Tokidoki Burger — Restaurant in Minneapolis

"High prices for mediocre flavor with a lacking restaurant experience."

Saturday night, primetime 7pm dinner hour, and the owner isn't anywhere in sight. Staff are frantically struggling to keep up with dine-in orders. We had to wait 30-45 mins at our table.

Choosing to culturally name a restaurant using Japanese descriptors, then walking in to see only ketchup and mustard for burger condiments. Take the sign away from the door, and blind flavor tells you that you walked into a Denny's.

Lack of identity. Was I supposed to come here for the flavor, the price, or the atmosphere?

This isn't the staff's fault. This is a management issue. If an owner is going to choose to start a restaurant, they should be so passionate about the restaurant that nothing else matters. It's like cooking with love, but you just don't feel that here. This isn't an obsession for flavor or experience, it's just a random business idea somebody had and is slowly giving up on it. It shows.

It's 2025. Having a robot restaurant assistant rolling around offering Japanese-inspired beverages would have easily smoothed over the long kitchen wait.

Offering to allow an artist to freely set up a station for anime-style self portrait commissions would have instantly distracted us from the stale fries and indifferent burger flavor.

I could have spent 1/2 as much at a local Arby's and enjoyed the food more, and I'm an Asian dude saying this.

At best, I would give Tokidoki Burger a C+.

In Asian grading, we know that's a fail. The owner should consult a restaurant whisperer. If somebody else was managing this place, it probably could have a lot...

Promising place, not quite cutting it for me but I'll go back to check it out again. Very cute, great chill environment, genuine service, reasonably priced... however:

-Menu descriptions are somewhat lacking. -Seemed kitchen was prioritizing delivery orders over restaurant customers. There were only a handful of people in there. Wings took about 25 minutes, miso & poutine weren't as slow but still seemed delayed for how simple they are. Some of this could be in my head. -Miso was very fishy. Also very smoky. I loved it, I'm into those flavors, but it's definitely different than any other restaurant miso I've had, including some pretty nice places. Some people would be repulsed by it for sure. -Poutine chasu tasted off, almost like bad chicken, and could have used more than 2 curds in the dish. Everything else about it was great, unique but still fairly predictable poutine, sucks that it fell short, the potential is there. Maybe wakame garnish would blend the chasu taste better? Mushrooms? idk -Dry rub wings were irregularly seasoned with some way over seasoned. Also tasted like pretty standard Cajun seasoning for the most part. The batter and cuts were good so I'll try the others at some point.

Gonna hang this less than ideal review for now until I go back and try some other stuff, but I do hope these points get improved, could easily be a regular...

Omg! This spot was right on point. Tbh I was headed to the fish & wing spot next door because I'm more of a fish and wing person, but when I saw there were two Asians preparing the food I said to myself, "Oh no!"Wasn't what I expected, so I went next door to this spot, and by goodness, I'm glad I did. First off, the server was very kind and pleasant, to say the least. He offered me sparkling water, which I don't see often offered at most restaurants. It's the soda effect without the sugar for me. The choices were different, but it had all the ingredients mentioned with the dishes. I tried the chicken nambo, and it was FYE!!! GOOD!!! I hadn't tasted a chicken sandwich like that in my life! It was SO GOOD! I'm going back for the Japanese pancakes, I'm guessing their just as good, simply because I always wanted to try them. The place was clean, with a calm atmosphere. They also have an area on the front if you'd like to eat out front. But overall, I give this place a 9 out of 10 so far, and I say 9 out of 10 because I haven't tried the Japanese pancakes yet. I'll be back to give my review on the Jp...