AFURI Slabtown — Restaurant in Portland

Please listen to the reviews that have made it clear that the service absolutely sucks here. I didn’t, gave them a chance and regretted it. We had a party of 6 yesterday and the restaurant was maybe 1/3 full. They were not understaffed, if anything they seemed to have more wait staff than necessary for how many tables there were. The waiter we had was honestly probably high af because he was having a hard time understanding our orders and we had to repeat ourselves a couple times. Sure enough he forgot to put in the dishes that we had ordered multiples of, and just put them in once. I flagged down a different waitress to check in on the items we were missing, and she gave me such unnecessary attitude. All she had to say was “I’ll check on that for you!” Instead she was like “serving and making food for a party of 6 is really difficult and I’m sure it’s coming soon” in a fake-nice condescending tone, very unnecessary when it was painfully obvious that our waiter just missed or forgot to put in a couple items. Like just admit the L and move on??? And also don’t make me laugh, a party of 6 when your restaurant is 1/3 full and fully staffed is totally manageable so what a lame excuse for no reason. The manager did end up comping the two items that were very clearly forgotten which was nice, but that doesn’t really make up for the attitude we got from the waitress tbh.

Also for whatever weird reason, this place is just awful at timing when to bring each order. Every restaurant on planet earth brings you your drinks, then your apps, then your entrees, except for Afuri Slabtown lol. Half of us got our drinks, then two of three hand rolls, then the rest of the drinks, then the remaining entrees and apps came out one by one in a random order. This is all painfully spaced out too. It’s just not a fun dining experience if our party is not able to enjoy drinks and food together and keep getting random things in piece meal, there were so many moments where several people were eating and others weren’t - I don’t get why this place doesn’t understand that getting the sequencing right is a really important part of the dining experience. Isn’t this restaurant 101???

Lastly, be aware that they automatically charge 20% gratuity for parties of 6+. This is usually fine but for this specific restaurant, I feel like this is why they’re okay with providing totally...

Me and my gf went here first time around 7 pm on Tuesday. We ordered spicy chicken bun & softshell crab bun and Ramen. Food is absolutely delicious but we found couple of tiny black dots at the back side of one of the buns. We asked the server and they did replace it with another normal one. The reason why i decided to put a one star review here is they claimed the black dots were from the steam rack. The randomly distributed black dots plus my 30-years experience eating buns, I can guarantee you that is definitely mold. I really regret that I didn’t take photos. We did not ask for anything but to replace it and maybe a proper apology. We don’t really want to make things complicated and worse like confront it with the Chief to show me how exactly the steam rack can fit the black dot to prove that those black dots really from the rack. Turns out, what we got treated was no sorry, no thank you, not even speaking a word when I pay the bill. Even worse, the female server was really rude, she just stand silently right next to me, staring at me to insert my credit card and choose a tip starting with 22%. For those who have seen some previous 1 star review for the terrible service experience, yes those are 100% true. For those who still want to try food here, please take a look at the back side of the bun. Once find something not right please take pictures...

Unfortunately, we had a horrible service experience on our 18th Anniversary night. We were sat in a reasonable time but then it went downhill from there. Our server was training a new server, which is perfectly fine, but they took our orders and they did not come back. The mixologist brought our drinks and a totally different server brought my wife's dish before the appetizer. So we sat and waited for another 15 minutes with no one checking on us, no appetizer, no my ramen. We literally had to waive them down and our original servers wouldnt come over, they semt the gentleman over and He told us the kitchen was making To Go Orders before Dine orders. Sad. We tried to patiently wait for my ramen but nothing came and my wife's ramen was cold. Still no appetizer. We told the gentleman we will just pay for the drinks and leave. He apologized and only after my wife asked he said, we will comp the drinks and cold ramen. He apologized for bad experience but it was horrible. I truly wonder if it was because we're the only African Americans in the restaurant and was not welcomed. Perhaps not, but the other couple that came after us received their meal, drinks and appetizer all on time and in order. Disappointing. But even the cold ramen tasted good, hence the 3 star and restaurant has a very nice ambiance, hence the 4...