Benihana — Restaurant in Plano

My wife and I have been frequent Benihana customers for special occasions etc. over the years. One of our favorite items on their menu is their Hibachi Fried Rice.

We have never ordered Benihana to go through Uber Eats. We have gotten it to go in person.

Tonight my wife and I decided to try and order the Hibachi Chicken Fried Rice that serves 2 as well as Hibachi Steak Fried Rice that serves 2. If you read the description for both it says you get the Original Benihana Fried Rice with Chicken or Steak, Egg, and Vegetables. Exactly what you get if you order it in person.

They charged $16 for the Chicken and $19 for Steak. You had the option to Add Shrimp, Extra Chicken, or Extra Steak. No way to order Extra Vegetables or Extra Eggs.

We have been ordering food thru Uber Eats since the beginning of Uber Eats. If there is not a way to add or customize an item we simply call the restaurant. They make the addition or customization and adjust the price as necessary in Uber Eats. It is called a price adjustment. It's not a big deal to accomplish. I have never had an issue getting it accomplished.

I called Benihana and told them we ordered through Uber Eats. Gave them my name and stated we would like to add extra eggs to each Fried Rice. I was put on hold and the Supervisor told the lady speaking with me they had no way to charge me for the extra eggs. They told me to call Uber Eats Support about this issue. Interesting.

No other restaurant has ever had an issue accomplishing this task. This told me simply that the Supervisor had no idea how to perform a price adjustment or honor my request. To me adding eggs was a very simple request. Yet it could not be accomplished on this order.

We were frankly shocked at the small portions when they arrived. We have two other Hibachi grills that we order from regularly (due to proximity) and we get much larger portions than what we received tonight with regard to the portion size.

The Chicken was dry like it had been pre-cooked earlier in bulk. Never had the chicken taste the way it did when ordering in person to go or dining in. In fact my wife said it tasted chemically. There were also zero vegetables in the Chicken Fried Rice. Not a single vegetable of any kind. That was a first. There was no flavor to the rice. That is the number one reason we love going to Benihana over other hibachi grills is the FLAVOR OF THEIR FRIED RICE!!

We have never found any Hibachi to replicate the Benihana Fried Rice Flavor ever. The rice used was not like what we are used to receiving when you order in person to go or dine in. This rice seemed like simple Steamed White Rice and not the usual semi sticky type of fried rice. It was just not what either of us were expecting to receive.

The steak fried rice was no better. The steak seemed like it had been pre cooked in bulk. It reminded me of Chipotle when someone orders steak they are scooping it out of a stainless steel container. It certainly did not taste like it was just cooked for our order. The steak was heavy in pepper flavor. The steak fried rice also not a single vegetable in it.

The food itself was $35 then add in the taxes and fees and the $10 tip for my driver due to distance and my two fried rices delivered were $57. I have no issue with the Uber Eats driver they were great.

I'm giving this order due to the small portion, inconsistency of what we are used to getting, both having zero vegetables, the under seasoning of the chicken fried rice itself, the heavy pepper flavor of the Steak, the type of rice used, the dry chicken, and dry steak...a 1 star rating.

We have never had Hibachi Fried Rice from any Hibachi Restaurant that was as bad as what we received tonight.

Beyond Disappointed.

This experience was so bad that it will be our last meal at Benihana.

This was a first for us.

Frankly it should not matter whether we are ordering the food to dine in or to go.

The standards and quality should be the same standard and quality no matter what.

Tonight was an epic fail...

This was my first visit to a Benihanas, and my coworkers had talked it up quite a bit. The restaurant was hot, even though there were several temporary units installed through the windows. We were seated pretty quickly, but that was the last quick thing about it. We placed our drink and appetizer orders and waited. The family seated with us was shifted to another table with no reason given. We waited. About a half hour after having our drink orders taken, we received our drinks. The Long Island was made wrong, looked like it was made with lemonade instead of tea. We sent back the drink and waited. No appetizers at this point. We wait about ten minutes, no appetizers or replacement drink. One of my coworkers went to the bar and got his own drink. He subsequently had to snag a fork from the bar as well. After he got back, about an hour into our visit, the chef showed up. Still no appetizers. The food was fine, but a bit lackluster. After about two jokes, the chef stopped doing the show part of the experience, skipping things like flipping the shrimp so we could catch it and making the onion volcano. Our salads showed up during the preparation of the veggies, and our appetizers started to trickle in. The salads were gross, and I don't think anyone made any effort to pick at them. The chef finished cooking our meal, and our soups finally showed up. My appetizer still hadn't shown up. The waitress said she'd bring the manager over to speak with us, which never happened. My appetizer showed up about an hour and 45 minutes after I ordered it. Our meals included ice cream, but everyone else was fed up and didn't want to wait for it. I still wanted the ice cream. When it came out, the waitress muttered something about spoons. We were discussing what she had said amongst ourselves when I went to eat the ice cream and discovered that I had received a fork to eat my ice cream with. We got fed up with waiting for the manager and just asked for the check. We didn't want to leave a good tip, but the system wouldn't let us leave less than an 18% tip. Our group consisted of five people, and there was no note on the menu regarding minimum tips for parties of five or more, so we were pretty pissed.

I really enjoy hibachi and have been to hibachi restaurants across the country from coast to coast, at least thirty separate restaurants. This is the worst service and food of them all, and the bar was set pretty low. Never again will I go to this or any other benihanas as a result of this visit.

Oh, and that appetizer that showed up last was supposed to be chicken tempora, but instead looked more like chicken strips. And they were kind of icky too. I only had about two bites before I couldn't stomach them anymore and ended up tossing...

Don’t waste your money here. Service is terrible. Jason Boiles is a poor excuse for a manager. Keeping him employed there is going to be a liability for this restaurant. Extremely poor customer service from Jason Boiles.

Context - I wanted to add context to my experience at Benihana yesterday and why I think other customers should avoid this location as long as Jason Boiles is employed as a manager here. If this is the type of service that Benihana wants their customers to receive, then good luck to them keeping their doors open. My husband and I have been long standing customer’s at Benihana. I could show you the countless birthday parties and other celebrations we have chosen to have year over the years. We hadn’t been to the Plano location in a while since we had moved away and decided to pop on to one of our old favorite places to have lunch. Their lunch menu is served until 3 pm…we arrrived at approx 2:45pm and were seated - expecting to get the lunch menu - having arrived 15 minutes before lunch ended. The server took 25 to great the table and take orders - we ordered lunch since we had arrived in time and were seated on time and she advised that their PA system would not allow us to order lunch. At that time I politely asked if she could get the manager so we could talk to them about this misunderstanding and hopefully come to a resolution. Jason Boiles approached the wrong party at the table who had arrived after us, and as he began to address them, I waved and told him we were the ones who had asked to speak to him. He came over and rudely and aggressively told us that we had walked in at 2:57. Which was not accurate and he confused the time we walked in with the party that was seated after us. When my husband tried to correct him by showing him the actual time we got the notification about our table, he started being condescending and very unprofessional. I have never in my life at any establishment experienced the treatment we did that day. I will be making sure to tell everyone I know about this experience and how much the standards at the Plano location have deteriorated - especially if they are hiring managers who lack professionalism like Jason Boiles. After being made to wait over 25 minutes for service, another 20 minutes to speak to a manager and then being treated poorly by Jason Boiles, we left without even eating. I refuse to ever go back to this location and probably any Benihana, and it’s all thanks to...