Kyoto Japanese Restaurant — Restaurant in Santa Barbara

I went to this Japanese restaurant last week and had a rather unpleasant experience. I originally wanted to order sea urchin, and the waitress told me she needed to check in the kitchen to see if there was any available. After a while, she came back and said there was plenty, so I ordered one portion (which includes two pieces). However, she gave me a very surprised and almost shocked look and asked, “Only one?”

At that moment, I felt her reaction was unnecessary because we had already ordered other food—we had ordered a rice dish and several other sushi items—so we only wanted two pieces of sea urchin. I responded, “Yes, you don’t need to have this kind of attitude.” She then seemed to be very displeased and said that she wasn’t giving me any attitude and that I was the one who wasn’t being clear. This made me feel as if she was unhappy that I didn’t order more, which was quite uncomfortable as a customer. This is not the kind of attitude I expect from restaurant staff.

On top of that, the food was not great. The salmon and tuna had no flavor, and the curry fried chicken cutlet was so dry that it was difficult to eat. Honestly, it was very disappointing. If you’re looking for good Japanese food, I strongly recommend going somewhere else. This place is a 0/10—definitely not...

This is about the service, not about the food. It is New Year Eve, we ordered food from Doordash around 6pm, and it said the order would be complete around 6:30pm. We went to the restaurant, dozens of people were waiting at the front door in the cold evening. We asked, and the restaurant said our order is not ready. So we joined other people waiting outside, and there were more and more people joining the waiting. During the waiting, the restaurant occasionally brought out some bags and checked names, but with a very low frequency, maybe 1 bag per 10 minutes. After waiting for one hour, we couldn’t stand it anymore and went into the restaurant, going through a crowd of people. It turned out our food bag has been sitting there for a long time (according to another customer next to it). However, for the whole time, we were not being called. Just waiting in cold, the restaurant didn’t care if the customers got their food. I tried to ask for an explain from the restaurant, but there wasn’t even an eye contact from them. WORST experience. Sadly this is the New Year Eve. We respect the efforts made by the chefs, but the service is not...

The food itself was very tasty but the wait time was horrible. I will say though we came in on a busy night for dinner. We were a party of two and ordered drinks, and the waitress came back for food order and we responded with "we need a few more minutes". 30 minutes pass and nobody ever takes our order. We finally flag them down and they apologize for the wait once we told them. Another 30 passes and we only got 1 out of 4 of our items. One roll, and I flag down another waiter and ask the status of our food. He comes back and hands us another roll and that the baked rolls will take a little longer. We said it was fine. Another 30 minutes passes and I have yet to receive my order so I have to ask the waiter again if he could check on them. He comes back with the rolls a few moments later and tells me "Oh they just came out of the oven luckily." I eat one and it wasn't even hot. My thoughts were they forget. Two hours and a half after we enter the restaurant originally we still have to flag down someone to get a check. I felt bad it was busy but we spent way...