Yataimura Maru — Restaurant in Portland

WAS A TERRIBLE EATING EXPERIENCE!!!!! FOOD IS BAD,L!!!!! IT USED TO BE GOOD A FEW YEARS AGO SADLY SUB PAR NOW!!! I HAVE COME A BUNCH OVER THE YEARS BUT I WILL NEVER GO BACK!

I'D EAT ANYWHERE ELSE LOTS OF GREAT OPTIONS!!!!

Got our food, HAD A FEW BITS AND HAD TO STOP! WAS THAT BAD! took 15 mins for someone to check back in after getting the food. I got the curry and it was so salty and very over sauced! After flagging a waiter (very sweet waitress) I told her I realy didn't like it that it was way too salty (the curry) and had a copious amount of salty and tangy sauce on the chicken. she was new so she had to ask her co worker, and then came back and said she couldn't refund me I asked if I could trade for something I could eat (BECAUSE I TRIED AND FAILED TO EAT IT) but she came back and said no I can't and I can't be refunded. (Because the kitchen claimed it was my taste not the food quality, though my partner tried it and agreed wholeheartedly that it was very strong and salty in all the wrong ways) I work as a waitress and the way we were ignored and treated was terrible!!! The sweet trainee waitress was kind but learning from ppl WHO CLEARLY DON'T CARE about the customer. Cury was AWFUL and no manager or anything came and at least checked in, the other waiter brought the check and wouldn't make eye contact! SO I sent the food back and just sat as my partner finished his food. He said his ramen was way less quality then he's had before. His egg in his ramen was over cooked (hard boiled not soft) and honestly, the sushi was decent the rest was expensive and sub par.

IT TAKES SO MUCH FOR ME TO SEND FOOD BACK, PLEASE DON'T GO HERE, YOU WILL REGRET IT. AND 8F YOUR FOODS BAD YOU WONT GET A REFUND OR NEW FOOD UNLESS YOU MAKE A HUGE FUSS...

I'm disappointed. My go-to, the chicken kara age, was visibly different tonight, gooey/gummy and inedible (this is fried chicken we're talking about). I had to immediately spit it into my napkin. My friend, another long-time fan of the kara age, also found it inedible. When I mentioned this to the waiter, he became grim and said he'd talk to the cook. He returned and told us the cook said he hadn't done anything differently (I believe him, but I think the chicken was badly freezer burned). This was all the waiter said, just leaving his words to hang there uncomfortably, implying that we would be charged for it anyway, which we were, even though it was uneaten. It was at the end of the meal and so it made for an awkward ending to an otherwise nice experience.

(They also got the sushi roll wrong, though it was good).

I'd give the food a 4.5 except the kara age tonight was a zero--add to that the unpleasantness of not being believed and having to pay for it, and my rating comes way down.

Everything else was good, but this was absolutely not how to handle things as a server or as a restaurant. After browsing the reviews, I see that someone else had the same experience (poor quality food, no refund), so I fear this is not just a fluke, but the new normal for this place.

UPDATE: I actually called them to offer feedback, because I earnestly want the place to do well and I found the experience so unusual. It turns out the cook is also the owner. Now I know why the waiter was so grim; he knew the cook/owner would respond as he did because he probably does that every time. Other reviews suggest this...

I'll start off with the bad and move on to the good. There were a few issues with our meals. The rice in our main dish was old (fluffy in that way that lets you know that it's been sitting in the rice cooker on warm for too long) and the rice in the sushi roll was kinda falling apart (not prepared or rolled properly is my guess), also the salmon on the outer edge of my sushi roll was almost room temperature, which may mean that it may have been sitting out for a while waiting to get picked up. Later in my meal I could hear the staff talking to each other barely audible and off in the distance and I realized that the sushi bar was backed up. All that said, the quality of what we did get was amazing compared to other similar restaurants on Division and it became obvious from what we were served, that this was not their usual level of excellence and that they were probably experiencing a callout from their food prep staff. Their customer service was great and we tipped heavily because of this. My date and I have a combined food service experience of 30 years so we looked for the signs of a good restaurant doing the best they could in less than ideal circumstance; Everything they could do well they did exceptionally well, the quality of the ingredients were good (something done before hand and so there is no excuse for not doing it right), the bathrooms and lobby were spotless and the tables, flatware, and menus were clean and well maintained. Best of all, the serving staff knew the menu and were able to walk both our table and the table next to ours through selecting something that would...