Shoto Japanese Steakhouse & Seafood — Restaurant in Lexington

Dinner for 2.

Shoto is a Japanese Steakhouse & Seafood Restaurant where you can tailor your entree to your own liking.

Everyone starts with 5 stars in my book, especially Shoto as their location was in a great spot - brownstone building, tucked between cute shops in a quaint downtown neighborhood.

Parking was easy to find and the walk from down the street was pleasant. Walking in, the staff were friendly and quick to welcome us. Here's where stars begin to get deducted.

Minus 1 star for a confusing menu. It was a "build-your-own-entree" deal where you pick your protein and then your style/sauce (there were like 15 styles!) and then your veggies and they stir fry it up for you. It was a sit down Mongolian grill type deal. Options are great, but too many options can be daunting sometimes. When a customer has to ask more than two questions about HOW to order, it's already a bad sign.

Minus 1 star for the quality of food. The onion soup and house salad came out too quick. The salad was obviously pre-prepped and had been sitting on the counter for too long as the sliced carrots and salad pieces were slightly dried and shriveled. The onion soup was too salty - like it had been stewing too long and condensed. The steak in my stir fry was supposed to be medium cooked, but it was all well-done.

Minus 1 star for the combination of food and overall "what-is-this!?" kind of deal. Everything was served with super sweet carrots by default. If I had known that, I would have asked for something else. The carrots just didn't make sense with the stir fry and fried rice. We also got some strange thousand island special sauce for dipping?? But I couldn't figure out if it was for the stir fry, or rice or carrots? Overall, it was a confusing experience.

There was much left to be desired. I'm glad most people who go here liked it, but it was more frustrating than...

My partner and I stepped inside the building at 7:35pm was greeted and we sat down. We ordered our drinks and got them by 7:38pm, great. The waitress gave us a moment came back in about five minutes to get our orders; we ordered one appetizer (5 count eggrolls) and 2 hibachi plates. Eggrolls came back about 10 minutes later so it’s 7:48 right now. Now we’re just waiting for the 2 hibachi plates. Waitress did not check on us to see if we needed refills with more than half empty cups. We did not receive our food until 8:20pm. No apology or any sincere gestures was given to us.

There was a gentleman that had placed a to-go 15 minutes after we sat down and received his food 10 minutes before us. They seem to prioritize to-go orders. As well as certain customers it seems. We were going to wait until 8:30 to leave and just pay for drinks and appetizer if our food hasn’t came out but luckily it came out at 8:20pm. We won’t be back. This was extremely ridiculous especially for a place that wasn’t not busy at this time.

Next time, when this happens to other customers, the restaurant should train their staff on apologizing and acknowledging customers...

Ate here for several years, but tonight's order was worst I had ever had. Ordered Steak and Shrimp combo. Steak had NO flavor and was tough. So tough while trying to chew, it pull my denture out, ended up feeding to my doberman who also had to work at it to chew it up. Since my bill was a little higher than usual(price increase)and the portion size shrank except for rice plenty of that, I did call to voice my complaint. I was told that if I had not given my dog the meat, I could have drove back up there (16 mile trip) to exchange it or get a refund. But since I gave it to my dog there was nothing they could do. However they would speak to the chef and try to do better next time. I'm sorry but after raising your prices and lowering the quality of your meat I doubt I will ever go back. It's a real shame because we have eaten at this place at least once a month for years. Don't mind paying for good quality food, but this time I felt I got ripped off, because of the quality of the meat and how they handled my complaint. As mentioned we will not...