Teriyaki Madness — Restaurant in Madison

Sad to see.

My wife and I have come on and off since the grand opening a few months ago. We had several good experiences until our last two trips. Sadly tonight's experience was a deal breaker.

It's pretty clear to see in the vibe inside the restaurant right now vs when it opened that they had a massive missed opportunity on their hands. With how busy they were for at least the first month it's clear that there was a demand for the type of food they offer. Since I no longer ever see other customers when we go in, it is clear that the quality has not met the standards of those who were excited at the beginning. We chose to give them a second chance after the first quality miss last month. It is clear that was a mistake.

Tonights issues started with the interior of the restaurant. The entire floor was sticky. At first I thought I was standing in a spill but after trying to move to several different areas, I realized it was the entire floor. I could forgive this normally because sometimes things happen but compounded with everything else, it's noteworthy. There were no other customers that came in for the 30 minutes I was inside waiting for my order. Since I was waiting and received the food as soon as it was bagged out of the kitchen I was happy thinking everything would be warm and good quality since they only had our order to focus on. This was a mistake. We live 10 minutes away. I know not all places can excel at putting food out that can retain its head but I can think of several local competitors that will travel twice as far and still be piping hot every time. Moving on to quality, this is the biggest miss. Everything else was really forgivable on their own. But the quality is absolutely the reason they lost all their business including ours tonight. In our order for protein we had orange chicken, teriyaki steak, chicken katsu, and spicy teriyaki chicken. Yikes. All of it severely over cooked. The katsu was burnt to a dark brown. All of the chicken was completely dried out. The orange chicken was so over done that it became tough and hard inside the breading which was so bitter you could taste it through the sauce. The steak was the least offensive but I will say it was completely unseasoned and still dry. The fried rice had very large clumps of unfried mushy white rice that apparently didn't break apart when it was cooked. Even if we say the rest of this was forgivable, the nail in the coffin was the roughy 6 inch long hair that I pulled out of my bowl with several grains of rice stuck to it. I ate honestly more than I should have through all of that because I paid $70 for the food. Now my stomach is deeply regretting that. It has already all come back up.

I don't know what went wrong but clearly their food safety needs to be looked into because I almost never get sick from food.

Needless to say, NO MATTER WHAT, there will not be...

I’m glad I saved the mailer for this place. The music, the decor makes it a trendy and fun place to eat; makes me feel like I’m in State Street. The staff were very friendly and helpful in putting together a meal. They all seemed like they were having fun, also. Although certainly from frozen, the salmon was not overcooked. It was moist and flaky. My spicy chicken teriyaki as also tender, moist, and they provided an ample amount of meat. They can bump the heat up more, but I felt it had just the right amount of heat for me. The accompanying Heracles were very light and fresh. All the rice choices add just the right amount of flavor; my fav was the fried rice. I also liked that they have free refills on drinks. The have perfect-sized portions for all appetites. It’s just a cool place to hang out and eat. I’m glad they are close. Try...

Terribly disappointing food here - would be cautious of wasting your money. Gave them a second try after having tried delivery a few weeks back and having terrible portion sizes on the meat.

Went in person and ordered a two meat large bowl, only got a few pieces of the orange chicken and an ok amount of the terriyaki chicken.

The wait was awful, it was 25-30 minutes for my one bowl and it wasn't even busy. No acknowledgement of the long wait or anything by the staff.

Veggies tasted a bit funny and cold, rice was fine and the meat was just not a good portion size. With how pricey it was I would not waste the time for how slow they are and how small the meat portion sizes are. Places like Sarku are just a way...