Kaya Asian Fusion Bar — Restaurant in Lodi

Let me start by saying that I have gone to Kaya for five Valentines Days in a row. Outside of February 14th, my family goes there several times a year. NEVER AGAIN…

On February 14th, we arrived at 6:05pm for our reservation. We were sat and our server did not come until 20 minutes later. While waiting, I was shocked to observe that there was literally ONE server and ONE food runner there on VALENTINES DAY. If this was a random Tuesday night or whatnot, I’d understand the low staffing level. However, it was Valentines Day and the restaurant was packed! I also observed that they had a ton of To Go orders where the line was literally out the door. I don’t normally keep track of the time, but since the service level situation looked horrible, I did note exact times. For whatever reason, Kaya decided to focus on the To Go orders and give them precedence over the people who were actually sat in person. The poor staffing in combination with giving the To Go orders priority is what led to this disastrous experience. When the server came (at 6:25pm), we placed our full order. The food came out 45 minutes later, but my order (Spicy Maki combo) did not.

My wife’s steak was cooked wrong. It should have been medium well and instead was rare. But after around 10-15 minutes of not seeing another server, we understood this is what the final product was so she was forced to eat it (it made her sick once we were home). My food took ANOTHER 40 minutes to arrive. I told the server that I was going to eat the Spicy Maki and to speak to the manager because I wanted it off the bill. He said okay. After not seeing him for several minutes and my wife upset, I spoke to them and got into a polite debate about our experience. I told him the food took over an hour to come out and he said that wasn’t true. He came back with a food receipt and said the food was entered at 6:37 and it came out at 7:10. It was then that I became angrier because I realized it took them TWELVE MINUTES to actually enter the order once they got it. Our server Grady (who was rude) didn’t account for the twenty minutes of wait time and the twelve minutes of dead time. All and all, it took 65 minutes for my wife’s and daughter’s food to come out and another 40 minutes for mine. Mine took 105 minutes after it was ordered!

When I finally asked for the bill, I told them to not give me the bill if the Spicy Maki was on it (this was my compromise). Of course, the Spicy Maki was on the bill. Grady tried telling me that my sushi took longer because there was a computer problem. I found this to be absurd because the sushi chef is three feet away from the computer. He could have been told verbally to start the order. The real problem was the lack of servers and the restaurant prioritizing To Go orders. Grady and the manager refused to compromise and make this right. It was at this point that I told them that if I pay full price, that I was never coming here again. I paid full price because my wife wanted to get out of there before I made a scene.

Long story short, my family and I have been there over twenty times over the past several years. I have found that the quality of food has been going down over time, but we still liked it there. However, this was the final straw. I will never go there again after this experience.

UPDATE - I contested the portion of the Bill that I felt was incorrect with my Bank. I put in a...

Wow! This place is GREAT!

From the moment you walk in it is aesthetically pleasing to the eyes. You can tell alot of thought and hard work went into the decor.

The staff are always smiling from the moment you walk in and happy to serve you. This is HUGE when going out to eat. They make the dining out experience worth it.

So by this point I thought to myself "this place is too good to be true"..... So I figured the food would be a problem being that everything else was extremely on point and as prefect as one could imagine a night out. Boy was I wrong!

The food is AMAZING! Seriously best sushi around. I used to go to Yuki Hanna in little ferry as my sushi spot. However after they closed for a short while and then re-opened they were never the same. Well.... I just found my new sushi spot. I always avoid habachi places because they always get too stuffy and smokey.... not this place. I am impressed with their ventilating system. Our chef (Brian) was a genuine "hibachi chef" with skill, knowledge and precision (also very funny). Not just some guy the restaurant hired that makes you nervous as he's breaking egg shells in your food and dropping the knives he's trying to spin 5 feet from your face. This has been my experience in other hibachi restaurants. That is definitely not the case here. You can tell they enjoy doing their job and they aim to please you and serve you.. which in my opinion is what "going out" to eat is all about. Not only the food but also the experience.

I am very happy with this place! I hope they keep up the great work. I will definitely be visiting them again. I hope this review helped. Sorry for the length of it but once you go try it you'll see what all the rave in my review is about. I eat out alot with my family and this place seriously impressed me. I think this will be our #1 place from now on.

P.s. they were also vey child friendly. Our waitress made my children shirley temple's and made a simple yet nice twist with their straws (it's the little details that make all the difference). And our chef made the children laugh so much. Very very family friendly. I also saw people there in suits. Perhaps having a meeting while eating dinner? I could see this as a place to go for family outings, a meeting place after work, or a nice date night with your significant...

Ive ordered take out. I’ve order 2 dinner bento box and an order of salmon sushi. I’ve had better. The dinnner bento box consisted of tempura shrimp and veggies and Cali roll and shui mai and soup salad and rice and the main dish Gotta say, the tempura shrimp and veggies tasted like it has been refried twice because it was warm on the outside and cold on the inside. The Cali roll fell apart when it went to pick it up , I ask for no onions in my dish, you would think they would put something else to replace the onions, nope, I got 1 broccoli 1 carrot 1 corn. Seriously!? The salad look like it was a day old. And the salmon sushi was too thin to my liking.. I should have driven an extra 20 mins to get to a better place. First time I order, was great, no complains, and I could swore my main dish got minimized too. I don’t think I would come back here. Unless if I’m...