Otani Japanese Restaurant — Restaurant in Mayfield Heights

I give what USE TO BE my favorite and ONLY Sushi restaurant 2 stars, here's why. I was introduced to Otani's in 1986 by a very close friend. I feel in love with this place. Here, is where I was first introduced to Sushi by that same friend the same day. Every year since, I either order a Deluxe Sushi tray to go or meet friends/family here to dine in. I have pics of some of the trays. Moving forward, I have a cousin that like me, loves seafood, but has never had sushi. She is here from Florida. Ironically, the friend that introduced me to Otani's moved to Florida many years ago, but we stay in touch and I often shared with him my trips to Otani's. That being said. I decided to invite my cousin along with other special female relatives that live here ( Cleveland, Ohio) to have a girl's night. I booked a Habachi table. Food was good and we had a nice time. Here is where things went horribly wrong. We all had separate checks. There were 6 of us. When we got our bill each one of us got hit with GRATUITY. This is a first. Out of the many times I have eaten here with friends and family down through the years, never charged gratuity. When asked why was there gratuity on our bills were were told that it is now "Otani's" policy to charge for groups of 6 or more. Then the young lady pointed to a sign somewhere way behind us near a bathroom in which we still could not see and told there was another sign on the other side of the restaurant that we could not see either. I even questioned the fact that the signs were not posted anywhere visible. I disagree with being told "how much to tip" someone. I mean what if the service was not good? Also my meal with tax came to $57 withe gratuity it was $72 and some change. Others had from $5-11 in gratuity added to their bills. That is highway robbery. The attendant refused to get a manager by telling me "my manager not here". Needless to say I along with my visiting relative was deeply stunned and disappointed in that action and " forced" charge. Otani's must have changed hands because the service definitely is no where near what it use to be. Tonight's service (11/4/17) has later a very foul taste in or mouths. So...

Overall, there were various issues with our experience. The server was rather inexperienced and overbooked, as in he is serving the whole room by himself. We ordered several lunch specials, which come with rice and soup. However, the server didn't seem to be aware that rice and soup come with the order until we asked. After asking, he went on serving others, so we got another person to retrieve our rice (no soup).

We ordered sushi, but never got it until we flagged someone down for our check. Turned out the sushi had been made and sitting at the sushi bar. We overheard the manager (who's also the only one making sushi) yell at someone for leaving the sushi out. That person (perhaps a helper to the server) never served it as we found out later those turned out to be ours.

Similar to the rice, after we asked for the check, the server forgot about us. 10 minutes later, I went up to the front counter for the check. Turned out the guy who got yelled at earlier was up there packing sauces. He pulled up my check quickly after asking, but he wasn't very attentive to current issues.

The food. The food is not actually Japanese food, but rather a Chinese fusion style. Since my family worked in Chinese take-out stores, I can recognize that the ingredients and sauce bases were all materials from Chinese take-out menu. Our yakisoba is equivalent to Lo Mein and our Teriyaki Chicken is equivalent to Chicken Broccoli in terms of sauce and chicken/noodle. The dishes were good in their own right, but just not what we expected by the names.

All in all, the food is edible while not authentic by the standards of available Japanese restaurants. The server(s) was inexperienced and not managed properly while the place is clearly understaffed, which led to...

Called around 5:30 on Mother’s Day to order sushi, was told they are busy and it’s about a 1.5 hour wait. We said that was fine but wanted delivery so we decided to order through door dash for delivery and understood it would be a long wait which we were ok with. So we ordered and after about an hour we see the delivery driver was at otani waiting. Then we get a message saying otani canceled the order. We called otani and was told they are too busy so they cancelled it . They continued to be rude and could care less, not sure why they waited an hour to cancel and they told us to just call door dash to make sure we get our money back, but now it’s 6:30 and we have no food and starving. Even if they said it was going to be another hour that would of been fine but why cancel our order. We asked if we could put in a new order and they said no. The guy on the phone said it wasn’t his decision and it’s not up to him but then said he was in charge and he’s making the final decision and there is nothing he could do and wasn’t offering anything to help. Being overwhelmed and busy is one thing but make it right, say it will be even longer then expected and apologize but don’t cancel someone’s order after an hour of waiting . Been going here for almost 20 years and they just lost a long time customer...