Banzai Japanese Steak House — Restaurant in LaGrange

We probably should have listened to the people leaving, as we came in. They said they'd waited 1.5 hours, and didn't even get seated. We were part of a large group. They seated us at a large table, with 2 hibachi grills. The air didn't appear to be on at all. We were all sweating. They said they don't use that room, except for weekends, so it hadn't been on, until that day. I seriously don't believe it was ever on. They turned the vent hoods on, to help, but all it did was allow us to look at the grease inside them. Yuck. Absolutely none of us liked our food. I had the filet, and it didn't even have salt on it. I've never eaten a steak so bland. The rice was hard, and crispy, like it was burned. It also had no onions in it, nor did my husband's veggies include zucchini or onions. It was super thin cabbage strips and a couple of mushrooms. It was ridiculous. The entire (sweltering hot) experience took 2 hours. It was for a birthday, and I hate that is was so bad. Beware, we all paid separately, but they still charged us all at 20% gratuity fee. Ironic how the table, on the other side of the room, had the same amount of people, but because they didn't know each other, they didn't have a forced gratuity fee.

We spent nearly $200 for food that was basically inedible. We would have complained, but based on how hot we were, how long we'd waited for our food, the fact that the air complaint didn't matter, and we didn't want to ruin someone's birthday, we just wanted to leave. It definitely...

Had family from out of town visiting and took them to Banzai Japanese Steakhouse for dinner. Big mistake. I waited 30 minutes for a table when they were extremely slow. It took the server 20 minutes to clear the table that we were waiting for. My son's girlfriend wasn't hungry and they were going to charge her $10 for her seat. It isn't like there was anybody else waiting to be seated. They had a chef that was full of himself and kept screaming don't tell nobody. He could be heard on the other side of the parking lot. We all left with huge headaches and we only stayed long enough to get the salty broth that they call soup. We were charged $40 for soup that nobody could eat and seven drinks. What a disappointment. I'm embarrassed to have taken my family from out of town to Banzai for dinner. Our server was horrible. I hope they forget about our nightmarish experience. Then upon leaving i saw their HEALTH DEPARTMENT SCORE WAS ONLY 88. Glad we left. I don't eat at restaurants that score anything less than high 90's on the health department inspection because i don't care for food poisoning. I wouldn't feed that garbage to a rabid dog. If you go to Banzai Japanese Steak House in Lagrange and have a bad experience or get sick, you can't say you weren't warned. Before I left I used the ladies room. I've never been in a restaurant restroom this filthy in my life. I could only imagine how dirty the kitchen...

This place used to have a wait of 1 hour minimum without reservations, especially on a Friday or Saturday night. This used to be the spot for special occasions, it was clean, it was the “nice” place in Lagrange. Now on a Saturday night they don’t have anyone who can make sushi (not even a California roll) the walls are covered in some sort of chalk graffiti, the bathrooms are just disgusting and in a state of disrepair. The grills have a thick layer of brown gunk all around them and the tile in the chefs workspace looks like the bottom of a dumpster. They don’t have the good salad dressing anymore, the soup is pretty much clear with no flavor, they don’t do any sort of hibachi/teppanyaki show anymore. The servers/chef we interacted with clearly didn’t want to be there which I totally understand because about 10 minutes into the meal I didn’t either. It’s sad to see the decline, and it’s hard to believe you could have a spot that was as good as Banzai used to be and then just run it into the ground. Two stars because I didn’t get...