Torii Japanese Restaurant — Restaurant in Modesto

I went to Tori's on a Friday nite around 9pm for the first time with friends. It's was okay considering...the hostess was M.I.A at the doorway. The place was packed with on-lookers in the front lounge/karaoke area hearing / watching in fright at the high pitched shrilling karaoke rendition of "phantom of the opera."

We would have waited forever if it wasn't for the smart thinking of my friend. We sat down and when the waitress asked us what we would like for drinks, I asked for cold sake. She didn't know if they had cold sake but knew they only carried two. Two? As wait staff new or old, you should know what's on hand. I sushi chef knew what kind of cold sake the establishment had. We ordered the Nigiri, with shot glasses. We're going enjoy this night. Sad to say, the waitress came back and said they didn't have any more Nigiri, WTF! Really? For a Friday nite an establishment should be fully stocked to quench customer's who have had a ridiculously amazing week. So we just drank free tap water.

We ordered appetizers which took forever, so we ordered our sushi rolls. We were not in a hurry, but hungry. The sushi chef did double duty being sushi maker and waitress since we didn't have chopsticks or napkins. We ordered our appetizers which came late, after we went through our sushi rolls. The sushi rolls were good like any other place. The only thing was they fell apart easily.

Overall, if you want karaoke, sushi, Teppanyaki , and spotty service, Tori's is the place for you.

There are other sushi places in Modesto with less noise, comparable prices, sushi and...

I give it 1 star because that's the lowest choice. We walked in and waited for 8 mimutes before we saw anyone that works there. The lady that finally did come told us 'oh', no! We only seat people with reservations. I said ok, lets go somewhere else. Then she said 'wait and I will see if I can squeeze you in somewhere.' she came back and said she had found 1 table that had room for is. It was with 2 other groups. We said ok. I ordered the Seafood Boat and my husband ordered the steak and chicken. A waitress brought is each about a 4th of a cup of 'soup' and we were told to drink it but be careful, it's hot. Then hubby was brought a salad.and I was brought my seafood boat. The cook like to have scared is silly when he came to the door of the room and shouted 'its showtime!' My 'boat' insisted of scallops (absolutely no flavor) prawns (again, over cooked and no flavor) and calamari (so over cooked it was like rubber and impossible to chew) the vegetables were warm. Raw, but warm. Hubbys steak was very tough. He could only eat about half of it. He said the chicken was 'ok' but the veggies were half raw. And it was so noisey I didn't even try to talk. I mean, the cook was very loud and noisey. Well, I have now been to Torii's so that is out of the way and I won't have to wonder how the food is....

I firmly believe I will never have a restaurant experience as terrible as last night at Tori's. We made a reservation for 8pm for a group of 30. 4 of our group arrived 20 minutes early. Right at 8 PM we had 10 people there. They wouldn't seat us as the entire party hadn't arrived. At 8:10 we had 20 people. They go ahead and seat us, however only 15 of our party can be seated because they had just seated a large group despite our reservations for 30. Needless to say, half of our group was standing in the hallway, some at the bar. ... waiting for a group of 15 who just started eating to clear out. They give us menus and try to begin taking our orders- all while half of our group hasn't been seated. This was rude, and I'm pleased that my group decided not to begin ordering. At this point we had enough, we called a nearby restaurant who was able to accommodate our group and we left- all 30 of us. We grabbed our belongings and took our business elsewhere. The manager - or we assumed she was the manager was very unprofessional. They shouldn't take reservations if they aren't going to reserve the area. We would have understood if we didn't have a single person there by 8pm- but we had 10 people there. This was terrible service, if I could review with 0...