Arirang Hibachi Steakhouse — Restaurant in Middletown Township

I went late Sept 2022. Bad experience! I arrived at 8:47pm. We were seated right away. Our waitress was nice but seemed worn out. She took our drink orders. I ordered a glass of Merlot. I was surprised to see the low amount of wine in my glass. I discreetly went to the bartender & asked if this was the normal amount of wine given. Before she could answer a gentleman came behind me and said "Ma'am it's 5 oz to a 12 oz glass." As I turned around and looked at him I said "thank you for interjecting sir." I'm assuming he was a manager. His approach was tactless especially since I wasn't talking to him and had no idea where he came from. I sat back down & continued to wait for the waitress to come. It took her a while just to take our orders! We asked her why things were taken so long. She mentioned a busboy's family member died and they were short-staffed. I can completely understand that but is there only one bus boy for this location? Smh. The other people at our table drove almost an hour to eat there. They were on a couples date and mentioned that it was taking too long for the food. As I looked down at my phone, I realized it was 9:30pm and we still hadn't received our soup and salad yet. This was quite frustrating. Finally the chef comes out and prepares the food. He was nice. Of course he did the general tricks which is a part of any hibachi restaurant. I ordered chicken hibachi, fried rice and a side of noodles. The food was very salty. He put waayyy too much "Coca Cola". The noodles were the worst. They tasted like they sat in water too long before he fried them. It didn't get better. We were frustrated because we knew it was a waste of money and our time. The waitress came back, asked how our food was (which surprisingly the other patrons at the table said their food wasn't good either). She sent the manager over to speak with us. The manager apologized for their bad experience. As he turned around and spoke to me, my sister & I shared the same sentiments but interestingly he began to grill me. He said "What exactly was so bad?" "Why would you say it was bad?". "What did the chef do wrong?". I was very detailed in my descriptions but found that he was treating us quite different than the others at our table. Finally I said "Listen sir, I'm giving you honest feedback. Any business should want feedback whether it's good or bad. It gives you an opportunity to make adjustments." He agreed begrudgingly and said he would adjust our ticket. He took 10% off. The male across from me was bothered by the way he spoke to me. He asked me "why was he treating you like that??!?" I was thinking the same thing to myself but didn't say anything. He continued to say "that was completely out of line." (Especially since he didn't speak to them that way). I was truly ready to go by this time. Now it's time to pay. The waitress takes everyone's credit card and brings back the receipts. My sister notices that she rang up the wrong order for us. The other gentleman was quite angry because she mistakenly put our tab on his card. Our order was actually cheaper but she mentioned she had to void it out and recharge his card again with his actual ticket. When she recharged his card again there was a hold already from the previous charge which this time his card declined. She was very apologetic. I really felt bad for her. The manager come back and gave a $20 gift card to the table. When you have a bad experience it doesn't matter if you receive a gift card or not. That's not going to entice me to come back. It was hilarious that the other couples hated their food so much, they left their gift card on the table. I was so over it! I don't care how much I craving hibachi I will not go back to this restaurant! I wish I had the gentleman's name because I would put it on here but I'm glad I don't. You may not have an experience like this but I give true and honest reviews for MY experience. Hopefully others won't go through this. I gave two stars since the...

We arrived at 6:30 as instructed on the reservation page, but we were not seated until 7:15. Then, as we sat, we had to wait for an hour until the chef came out (about 5 minutes before that, I called for the manager and shared my concerns about the long wait time), especially since we had 3 kids who were hungry, and it was my birthday dinner with family.

She began to state excuses about how this is the normal process and waiting time, even though this is not my first hibachi show/dinner at places around the same area that do not make you wait over an hour for the chef to arrive at the grill. She stated that she would address this after dinner. I was fine with that after the kids wanted to stay, though I was about to get up and go to another hibachi place with better management and staff presence.

I would have left and taken my business elsewhere if not for my kids. SMH. We were told that the grill had been on the whole hour, but we discovered it was never turned on. The chef Mark stated it would be another 7 to 10 minutes for it to heat up, it took 15, so the food wouldn’t stick (as you can see, the waiting time kept growing at this point). Service was not present or attentive; we kept flagging them down to get our drink orders and other needs, but we were met with very dismissive behavior.

We went about our dinner (my birthday celebration). After that, I asked where the manager was since she stated she would come out and talk to me in a less-aroused moment with the show. There was no manager, so I walked up to the hostess area to request her. The waiter Carlos went somewhere and came back about 5 minutes later. I was told she instructed him to give us 20% off, and the cake addition for the birthday was not charged to me. I had also given my phone number for the birthday reward (which was not applied), and my husband saw the receipt and noted that only 10% was subtracted from the check, not 20% as promised. So at this point, I was very disappointed that the manager, who stated she would personally talk to me, never came out, and I was again dismissed with my grievances. I will add that there was another family next to us who was treated the same, and they shared their frustration with me, which is why I stood up for the lack of service, attention, and awareness of what we were experiencing.

The night that was supposed to be my actual birthday and my chosen place, Arirang, which has a decent reputation in the area, dismissed our sad experience in this way. They have lost my business and that of the rest of my family as well. You need to do better and not dismiss valid issues that arise from two families seated and experiencing this. If it weren’t for your customers, there would not be Arirang and repeat customers. This treatment was invited, and it was not...

So I really wasn’t going to make this post, because we were issued a refund for our meal, but I feel like I had to for the nice waitress who probably lost her job due to an issue that was not her own.

I’m gonna leave a fair and impartial review for you guys but I am going to state the chain of events.

myself as well as seven other individuals went to this restaurant hoping t relax and have a good time. We made several simple orders: Sushi, fried rice, shrimp and rice ECT. generally our orders were the same and could’ve been prepared all together. we observed three separate customer groups come in 20 minutes apart from us and each other after we placed our orders. All customers received their orders first, and had left the restaurant by the time half of our orders came out (approximately one hour and 30 minutes later). The waitress stated there was one chef in the back and, that she was sorry. we understood it wasn’t her fault, but she insisted that she was still going to get blamed for it by the owner. She tried to help us out by holding onto the check until the owner could come address us. we saw the owner walked past our table twice, and had to flag him down to address the logistical issue on his part.

When we finally did address the issue, he told us not to tell him how to run his restaurant. before I could even get done explaining what had caused the bad customer service, he completely ignored what I had to say and went to issue a refund.

Prior to leaving we gave the waitress a tip, and explain to her that she was probably going to get yelled at or fired even though we tried to explain to him that she had nothing to do with it. she replied that it was fine and that it would probably be one of the best things that has happened to her before we walked out

The only thing I regret is not only that I can’t give it less than one star, but that I brought up what the waitress said about having one chef in the back, because as we were leaving we could see and hear him loudly yelling at the waitress from the rear backdoor of the restaurant.

As far as the food it was decent, hot, moderately flavorful. However this restaurant does not have white sauce, or...