Taste of Tokyo — Restaurant in Louisiana

We live around the corner and frequent here often, at least once a month and more when the Hibachi grill was operational. We always order sushi and kitchen menu items and Hibachi when available. Historically the food is always good which is why we continue to dine here.

Tonight (9/11/2022) we came with 9 year old daughter. We ordered 4 rolls, combination rice and gyoza. (See receipt) One of the rolls (Voodoo Roll) tasted sour and had an “off” seafood flavor. No one complained or said anything. We ate one piece of the roll and left the rest on the plate untouched.

An asian female (who we later learned was Lily the manager and owners wife) came by to ask about boxing the food up to-go. We expressed to Lily when she asked if we wanted a to-go box that we wanted everything but the Voodoo roll boxed up. At this time, I explained to Lily that the roll tasted sour and had a very off putting flavor. To this she exploded. She became very vocal and instead of apologizing that the roll did not taste right, she cursed in front of my 9 year old daughter and said the chefs have over 10 years of experience, and continued with further nonsense. I finally ended the convo by telling her to leave the food. Not sure what 10 years of experience has to do with a roll not tasting right but we were not asking for a discount or causing a scene or anything, we were simply expressing that the Voodoo roll did not taste right. Cursing in front of our daughter was uncalled for. Her attitude and tone was uncalled for. Her behavior upset my daughter who continues to ask why did the lady curse.

Lily then proceeded to go to the sushi area and taste every ingredient involved in making that roll while “hiding” behind each sushi chef and just kept shaking her head and staring like we were idiots. We frequent here often. We paid our bill in full. We didn’t ask for a discount. We left a tip. Heidi was wonderful and actually deserved the tip in full, but Lily (the owner’s wife) was unprofessional. We like this place but Lily cursing in front of a child and not taking a customer’s comments as constructive criticism that maybe something was off, has caused us to never go back. I am a firm believer in supporting local business and do so at every opportunity but tonight provide that my dollars can be spent at better establishment with servers who act appropriately in front of all guests, especially kids.

As an aside, every other member of the staff apologized for her behavior and it was evident that she was much of the problem in the restaurant.

I would discourage anyone from going here until they sort out the staff (especially management’s attitude) and get the food quality back to the level of the menu...

FOOD POISONING ALERT: My first and only time eating their while on a business trip back in January of 2017, I had mixed experience. Staff was friendly and sincere. Food tasted great and I was really surprised how delicious the sushi was that I had. I enjoyed my food and was full. The problem was that I remained full ALL night long and still full in the morning before getting ready for work at 4:30am. My stomach was NOT feeling good at all and I knew when my food didn't digest and attempt to go down that I had aquired FOOD POISONING. My previous meal for lunch was fried and I had no problem digesting that at all. I had to call my customer and tell them I couldn't make it due to feeling horrible from my dinner the night before. I lost out on 12 hours of overtime and suffered almost 24 hours after eating there. I usually will give a place a second chance and so I went again and asked to speak with Gary. I quietly spoke to him at my table and mentioned that I got food poisoning after eating there the previous week. He arrogantly said it was impossible and that in all of the years they have been there that no one has ever gotten food poisoning or gotten sick from eating there. I said why are you so sure of yourself? I said I was kind of embarrassed to even mention it and how many other people might have felt the same way as I did and they may not have even bothered to let you know that they got food poisoning from here. I said I had to mention it because I more than paid for it... I was sick, I lost wages and I lost a day of progress at work. I felt I was obligated to speak up about it. I asked if they filtered their water and he said NO. He was turned off after that point, he brushed me off and walked away. He had no empathy, didn't care to even say sorry, nor say well I'm happy that you still chose try to Taste of Tokyo and thank you for coming in and giving us a second chance. None of that... I won't be back because of that conversation alone. That's poor customer relations and service. P.S. I've never had food poisoning from a sushi restaurant before eating here. P.P.S. I wrote this review before reading the previous reviews left by customers and I wasn't surprised to find the wording and attitude to be about the same....

I really want to like this place after my friends hype up this place so much! I ordered the shrimp tini, jalapeño poppers, upside down roll, noodle salad, and tropic thunder roll. The only thing that was really good was the shrimp tini, but they short us. It wasn't even fill to the top. The jalapeño poppers were the most disappointing. It is basically snowcrab stuffed jalapeño. How can you mess up on snowcrab? It is the basis of sushi. That's when I knew the rest of the sushi wouldn't be any good. The noodle salad was extremely sweet and needed some black pepper. The sauce on the upsidedown roll was so overpowering that I can't enjoy the roll. The tropic thunder was pretty decent but the tropical roll at Little Tokyo is 100x better. My friend ordered the squid steak and the poke roll. He definitely don't recommend either one of them. The squid steak was bland and too watery. The topping on the poke roll didn't work well with the rest of the roll.

Let's get started on the service. We had 3 difference servers. The first one spilled squid steak on my friend phone, the table, and on him. Yes, it was a lot. She looked at where she spilled and walked away. WE CLEANED IT OURSELVES!! She didn't even came back to give us more napkins. She was never to be seen again because she transferred us to the second sever, who had no clue which rolls was which. He even asked us what is this roll. Like dude, I don't work here how would I know! The sushi chef had to help him out. Our last server was an older lady and she was actually pretty sweet.

During the meal, you can tell all of us were disappointed in the food and service. It simply wasn't worth the money. I lived about 5 mins away from Taste of Tokyo and I would rather take the extra 20 mins to...