Sakura Japanese Hibachi Grill & Sushi Restaurant — Restaurant in Los Lunas

This place is slipping badly. I’ve gone here since 2018. It's been a go-to in our family for special occasions & when we want an elevated meal. It was a bright light of variety in a county dominated by green chile cheeseburgers & pulled pork. It was a standout in this small town. However, my last 3 visits to Sakura have been sub-par & tonight's dinner was a complete disaster. $230 for 4 adults and a 5 year old (that ate off mom's plate). No alcohol. We generally order the same tried&true meals that I'm happy to pay for. Tonight started with being seated at a table that was sticky, we asked the waitress if we could have the table wiped and she couldn’t understand that we just wanted the table wiped with a clean rag and she kept trying to move us to another table. I finally asked another waitress for a rag and wiped it myself. (We couldn't move due to a recent knee surgery situation and we needed to be in chairs and not at a booth). No big deal in and of itself as this was just a communication issue and I could let that slide. We ordered soft drinks and appetizers. Edamame was way over-salted otherwise good, chicken tempura seemed like processed chicken (think chicken nuggets) portions were very small. The rangoons were decent and the Kani Mama was the only standout in the entire meal (although on the menu it's listed as crab, when in fact it is "imitation crab").

The lemonade was watered down tastelessness. Country Time powdered drink mix is better than whatever they are serving. Sodas were as expected.

I ordered a Kani Mango Crab salad. The cucumber in the salad was extremely BITTER, too much green peel left on it and it ruined the entire salad. I ordered it spicy and not only was it not spicy, it had no sauce on it. Almost inedible due to the bitterness of the cucumber. Then a chicken Ramen bowl, some fried noodles and a variety of sushi was ordered. The noodles were decent. The Ramen noodles were good but the broth was unremarkable and the egg was rubbery. Something was just "off" about the entire bowl of Ramen. It was left mostly untouched and we took the chicken home in a to-go container for our dogs. The sushi just did not have that fresh sushi taste. It was a solid 5/10 at most. It was rolled fine, portioned fine but just barely average in taste. Kind of like grocery store deli level of good and fresh. However, the rolls that had cucumber in them (2 out of 5) also still had that very bitter cucumber situation going on. I removed the cucumber from mine and the ginger and the wasabi knocked out the residual bitterness. When the server dropped off the check she informed us that the tip was "already added in to the meal" because there were 5 of us at the table. The added in tip was 20% ($46). There were 4 adults and a five year old that just ate some noodles off his mom’s plate. I get it "technically" there were 5 of us seated, but my 5yr old nephew didn't even have a drink. Seemed like forcing us into a 20% tip. I usually give 20% for good service, but being forced into that was off-putting. I'd like to hope this was just a really bad day at Sakura, but as I stated I have had subpar visits the last three times before this one and overall, this was the proverbial nail in the coffin for me. I won't be recommending this to friends anymore because I don't want my friends mad at me and I will take my money somewhere else where I feel like an effort is being made to supply a quality product and experience. For $230+ tip I certainly expect better than grocery store deli food, sticky tables and forced tipping.

Last note here, in a restaurant there should always be a manager on hand and if not then you should allow your employees to handle these situations so people don't leave feeling ripped off like we did. Super disappointed to see a favorite restaurant going so downhill. I hope they read these reviews, allow people to contact them through their website, or get a manager in store to deal with these issues. Because people writing reviews like this on Yelp and Google are not good...

I ate here about a month ago the food was ok. However my waiter brought me teriyaki shrimp when I ordered shrimp tempura. He corrected his mistake but was a little rude about it. I went in today. Same waiter. He brought our miso soup out first. Then my daughters entree came. Then our appetizers came. Finally the other entrees came. The sequence was out of order but hey , right no biggy. The reason we came was because of location in Los lunas and my daughter was very excited to try mochi a Japanese desert.The soup was eaten .no waiter. The appetizer was eaten no waiter . The drinks were empty the table had all the plates and bowls from all the courses all over the table. Our waiters name was BARON. BARON had a rude attitude the first visit. And definitely this time. We waited 30 minutes after we finished eating as BARON walked by our table within six inches and ignored us, as the tons of dirty dishes sat. Other tables came way after us and were already leaving. I finally flagged BARON down, and asked for our bill and asked why he hadn't refilled waters drinks or cleared the table???He was again short with me and said he had other tables besides mine.The food wasn't very good this time either, the sushi was flat. The tempura was very, very greasy . I had a broccoli crown which was full of raw dough and oil. It weighed a lot. Probably could have squeezed a quarter cup of oil from the one piece. We never were asked if we wanted anything else or if everything was ok. My daughter went home upset because we didn't try mochi.But after being passed by for thirty minutes over,and over, and over we were upset and couldn't have fit any dessert dishes on the cluttered table anyway. Very poor service and the food is starting to match. I went at 12:30 during peak lunch hour. Only 4 or five of the tables had people eating and 2 of the tables were single diners. So I guess this new restaurant will just fade away. Such a shame, It was packed in the beginning so much that you had to wait. Just go to Albuquerque to get Japanese food. No manager was on duty according to Baron so there you have it. Another one...

My boyfriend's family invited us here before and the food was good, drinks as well but that was IN the restaurant. Been a while since then but yesterday I was craving sushi so I placed a to go order.

When I tell you that it was ATROCIOUS!

Simply ordered the fried calamari and fried crab legs. The calamari so so over cooked, when I picked it up it was stiff as a board and the crunch was so loud I feel like it could be heard from a mile away. On top of that the actual meat inside(if any) was dry inside.

Then OH GOD the crab legs. I was scared I was eating spider legs with how pathetic and shriveled they were. It felt like they scooped the crumbs from the bottom of the frier with these things! The meat wasn't dry at least but just didn't taste good, as if it was about to spoil. It was so hard to stomach wich is disappointing because crab is one of my favorites and I have never felt like spitting it out until I ate it from here!

Then my boyfriend ordered the rainbow rolls. From the pictures on the website he was excited to get 8 rolls for only about 5 bucks. When I tell you walmart offers more than these sad hair thin slices that they freaking gave us! One whole decent sized roll was cut in half making it stupidly thin.

Overall a disappointing meal for almost $50. Eating in the restaurant was a much better experience than getting a...