Koto Japanese Steakhouse — Restaurant in Lebanon

I've been to Koto's at least once per year for the last three years for Hibachi. Food is good and it's a great place for large family gatherings that include entertainment. Works best for party of 8 or 16 as you will all have the same chef/table. Depending on which table you are seated at there is a possibility of sharing the experience with strangers if you don't fill up all the seats.

Usually we have no issues but spilling food down the side of a customers clothes without some kind of apology or other substantial action is not ok.

Most recent experience we were seated in the back room and there is not enough space for the server to easily get around to more than 6 of 16 people in the party because of the design. When the server attempted to pass an appetizer directly to someone seated near the back wall by shimmying behind me the soy sauce from the tray fell down the side of a customers new white outfit and some of the sushi fell as well. The server did not communicate that they were walking behind me with food to get to the other person and there's barely space to pull out the chair. One moment I'm talking to someone and the next something taps me, I turn, the plate of food tips and food spills. The person covered in soy sauce was not happy and I suspect the outfit is ruined. We did not ask for a specific action to be taken and I expect if we had it would have quickly detracted from the celebration we were there for. Why? Because no apology or actions of any kind were offered from staff or management even though two employees could clearly see what happened. I didn't hear the staff member that spilled the food say anything before, during or after. They just stood at the end of the table silently while the customer attempted to blot out the soy sauce.

After learning this lesson we preferred to have the server give items to the end of the table and then pass it around the table ourselves till it reached the intended person. Never had this issue in the main room hibachi as the servers can easily access all sides of most...

I just feel like I need to tell someone about this. I've tried to come to this restaurant twice and was not seated. The first time was very busy and no one was being seated, so I just left. But today we arrived to a nearly empty restaurant. The group before us had been waiting 30 minutes to be seated and angrily left after another 10 minutes. We waited 10 minutes, all the servers and bar tender would walk past and not make eye contact and made an effort to appear busy. One group that was seated before we showed complained to the bar tender about their order taking an incredible amount of time to arrive, and contained shellfish and was not at all what they ordered. More groups showed up and waited in line behind us, nearly 20 people waited to be seated before someone flagged down the bartender who said that the hostess had not shown up for work. Eventually we all left.

It seemed like something was wrong, the wait staff was angry and went to extreme measures to ignore anyone waiting to be seated, and put in effort to appear busy without actually doing anything. It was like they were on strike.

In the 40 minutes I waited, this restaurant lost over $1000 worth of sales just because no one was seated. It was incredibly bizarre. I hate giving a bad review, but something isn't right here and something needs to be done.

In the meantime, I went to Thai Orchid 10 minutes away and had...

Had the salmon at the Hibachi station, and also tried out the tenderloin that my friend got. I loved both. I had noodles with my Hibachi main, but another friend had rice, so I can vouch for both being good. The veggies and shrimp they serve alongside are also great. Diners should know that all the Hibachi mains come with veggies and shrimp anyway, so you will get a more varied plate if you choose something other than those two as your main.

As for drinks, my friends liked their sake, and I liked my ginger ale. We enjoyed the starting salad and our drinks as the Hibachi chef pulled off these impressive and artistic culinary acrobatics. I think there was a train, a beating heart, and a dozen other such elements all made out of the food as it cooked. It made the final experience of eating that very food so much better!

The reason this is 4 stars instead of 5 is that their bathrooms are really terrible. I understand from the signage there that it is not entirely the management's fault, but it is so unclean and nauseating that I cannot let it go. I have a fairly strong stomach, but that bathroom situation still made me nauseous, especially since I was eating just before I went there. I would advise going to the bathroom at home before you dine here, especially if you need to sit down to pee, because those seats are definitely very...