Aikan Sushi & Ramen — Restaurant in Pasadena

My friend and I came here tonight for dinner. This was my first time and my friend had been here before. We put ourselves on the wait list and it was a 45 minute wait. Not bad at all! Then my friend got a notification 6 minutes later saying our table was ready. I was still trying to find accessible parking and she was unloading her wheelchair. It’s important to note that we are both in wheelchairs. My friend got to the restaurant about 3 minutes later and they said they gave our table away. She was but happy and explained it had only been 3 minutes since she got the text saying our table was ready. They said they would still seat us.

My friend notified them that we were both in wheelchairs and they tried to seat us in the corner but it was too small of an area so we were moved to a better location. It was still a tight squeeze but the entire restaurant is like that. There’s not much walking room. Our biggest issue was after we were seated, our server came back and said they needed to move us because their food runners couldn’t walk by our chairs. She offered a half booth half table and said one of us could get out of our chairs and sit in the booth. That is against the law. You cannot ask a disabled person to get out of their chair. I stated that was unsafe. If there was an emergency we couldn’t get out fast enough. We also told them that our chairs didn’t take up any more room than the chairs around us. This was true if anyone else sitting in these chairs had a pant size over a size 12.

Our other option was to stay there or be put on the waiting list again. We opted to stay put. A few minutes later the manager came over and explained that they just wanted to give us a bigger table so we could be more comfortable. I explained what was offered and why it was wrong. Throughout the night servers huffed and puffed as they had to take a different route to deliver food. And yet, no one ever asked the table behind me to move. They were just as much in the way as I was. This place is small.

The service was poor. We had to ask multiple times for certain items. Some items were brought to us that we did not order and other items we did order came to us 3 times when we only ordered it once.

On a positive note, the food is amazing! It is very good and the portions were just right! Would I recommend...

We joined the online wall l wait-list on Yelp and waiting like an hour an a half before actually arriving. There's no parking there and you have to find street parking. My advice is to go to the target for free parking. It's only about a block down and it's a quick walk. Once we got there we were about 3rd on the wait list but still ended up waiting another hour outside due to the inside seats being jam packed. Once we sat we saw the printed gratuity # charge for the party size crossed out and penned in our # party size which we thought was oddly convenient for them. Usually it's 6+ or even higher at most places. Honestly I thought the food was amazing, I was chowing down on sushimi. My whole group all thought their variety and selection was great. But y'all the service was not great. We first tried handing in our list twice only to get told oh "no i can't take it by other servers but I'll get your server." We ended up waiting for so long just to eat when we were finally seated as well. If you want ginger or wasabi you have to ask for it as well. That also took a good min. It's also super loud in there, they blast music and there was a good crowd. It was funny having to yell at each other because we just couldn't hear even though we were right next to each other. Once we got to our next round they kept taking the menu from us so it made it difficult to order unless you have photographic memory. Then eat time we asked for a menu it was a mission of finding our server and wondering if he was ever gonna come back. We just all thought he forgot and ordered without it. It got to the point my brother would just stand up and go find our server for anything because it was that bad. I just thought it was silly that but even other servers were even willing to help us either. It's like we were put in a corner and forgotten. We even had to do the same for the check. Was basically $50 a head and honestly I'm not sure if it's worth it. Food was good but the poor service seemed like a major deterrent. There's so many other places I'd go instead but I'd also say the food was worth trying at least once, probably...

Where do I start. I've visited quite a few times, I've brought many co works, friends and family here. BUT today was such a nightmare I will NEVER go back. After running errands all day my kids and I were soooo hungry and decided to stop by on our way home.. once we arrived we were told there would be a 45min wait and they would text me. which was expected on a Sunday evening, no problem. I called 20 mins in to just to check where we were in line as I mentioned we were so hungry. I was told It would be 20 more minutes on top of my 45mins she had originally told me, being a total of about hour. I said fine. Figured it would take longer if I found another place and plus I was really looking forward to the ramen . After waiting for over an hour in my car I decided to just go back inside and see where we were in line. The host then informs me she was UNABLE TO FIND ME IN THERE SYSTEM. I was suuuuuuper annoyed and hangry at this point BUT as soon as she mentions this, another worker asks what was the problem, she tells her and swifty enough they get me a table. GREAT, right?! NOPE. Shortly after the GM comes up to me at my table with my kids and asks me "what did they do to deserve me texting them F-YOU " ?! I was soooo appalled!! Not just to be accused of this but accused of this in front of my kids !!! He asked me TWICE! Turns out, after confirming my phone number, the hosts had typed down my wrong number which is why I never got a text message when the table was ready in the first place . He apologized and gave me a $20 discount. Also I need to mention while I was being accused of this, I looked up towards the hosts area and there was 3- 4 female workers there, u could tell they were talking about it and one of them was laughing and when she saw me look at her she quickly turned away. Honestly, I will never go back. I was really disgusted with this whole experience and the fact that I was accused of this in front of my kids. Only reason why I stay was because we were really hungry at this point....