Maison Kasai — Restaurant in Los Angeles

I'd strongly suggest people stay very far away from this place based on my experience and the experience of those around me at the time. They have fundamental issues with their service/seating, have seen multiple negative reviews about it, and don't care to address them. If you see 1 negative review -- multiply it by 10x -- because many people will not take the time to chronicle their experience; I usually wouldn't either but it was extremely terrible.

TLDR: We had a reservation and after getting jerked around for an hour without being seated, we just decided to leave. The room was full of other people in the same situation so it's not an "exceptional" event by any means. This particular establishment doesn't respect your time and the host staff is not competent enough to make it a pleasant experience when (not if) it happens to you. This was made even more galling by the fact that they impose a late/no-show charge -- but can't even manage to get someone seated within an hour of their reservation.

Context: We had an 8:30PM reservation for Saturday. We were not late and were looking forward to this dining experience as my fiancee planned this as part of my birthday celebration. When we arrived at the host station the first red flag (that we didn't immediately recognize as one) was that the host said to us "We're running behind and we're really backed up". We had a reservation -- so we assumed that meant we'd have to wait 10-15 minutes -- you know...something unpleasant but relatively reasonable.

As she indicated that we'd have to wait, the host suggested we take a seat and have a glass of champagne while we do so. That was interesting to us because we didn't see anything remotely related to champagne or resembling a champagne station -- but we decided to take a seat anyways. About 5-10 minutes after we took a seat in lounge chairs, another host began to assemble a champagne station about a foot away from my partner in this increasingly cloistered waiting room. After struggling to unbox, unwrap, and assemble cheap, two-part plastic champagne flutes -- she handed them out to us and the other 15-20 people that were also in the holding/waiting room. The flutes were very leaky (broken during the assembly process) and the champagne was room temperature. One would assume there's at least space and foresight to keep champagne chilled and potentially a separate "assembly area" for the disposable flutes. The host staff, overall, appeared completely unprepared and rather unprofessional.

At about 8:50PM my partner inquired about the seating status again as we were 20 minutes late for the seating. We'd noticed a couple of newly arrived groups approach the host and be immediately walked directly to the back. The host gave another vague answer about there being two tables needing to be seated ahead of us -- indicating that she'd text us when it's our turn to be seated.

We noticed a few other couples (who were there before us) do the same thing -- inquire about when'd they be seated and then go back to waiting -- all while several groups of people seemed to just stream in from the doorway. We checked in around 9:10PM and finally at 9:25PM -- were given a vague answer about there being a single table ahead of us each time. When my partner pressed for a time estimate she was told it couldn't be provided. One would think that a restaurant that takes reservations would be able to estimate and/or enforce seating times and durations -- and therefore be able to provide estimates to people in their waiting room.

The staff very much gave the impression or operate under the assumption that we're there to be sat at their leisure. It was almost as if they are ignorant to the fact that we have a mutually agreed upon time where we (the guests) show up to the restaurant and they (the restaurant) will have a seat available for us to begin ordering and consuming food and beverages. They were not proactive in addressing us -- we had to keep going back to the host for vague answers about timing. Eventually we got fed...

This was maybe the worst food experience I’ve had in LA and one of the worst I’ve ever had and I’ve dined all over the world and lived in bigger foodie cities. We knew we were signing up for a premium but the upcharge here is insane and incredibly misleading.

1. What is presented as a pumpkin miso soup was no more than a shot glass of soup — this is super misleading.
2. All the food took forever and portions were very small for what it was considering the average cost per person plus tax and tip is probably close to $150-200 per person.
3. All of the temperatures of the food was completely off and it took forever to actually get our food. We had two New York strip wagyu, one lobster and one filet mignon. We had them retry one wagyu that was supposed to be medium rare but completely cooked through and was gray. The filet was raw. Twice. The second time they tried, they charred the outside completely and then the inside was completely raw and cold. That was ordered as medium — it was raw. The other NY strip was also supposed to be medium rare and one side came out medium well to well done as well but couldn’t have them remake all three steaks. Also they didn’t put enough broccolini which took 20 min to cook the first batch so they ran back to get more and cooked in 5 min — you can guess that this was raw. The lobster was also completely overcooked with zero flavor. Didn’t ask them recook that either because at this point we were starving. The second attempt for the filet was non-edible and the second wagyu attempt came out rare. Completely missing the mark.
4. When the scallops were put on the grill, there were only 3 per order when the menu clearly indicated 4. When we asked the chef, he doubled down and said there are only 3. It clearly stated 4 on the menu — either change the menu or make sure your staff is trained to know it’s 4. We asked multiple people and the other person was like 2 or 3. This is insane that an additional $28 would get you 2 to 3 scallops after the insane price of the experience already.
5. Our water was never refilled a single time. I had to ask two times and couldn’t flag a single waiter down.
6. We never even got our dessert because the execution on the steaks were so bad the second time around. This whole experience was 2.5 hours and we had someone in our party who didn’t eat basically and the others only ate what we could because the execution was so poor and took so long we couldn’t wait.

As someone who has dined a lot all ofer the world, I could never tell anyone to go here. What an insane expedience — even with the 30% discount they ended up providing for the bad experience, I couldn’t believe we still paid $400 (pre tip so more after tip) for this experience. If this restaurant was in NYC, it would be out of business in a matter of a month because no one would return and you could never get away with charging these prices. Do not ever come here. Don’t be fooled by the...

I struggled with giving this place a 3 or 4. I’ve been to level 8 a few times before but never tried this restaurant. For starters, reservation was at 8:30 pm, but another party wasn’t there, so we basically waited until almost 9. Food came out a little after 10. Not the end of the world, but a bit irritating. However, the service was actually pretty exceptional. The waitress was very attentive, and the chef, personable. The food however was just meh. I also think it was overly salted as well. My friend and I got the 3 course dinner with salad, filet mignon and I the chicken breast. My air fryer could’ve made a better chicken breast (not joking). Here, it was so dry! For $80, I’d expect more. 3 cocktails and 2 dinners was a little over $300. I gave $40 tip, and parking in the garage was $40 on a Friday night. So it was a $400 night. I don’t mind paying money for good food and service, but the food just really wasn’t great. It was just ok. I had consistently better tasting food and hibachi experience at Benihana in Santa Monica. There was a fun magic show at the table and again, the service was very good, which gained 4 stars in lieu of 3. I think a much better experience would’ve been cocktails at the bar and parooze through level 8 as the night progressed as I’ve done before. I’m glad I went and experienced this, but can’t see a reason eating here (unless it’s sponsored by my company who doesn’t mind wasting money). To their defense, I will add that my friend said his steak (filet mignon) was good. Out of 13 of us, I was the only idiot that got chicken breast (I don’t like steak). So maybe just stick to...