathy and ownership of the problem, instead of acting as if they weren't concerned and making me figure it out myself. They could have covered the price difference between what I wanted and what I was forced to order, or comped one of the meals instead of providing a waterlogged salad as a consolation prize.

We'll probably go back since the fish was good, but our expectations for service won't be high. We'll be laughing about "we are out of rice and fish" for a long, long...

Went in with a large party (10 of us) and we all loved it.

Bright, modern, clean atmosphere. Really good job with the decor.

We didn't have a reservation so we couldn't sit at a grill, but they did find us an awesome table in the corner that fit all 10 of us.

The service seemed a bit slow at first, but they were very busy and before long they got in a flow with us, and we were never left waiting for anything for long.

We tried lots of different things, and everyone was happy. Also the cocktails were great! East meets West was a Japanese whiskey option that I particularly liked. Plus, even though I often bemoan the lack of decent sake in NH, they have as good a selection as you'll find. I suggest the Black and Gold.

And finally, the prices were very reasonable considering the quality of the food and the serving sizes.

I'm really looking forward...

I've been here twice now and in my opinion it's sub par when compared to other hibachi restaurants I've gone to. The restaurants is beautiful. The service is as expected. The chef both times was ok, but not a great showsman. Though the chef at the table behind us seemed more enthusiastic. You get rice and noodles, if you want all rice the sub fee is $5. The amount of rice you get is minimal. On the other hand I had more chicken than I knew what to do with. Im hoping they change their policy on substitution...I think it should be free. I am going to try to post a pic of the full order or rice received...