Ikebana Japanese Restaurant — Restaurant in Salinas

I hesitated coming here because I had heard of negative things, but I decided to give them the benefit of the doubt. We were seated fairly quickly and our server was so kind and helpful. The atmosphere itself was relaxed, I appreciate the holiday music as well. Now, the table tops felt sticky and dirty as well as the menus. As for the food, I’m sorry, but I just couldn’t finish it. The miso soup at the beginning was ok. It was warm, not hot like I would assume it should be. I ordered combination tempura for appetizer and it was okay. After, I ordered the Money Maker Roll and As soon as I saw it, I knew it wasn’t going to be great. The raw fish on top looked brown, the rice had a different taste I cannot describe other than maybe it had been rinsed in dirty water. My daughters shared a chicken teriyaki box and their chicken also looked brown and old. I honestly don’t like sending things back because I don’t think there’s much you can do to a plate if this is already how you make it and I’m also scared of getting spit on it or something on it’s way back so I just left it there and waited till it was time to pay. This will be my first and only ever time here. This is my opinion and my experience. I always suggest to experience before you judge although I did kind of beforehand. My instincts were correct in my...

I used to love this place… but today, customer service was HORRIBLE along with the food! Our food took about one hour to come out (our kids were starving and were getting impatient) The restaurant wasn’t busy. We asked the server NICELY to clean our table because it was sticky. She came to SPRAY the table on our face and then came to spray the table next to us which almost sprayed on our food. The food tasted HORRIBLE, not sure if there’s a new chef that doesn’t know how cook. On top of that, the soup only had 1 shrimp, and some pieces of salmon the size of a quarter. We don’t mind paying for our food but this time was a waste of money because we didn’t eat the seafood ramen soups… We asked the server ANDREA to please bring us some bowls for the kids, she never brought them to our table, so I got up and went to the kitchen’s door to ask for the bowls. The server told me she was getting the bowl for us, but I told her I was going to take them to our table. After all this situation, we requested the host to let us speak to a manager to which she replied there was no manager on sight at the time and the host appeared bothered… So unfortunate we had this experience at this place I had...

We've been coming here for years bur will not do so in the future.

Unfortunately in winter at night with it being 50 degrees out the manager refused to close the door due to them having "no ventilation and it being a health code violation" (which begs to wonder what other health code violations they are running with) in the establishment. Every customer had jackets, hoods, beanies, and gloves on with everyone shivering over their plates trying to stay warm. We were also demanded to order immediately due to "a big order being put in". No Sriracha, no soy sauce plates were available either for custom use.

The rolls were mediocre but we couldn't even enjoy our meal because we were literally shivering and couldn't wait to get out of there. One of the members of our party was do disappointed she left to go home and the manager told is that the next time we patroned the establishment she wouldn't be able to take her udon off the tab, which we've NEVER encountered at any other restaurant ever. The manager also told us not to come back so we definitely won't be.

PLEASE SAVE YOURSELF A HEADACHE AND FROSTBITE AND DO...