Kaizen — Restaurant in Knoxville

My coworkers and I started going to Kaizen back in 2017. They have a pretty good lunch special on Tuesday and Wednsday with their half-price fried rice bowls. The style and preparation are a bit inconsistient. Without the half-off special, I would say that the regular menu prices are outrageous, with the one saving grace being the 2 for $5 steamed buns. I mean, come on - it's a bowl of rice with an egg and some pork belly or some mushrooms. At best it probably costs them $2 and they sell it for $15. I have never even considered getting anything else on the menu because I'm not paying $15 - $20 for a plate of noodles or a bowl of rice.

Well, prices aside, I have to say that they have completely lost me as a customer. We went there almost religiously once a week, they totally knew who we were and everything. And then one day we showed up, half the restaurant was empty, the server looked at us like he'd never seen us before, and asked us if we had a reservation. We said no and he said it would be at least a 30 minute wait. Screw that. We're on work lunch break. In the year and a half we'd been going, we'd never once made a reservation, and it was never suggested to us that we needed to do so. You shouldn't have to make reservations to have lunch at a casual Asian fusion place. (One that incidentally doesn't employ a single Asian person that I've seen.)

Anyway, my beef with Kaizen is due to the treatment we received. That's not how you treat regular customers. Places like this thrive on word of mouth and repeat business, and I want to tell everyone I can to look through the trendy veneer and avoid this place. Kaizen may be the hot place to be for a few years, but after the next trendy place opens up they'll be wishing they had regulars again. But the lost me, I'm not going back. The food is pretty good, but ultimately nothing special. The service is impersonal, the atmosphere is claustrophobic and loud, and the wait times are too long. They are trying to do too much with a tiny space. It's just not worth the hassle and high prices when there are so many other places to go downtown.

Sorry, Kaizen. It was good while it lasted, but you blew it. You've lost business from our entire office. We hate you now, not because of the food but because of the treatment we received there. None of us go there any longer. All the flighty, trendy wannabe socialites who can afford not to work, who don't mind paying ridiculous prices for a bowl of simple carbs, who have time to sit downtown for 2 hours in the middle of the work week and have drinks during the day - this is your place. For the rest of us, who are downtown every single day and looking for somewhere decent to walk in during our regular lunch hour - well, we'll find somewhere that actually wants...

i’ve been going to kaizen since it first opened and for so long it was my favorite restaurant in knoxville. older dishes like their dan dan noodles and the thai peanut noodles were incredible and were a staple comfort food for me. the service has never been great but the food made up for it, but as time has gone on the passion and even just the basic effort put into the food, the service, etc, has gone completely down the drain. i have some insane stories from the staff alone being incredibly rude and not only that, but one of them being CLEARLY intoxicated. i had went in on new years and our server was clearly out of it to the point where she kept having to come back to ask what we ordered, could not walk straight, came through and poured water into my ginger ale and my friends coke (both do NOT look like water obviously????) all while we were one of maybe 3 tables seated total at that moment. luckily that was the only time that i had dealt with anybody being intoxicated while serving me there, but otherwise the service has been consistently bad regardless. luckily i have never had an issue with any of the hosts, and they have always made great conversation with me and always have a smile on their face, but the servers are a completely different story. in addition to the poor service the food has been lacking for the past 1/2 year especially. the last time i went i had tried the chilled fat noodles, and they totally missed the mark. the noodles were floury, and the whole dish was consumed by a weird funky taste. it has pickled shitakes which i thought could be the issue but those tasted okay, not sure what that was about. everything i’ve tried from there over the past couple of months have been either flavorless, greasy, oversalted/overseasoned, or all of the above. i haven’t had a good experience at kaizen in over a year. i miss their old dishes and their past passion for actually running kaizen like a real functioning business. it’s so disappointing to watch kaizen fall but if they’re not able to step things back up then maybe it’s for the best. will forever miss my old fav...

I have dined at Kaizen many times over the past few years and unfortunately it seems to be going downhill. Once an excellent, intimate restaurant, the newer location doesn’t quite scratch the same itch as time goes on. I ordered the Dan Dan noodles and some buns and egg rolls for the table; everything was.. fine. My sister and brother in law ordered Bang Bang fried rice and the crispy beef, which were also okay. Nothing excellent; with drinks and tip our bills were near $60 each, which isn’t terrible and ordinarily not compelling enough to warrant a review, however the staff was completely obnoxious. The Saturday we were in was busy-ish, and our server came by infrequently; we’re a self sufficient group, so not a problem. but after waiting 10 minutes for a glass of water, asking again, asking the host, and finally being given a glass of it in dirty glassware, my sister asked for a straw. the host — drinking out of a single-use coffee cup at the host stand — rolled his eyes, came back and said, “so much for the earth, huh?” and walked away. I’m sorry, what?? It was so obnoxious, so unnecessary, and so hypocritical of him. I and my group are in our 30’s so we’re not exactly boomers, and certainly did not appreciate the snide talking-down by a kid too big for his britches. Definitely left a bad taste in our mouth. If the food were great, the scenario would have been overshadowed however it was all just okay and the combination of events means I’m not personally going back any time soon. I’d recommend “Sticky Rice” or “Landing House” for better food and warmer atmosphere — this one seems to be a miss these days,...