Izumi Japanese Steak House & Lounge — Restaurant in Meridian

Not sure where to begin. If I could give zero stars I would...had reservations for an early dinner, showed up and they weren't ready for us, had to wait almost 10 minutes to be seated while they got the table ready. Even though they had our name on their books they seemed surprised to see us. They had 2 "hostesses", if you could even call them that. The way they were dressed they should have been working at Hooters. Wearing skin tight legging material type pants and short, almost bra like, shirts. If I wanted a show instead of an expensive dinner, I would go to Hooters and not bring my kids. Once seated it was so dark you could barely see who you were sitting with. The music was ridiculously loud and kept skipping and glitching then starting the same song over and over again, not to mention you had to yell over the music to talk to anyone. It was so loud that the waitress had to keep asking us to repeat ourselves. It took forever to get our drink order in and then again to place our food order. There were only 2 other hibachi tables that already had their food so not sure what the issue was. Our chef eventually came and started cooking but you could tell he was in a hurry. We had 2 young kids and 3 older kids who were looking forward to a show and we got nothing. A few spatula bangs on the grill, a small fireball once and that was it. When it came to when he is supposed to throw the food into your mouth he literally just launched it at our faces, he didn't even give you a chance to get ready, he just threw it at you, then didn't give you a chance to recover before he threw another one at you, hitting you in the face or the head and then moving on to the next person. He cooked as fast as the food would allow, to the point were the vegetables were raw, a tiny bit warm, but raw. The steak, chicken, shrimp, and rice was mediocre but definitely not worth the prices. I also ordered Tobiko, flying fish roe sushi. I know enough about sushi to know the difference between flying fish roe and smelt roe. When the menu says flying fish roe, I pay for and I expect to get flying fish roe, not smelt roe! Once we were done it took forever to get our bill, then even longer for them to come get our card and bring it back to us. We will never go back, it was very...

Two things went good all the rest was absolutely terrible. We made reservations for 7:30. We made it to the restaurant at 7:25. We checked in and was given a buzzer. They had three people hosting two young girls and a manager. After waiting 30 minutes we were informed that they are double booked. That is the biggest problem with restaurants that don’t use the system in place to do reservations. I watch as the manager would come in and change everything the the hosts where organizing. Then she would make the decisions without communicating with the hosts. Finally they set us at 8:47 after being told so many excuses and lies which is another bad practice. Don’t make excuses and try to fix it with lies. We were promised two appetizers for free for the long wait. We ordered them when we got to the table. They didn’t charge us for the appetizers but we only received one out of two appetizers. I could see that the servers where very overwhelmed and doing the best they could based on the situation that management was putting them through. In my professional opinion as a chef, they were set up to fail and overwhelmed with more then they could handle to really give good service. That’s not a server mistake. From the time we got to the table everything was turned around and the server and the chef did an amazing job making up for the bad manager practices. The server and chef were very helpful and fun. If I could offer a piece of advise, the managers need training. They need to use the system they have in place and stop making excuses. They need to use communication and trust their employees to do their jobs and not come in and change everything they organized. If you’re going to do that you might as well just be the host yourself and that way you won’t confuse your staff with what their duties are. They have no duties if you feel like you have to control everything. Learn to delegate and teach them the system. Trust that your employees can use the system. Stop trying to take over. You’re the problem management. Learn from this and take this constructive feedback so you don’t repeat doing this to guests. I went through your review and you do this a lot. Fix the problem. Train your staff and let them perform their...

I had a late breakfast today so I wasn't really hungry. My sister wanted sushi for lunch and suggested we eat at Izumi. A lot of options for a small lunch is available so we made our way there.

It's been a few years since I have been here. I came here a few years ago for my son's birthday. We sat at a hibachi grill. Today we got sat at a table in the sushi area. My sister and I just wanted a chill lunch. This venue is so big. It's quite beautiful and clean. The hostess greeted us and we made our way to our table.

Cole, dropped off menus and waters. I got a soda ordered while we were looking over the menu. Initially I just wanted a miso and a side salad but after remembering they had hot and sour soup as an option, I had to get it. And instead of the salad I got a side of veggies.

My sister's roll came out first. I didn't have any of the roll but it looked good visually. Shortly after her roll being dropped off, our soups came out along with my veggies.

I'm a hot and sour soup snob. My dad made the BEST hot and sour soup when my parents used to own their restaurant. I can say that this was one of the best hot and sour soups I have had in a while! You can tell it was made fresh and it wasn't pre made just sitting in a hot pot waiting to be served. It was thick. It had a nice level of heat to it. It was also sour. It had beautiful ribbons of egg. There was a great amount of tofu. You can taste bits of the bamboo in each bite. It was delicious! I just wish it came in a bigger bowl! I polished off that whole bowl not caring about the fluid restriction I'm supposed to be on. It was that good! I did have a couple pieces of veggies from the order of side veggies. I love me some hibachi zucchini and broccoli. The veggies are best dipped in spicy mayo with a side of fried rice. So good!

Lunch with my sister was so chill today. Cole did a great job taking care of us. The soup was on point and delicious. I have had hot and sour at the Eagle location and it's nothing like today at the Meridian location. I will drive the extra miles just to have it again here. Looking forward to my next bowl of hot and sour soup or a meal off the...