Chikuyo Tei — Restaurant in Nashville-Davidson

The sushi is shockingly bad. Please compare to SUSHI CIRCLE down the street and taste the difference for yourself. I hate leaving a bad review because I want to support local businesses. I understand that taste can be subjective so I'll try to be as fair as possible. First the good: Service was friendly and fast. Keep in mind that it was a slow weeknight and only 3 other tables were occupied. Miso soup and hot and sour soup. Price is reasonable. Plenty of parking.

Now the rough part. I got simple dishes that can't hide under a bunch of mayo or sauce. -Sashimi plate "Chirashi" had salmon, shrimp, snapper, yellowtail, tuna and tamago. Classic. All the ingredients were there but everything was very thinly sliced even the egg. All the fish fllavors were off. Not spoiled, mind you. Just wrong. Like they were sitting in a fridge with other foods. The salmon was ok but not nearly as buttery as it could be. Tuna had a sad color and mealy texture. Snapper was so thin it was almost translucent. Tamago is supposed to be about the size and shape of a domino. These slices were so thin, they were falling apart and had no discernable shape. -Spicy tuna roll I always get this whenever I visit a sushi place for the first time because it's hard to mess it up. At first, I was excited when I saw the portion. BIG scoop of mashed tuna with a thin layer of rice around it. Then I took a bite. No amount of hot sauce could cover up the flavor and texture. I ate two pieces just to make sure I wasn't imagining things. My girlfriend ate a piece and gave me a "wtf?" look. This is her FAVORITE roll. We eat it all the time at dozens of restaurants and even supermarkets. We couldn't finish it. -Chicken Yakitori Ok, so maybe raw fish isn't their thing. Let's try another simple dish. Grilled chicken. Scallions. Sauce. Well, nope. We can't win. Dry chicken, no char and the sauce was thin with some strips of something (?) floating in it. Instead of green scallions there were green bell peppers on the skewers. Well ..at least it's green. I suspect it's the same chicken and peppers they use for the Kung Pao. If that's the case, I have no desire to try it now.

I realize this is a long post. I suppose I'm just venting because the disappointment was so acute and kept escalating throughout the meal. It's the kind of disappointment you would feel if you were excited to open a tub of Ben & Jerry's and when you popped the lid, there was a melted cone of McDonald's soft serve inside. There's nothing wrong with soft serve, but you wanted Ben & Jerry's. And you paid for Ben & Jerry's. And there's a nice small business down the street that makes great ice cream for almost the SAME price and you feel bad that you didn't go there.

Maybe Chikuyo Tei was good 7 years ago. Maybe you have a favorite dish and good memories. If so, please continue to support them. Running a...

We waited until the restaurant had been open a week or so, because some places need time to find their balance. We aren't really into suchi but were hopeful that we'd be able to have a nice hibachi restaurant near us. The people there were very sweet and friendly, and there were quite a few folks there for lunch. Perhaps the number of people there caused a couple of the issues we experienced. We had though we'd have a hibachi that we would sit around. When your food is prepared in front of you, you know it's fresh and it will be hot. We were disappointed to discover that the hibachi food would be prepared in the kitchen and brought out to us. Besides that disappointment, here were our problems. 1. We were seated and given menus immediatesly, but it took forever for someone to take our drink orders and see if we had any questions. 2. The soup, made with beef stock, had an old (not aged) beef flavor. Not to our tastes. 3. The house dressing on the salad was very runny. The ginger flavoring stuck to the lettuce like a paste, but the liquid puddled at the bottom of the bowl like colored water. 4. The fried rice was room temperature, dry, and needed quite a bit of soy sauce to taste very good. and 5. The rest of the food, the meat and the vegetables, was not even warm. We brought quite a bit of food home, hoping that reheating and adding liquid to the rice would help us eat the leftovers, but we were really disappointed. We really wanted to have a neighborhood spot we could frequent. Hermitage has so few places, besides fast food, and we feel let down. We will probably wait a few weeks and give Chikuyo Tei another chance, but in the...

Absolutely HORRIBLE experience with this restaurant a few minutes ago. My friend and I came in the front door and there was no one in the entire place at 12:40, prime lunch time. A lady was standing behind the bar, and without even looking up, ask how many in a unfriendly tone. This should have been a warning, but my mind was on the good food I was going to be eating soon, and I ignored her attitude. After sitting for a couple minutes, she came over and asked what we wanted to drink. I simply asked if the tea was made from a tea bag or was instant. I certainly didn’t feel that was a rude or offensive question. She kept rolling her eyes and making a sighing noise of impatience. By that time, my friend said he thought we just needed to leave and go somewhere else. She didn’t say one thing! Like perhaps she was sorry or anything. As we were leaving, I couldn’t resist telling her that we ate there last Saturday and had a wonderful meal and great service. We came back again hoping for the same experience. But, we were totally shocked to be treated the way we were on this visit. I’m not sure who this lady is, but she is a true detriment to this restaurant. What a shame. Perhaps that’s the reason for the completely empty restaurant. Hopefully, the owner, corporate, or someone above this lady’s head will see this post and make some changes. They better do something soon if they want to save what could be a...