Ichiban Hibachi & Sushi Bar — Restaurant in Pine Township

The food is, unfortunately, pretty inconsistent, sometimes 5 stars, sometimes 2 stars for the food, so i landed on 3. I go here a few times a year give or take and sometimes the hibachi food is fabulous and sometimes it's just not. It so depends on the chef. The service and environment are always fine, nothing super stellar but nothing overly problematic.

I visited recently and for the third time in the last couple of years i had a disappointing and expensive meal, which prompted the review.

The good/bad news about having your food cooked in front of you is that you can see it being prepared and know what they are or are not adding.

Our chef this most recent time added two seasonings to the fried rice and on the steak but nothing else (not even the veggies) got any sort of seasoning sprinkled on. He added a little garlic to the steaks but nothing else got garlic.

He did not use any butter in any of the dishes except a little melted on the cooktop before putting the meat on. (someone else at the table ordered the lobster tail and he didn't even put butter on that when it was cooking! it looked rubbery and dry when he served it).

The lack of butter caused lack of flavor across the board but also didn't help the shirmp/veggies cook appropriately. The shrimp was hard/rubbery and the veggies inconsistently cooked because there wasn't anything to cause steam besides a little water to the veggies eventually or a little lemon he added after the shrimp were largely cooked.

The teriyaki sauce they put on the chicken and sometimes other sides/meats (but not this time) was so thin and watery. It's normally a fairly thick sauce but it was very liquidy and left the chicken with little flavor (and with no butter or seasonings sprinkled on, it was bland..who the heck says that about hibachi?).

They soy sauce on the fried rice and the noodles were the only thing that gave some salt through the meal.

I'm sure next time we visit it will be another 5 star food day, but the inconsistencies are annoying (and frequent enough) and definitely makes me think about visiting a different...

Beware - their online menu is wrong. We ordered sushi take out for a special occasion dinner at home. My husbands sushi came with lobster and avocado. However the online menu said his roll would be shrimp and filet on top. We immediately called trying to get it rectified. The gentleman on the phone kept telling us we were wrong as we got what we ordered. He said his menu at the restaurant stated the roll should be lobster and avocado. We paid $18 for this roll. We gave up as it was late. My husband didn’t eat dinner as he hates lobster and avocado. The next day I took our receipt to the restaurant and showed the manager the description of the roll on their website. (The manager was who I spoke to the night before that kept telling us we were wrong) when I showed him, he confirmed with the sushi chef that the roll we selected isn’t what the description says on their website. He then thanked me for pointing it out and said he would have it fixed online. I had to ask for a refund and the manager looked at me appalled that I would even ask. He said because I didn’t bring the incorrect roll back I shouldn’t get a refund. He even asked me if I had ate any of it since my husband didn’t. He knew it was the incorrect roll than what we should have received based upon their online menu!! He admitted to being the one trying to tell us we were wrong the night before. He finally offered me a gift card to rectify the situation. I thought that was 100% fair(that’s the only way we’d go back as our orders have been wrong in the past)…. Until he handed me a $10 gift card and said that’s all he could do. Really? The roll was $18, my husband skipped dinner, you told us repeatedly we were wrong when we weren’t, I took the time to stop in and show you your website is wrong and needs fixed so you don’t lose a handful of more customers, and you can only give me a gift card for the percentage of the item? Sounds like you need to train your managers on customer service - also, if you advertise a meal wrong on your website, how is...

Honestly, of the local sushi and hibachi places in the area, this one is my least favorite. I had a gift card so I decided to get take out for lunch for my husband and I. Since it was my first time ordering from them, I called in the order which I was happy I did because I received recommendations from the manager. He alerted me to the sushi lunch deals which was nice since essentially I got more for my money. I ordered salmon hibachi, chicken hibachi (no mushrooms), and five sushi options and picked up my order. The manager was friendly and my order was ready upon pick up (hence the 5 stars for service). The atmosphere was nice and clean, but I only observed the lobby/bar area.

Once home, we dug into our meal. The to-go containers were durable so there was no leaking; however, I was thrown off by the amount of liquid in the vegetable section of the container. It was just too watery and threw off the mix in of the yum yum sauce. The sauces tasted good though. The hibachi salmon was a little overcooked as I would have liked it to be more flaky inside and not so crunchy outside. Unfortunately, I did find a couple hairs in my hibachi so that was understandably off putting. As for the sushi, although flavorful, I'm such a stickler for food consistency. Compared to others, their sushi all tasted very... Soft or perhaps mushy. The cucumbers didn't have much of a crunch to them, the avocado was too ripe, and the salmon didn't have that typical consistency I've had elsewhere. I was disappointed that I was underwhelmed by it since I'd been looking forward to sushi for months (couldn't have it due to pregnancy). I much prefer other restaurants over this one but there's always that chance that it was just an "off"...