Tempura NYC — Restaurant in New York

Well, the food was great, too bad we had to eat in the basement. A few weeks ago I made reservation to sit on the deck to celebrate our friend graduating from Social WorK School. The day of the dinner I called to confirm. I spoke with the person who answers the phone number listed on the website, the owner. He said everything was okay. 10 minutes later, I receive a call from Marco the manager saying they made a mistake and are cancelling our reservation due to the fact that they just booked a huge jewish singles event. I am now in panic mood. I call our friend Marg. She is the reason why we picked this place, she is kosher. The owner tells her that we can eat on the balcony and the food will be free, Marco calls me back and confirms that the balcony is ours, but we can also eat in the snooker room in the basement.

As people start to arrive, Marco suggests that it would be better for all if our party remains in the basement. Le t us be very clear. This was not a misunderstanding. Misunderstandings do not end with, Thank you for being such a good sport, if you need anything from down there, you just text me and we will send Jessie the waitress to you. Jessie, by the way was fantastic.

I would say normally when I am asked by a manager to eat my meal in the basement and stay hidden, I would leave. But there is no normally here. This was the first time. However, we all agreed that for the free food, we would allow the humiliation and remain hidden in the basement.

And then the check came.... Any guesses? Food was on it. We called the owner who after some time told the manager to remove some of the food.

We paid the bill, left a good tip for Jessie but would you want to eat at this place?

would you want a restaurant that cancels your reservations when they get a bigger party?

Would you want to be told the food is free and then have to pay?

Would you want to have to eat if you were told to be a good sport and stay out of site?

Now I wonder if there is anything or anyone in this photo that makes this restaurant feel justified in treating us this way

Look at our group photo, make your own conclusions.

*in response to the reply from the manager--- notice he did not say that anything i said was untrue.... the part about being told not to be seen outside of his lovely basement, or the fact that we were promised free food, yet when the bill came, he removed some of the food.... If I were a manager and someone posted a review where they were told to stay in the basement unseen.. if that were not true.. I WOULD HAVE DENIED THAT IN HUGE CAPITAL LETTERS to show that my restaurant was not a place of bigotry.. funny, he did...

I'm honestly sad that I had such a bad experience. The servers and waitstaff were nice which is why I'm giving two stars instead of one, but the general experience was not good. Our food and drinks took a very long time to come out compared to other tables that came in after us. The food was average quality, we ordered fries as an appetizer and they tasted good but they were hard and overcooked. I ordered a roll and asked how many types of meat I could include in my roll. I was told two meats and as many vegetables as I wanted. I ordered a roll with two meats and like 5 vegetables. My friends got their meals first and the wrong food was brought to me. The server realized and took the incorrect food and returned a few minutes later with food that was closer to what I ordered. However, they brought out two rolls, each with a different meat and a few random vegetables from what I ordered. I thought it was weird that they separated the meat into two rolls when I was expecting one but I didn't ask why. I ate the rolls that were basically falling apart because they weren't wrapped tightly and they were still missing some of the vegetables I ordered but I don't like sending food back so I just ate it. Our waiter brought the check and I had been charged for two rolls even though I believed I had only ordered one. This was on top of our long wait, overcooked fries, and me being brought an incorrect order before the incomplete order. Our server told me that I ordered two rolls when I told him that he said I could order two meats in one roll and honestly I was so tired of being disappointed that I paid the extra $17+included gratuity for a roll that I didn't want to order and that was incorrectly made just so that I could leave. This was a really disappointing experience which didn't match my expectations based on the other...

Moral of the story: Never order pasta in a sushi place.

I went to Tempura NYC on Feb 22, 2023 with a group from work. There were 10 of us and we arrived about 6pm, the staff was very nice and the service provided to us was good. My group wanted sushi, however I am not into that, but they convinced me as there were a few other items on the menu. The group choose different sushi options except for myself and another co-worker. My other co-worker ordered the salmon, I ordered the penne pasta which I found to be a little over the top with salt. After dinner we all went our separate ways. I arrived back at my hotel around 8:30pm and a few hours later the food poisoning hit me. By 11pm I was in the bathroom, my stomach fighting with my intestines on who could groan the loudest. Nothing stayed in there, everything decided to come out, every 45-60 mins for 2 straight days.

56 hours later, held hostage in my hotel room, having missed 2 days of work, 2 days of sightseeing in NYC and feeling about 20 lbs lighter it was time to board a plane to head back home, hoping the worse was over. My biggest fear was getting onto the plane and have the need to race to the bathroom mid-flight. Thankfully that did not occur, however its been a week since this occured and I am not yet at 100%. Worse...