Kamehachi - Northbrook — Restaurant in Northfield Township

This was genuinely such a treat! The restaurant is split into two areas, one for pickup and the other the dining hall with a full service sushi bar. I loved the traditional Japanese details mixed in with the modern flair of creature comforts like booth seating. The owner or perhaps the hostess greeted and served me. I assume she was the owner because she directed the other staff while I was there. Anyways, her service was excellent and I ordered the Japanese fried chicken which was soooo good even without sauce! The flavors of the chicken were nice and full with juicy bites and savory taste. I also squeezed some lemon juice on top of the chicken as it was provided on the side. This boosted the flavor. Would definitely recommend this dish. For my entree I ordered the Sukiyaki I believe it was called; a beef stew with cabbage and onion and glass noodles. The portion was way too big for me after eating the chicken and drinking the hot sake I ordered, but wow what an amazingly warming soup with a great sweet and salty flavor! The beef was so tender and I wanted a lot more of it to be honest. The cabbage was perfection and my only complaint was that my soup had too many onions so it felt more like onion soup with cabbage and beef add ons than a beef soup with some onions in it. All in all, def recommend this restaurant, and I will be trying their other location soon enough! P.S. I made my reservation for 4pm on a Sunday, right before the dinner rush started. There was no one else present when I was seated, and as I was finishing my meal, more people were starting to pour in! They have great food so definitely make a reservation...

The Yaki Udon was fantastic. It was so good that it inspired us to make it at home.

The sushi was ok but mostly salty and it didn't have much flavor of anything else. It felt like it was rolled with too much rice. The sweet potato roll didn't have enough fried batter on the outside. The spicy tuna didn't have enough spicy mayo. The Shiitake was pretty good. It tasted pickled but tasted like it was probably just made with rice vinegar and mirin. But that's just it. Nothing tasted really special and felt like I could make it at home - not saying I could I'm saying that it tasted too simple.

The scallop Dlx was very good, but even though it was torched, it didn't have enough of that flambé flavor that I love. It wasn't an explosion of flavor.

The spicy mayo was great.

The waitress only came to bring us our food and didn't come back until much later to give us our bill. Waiting for that was annoying.

And finally, the chopsticks were pretty...

Pricy. Not super fast/just ok service. Food is 1000% great. I'll go here once per year due to the price and ish service. Recently (2022) they made it darker and more sultry.. Not for the better to the experience. Can you do better on food quality? Probably not. The rest is for the birds.

Tonight, 2023/10/21 we had the worst service we've ever had. We were seated by a dapper suited gentleman and then waited more than 30 minutes for our drinks. It became clear this was a management issue because the server was overseated and couldn't keep up while other servers were standing and looking around. All while the restaurant wasn't busy, maybe 12 tables sitting while we were there. Extremely disappointing. There's new menus, new wallpaper, new frosted glass on the front... And lesser service. We're looking for a new place, any recommendations? (Note: Our check was $700 tonight... This isn't a couple...