Kokkaku — Restaurant in Seattle

This place isn't what it thinks it is and I don't foresee them keeping their doors open long from what we experienced tonight. I'll start with the drinks which were good but basic but the garnishes were out of control. A orange peel and cherry are fine in an old fashioned, a dried citrus slice is redundant, two is cumbersome. A 2 foot sliced lemon stacked gets in the way, falls over, makes a mess. Trying way too hard on a detail that doesn't matter. All people want is a good cocktail.

So, a tasting menu is to show the range of the chef, and to create a journey for the customer. The $129 special tasting menu starts out with thin sliced wagu over rice cooked with a torch. Next is 4 bites, one is just wagu, the next is wagu on rice. Yes, we just had 3 separate basic presentations of the same thing. Then a wagu tartar which is raw ground beef with herbs and egg yolk. The point of wagu is marbling which gives it it's flavor and texture but when you grind it down it basically becomes a high fat ground beef... it defeats the point. No different than any beef tartar. The next bite was a beef tartar wrapped in seaweed. Next was the pasta course which was ground wagu pasta which was basically a sweeter beef stroganoff. Then 4oz of wagu steak with a dipping sauce. By then I was done with fairly plain presentations of wagu posing as a tasting menu. The desserts were a disaster. The mango pudding was too sweet and I have a sweet tooth. The matcha tea cake was too dry, the cheesecake was OK but too sweet again. My husband had a fish salad that had lots of deep fried squid ink dyed flour sheets on top that were too much to chew and added nothing pleasant to the dish. The pasta course used bay scallops and uni that didn't taste fresh.

The service was approaching walk out bad. They were really friendly but I've worked in the industry for 20 years and there's plenty to comment on. Though common, servers really need to learn to NEVER touch the top half of a glass, that's where the mouth goes and your hands are never as clean as you think they are. They made a cocktail we didn't order but we took because we didn't want them to waste it. My husband and friend ordered the same pasta dish, they carried two to the table but only dropped one and took the other to another table that were very confused to get it. We noticed the error and told them right away but rather than fix it they rush cooked another one which was super under cooked. When we told them they condescendingly explained what al dente means. I tried both my husband's and friend's and my friends was definitely undercooked. They took it back but a couple minutes brought back the dirty fork for my friend to use. Really? Never bring a dirty utensil to a table, I don't care if it was his fork. You really couldn't take 2 seconds to grab him a new fork? That's not gross, it's downright disgusting.

We wanted our bill split and they told us their POS can't do that. I have never seen a POS that can't split tickets, I get if it's busy and a policy that you don't split tickets for tables over 4, but don't lie about it. I outlined item by item how to split it but they still said the POS can't so I had to math it out.

I'm not the type to be upset about an autograt because I almost always tip 20%+, but with everything that really shouldn't happen I really didn't want to tip 20%. Here's the thing, if you're charging more than $40 for the food part of a meal you really really need to step up your game in every aspect. The wagu tasting menu can do with less wagu if you can't make each bite reasonably unique. This experience showed no artistry, no passion, no food service experience. A place charging this much and serving wagu should be booked out for weeks, tonight they only had 3 tables.

I'm not saying don't go for the experience but restaurants survive on repeat business and I don't see this place providing an experience you come back for over and over. That's not a recipe...

I was quite excited to discover this little place near my home, but was sadly disappointed. We ordered two steaks the ceasar salad and potatoes. The server was unable to answer our questions and kept referring to the person behind the bar, who while better informed never bother to come speak with us himself. She then insisted vehemently that the chef was unable to cook our steak to our desired temperature? A steak house chef that cannot cook a med-rare steak. Ok so I changed to a different steak that he could, apparently cook.

The salad was unremarkable in flavor, but poorly manipulated. Most of the leaves were half-cut or cut so large that they had to be re-cut which was rather awkward in the little convex plate it was served on.

Sitting at the bar, you can see into the kitchen, where i watched the chef repeated poke his thermometer into our cooking steaks to check for temp. Yet they were both a bit over done when they came to the table.

The steaks were reportedly to come with roasted tomato and roasted garlic. The tomato was fine, but both garlic orders were raw with just a bit of char on the very top. We each had a full bulb of RAW rock hard garlic on our plates. Don't get me wrong, I love garlic, roasted garlic when it is all soft and buttery ... this was not. I'm not sure what we were to do with this full raw garlics, even peeling them would be problematic at a 'fine dining situation'. The server took them away.

One steak was pretty good - could have used that garlic though. The other steak had a sinew running all the way through the center, it was barely cutable, and only parts were chewable. As a restaurant specializing in steak they should source more meticulously.

Oh ... about the time we were finishing what we could it, and having our last sip of wine ... here came those garlics again. Like desert or something. Still raw mind you, but ... why??? The server proudly brought them back to our table and plopped them down? What were we supposed to do with them then? Still raw, still in the bulb.

So for a couple hundred bucks we got one steak, a salad we had to chop ourselves, and a couple tomatoes. They charged full price. Sadly...

Pros: nice atmosphere, cute little place, layout was intuitive. Salads were crispy, cold, and tasty. Servers were friendly but overwhelmed.

Cons: absolutely criminally understaffed. They weren't busy and were struggling intensely to serve the tables they had. One chef, one bartender, one expo manager/GM. It was honestly sort of ludicrous to watch. Steaks were brought out incredibly rare/bloody when the orders for both were medium rare (this seems to be a prevalent issue. The chef must have something against meat that isn't still screaming when you put it on the plate 😭). Both pasta dishes were lukewarm to cold, because they had obviously been sitting out on the expo for forever. Sent both steaks back to be cooked a little more. One was brought back alright, the other was still bloody and raw in the center. My aunt sent her pasta dish back to be heated up because it was stone-cold on the edges, and they literally just popped it in the microwave right in line of sight (my guys, I also work in a restaurant and know that's what happens 99% of the time, but we don't do it out in the open!!!)

The fingerling potatoes we ordered at the very beginning as an appetizer were the last thing to be brought out because the GM/owner completely forgot about them. We had to remind him about them.

They did seem aware that the experience wasn't great, and the chef made us desserts on the house, which is sweet, but it also doesn't make up for the almost two hours and $300 check (that's for four people dining in, two salads and fries, four entrees).

While I'm sympathetic to restaurants in general, this was kind of heinous just because of the price tag - you expect a certain quality when it comes with a three digit bill. No one was overtly rude or unwelcoming, but it was plain to see that they'd bitten off more than they could chew with regards to service.

I was so excited to come here to eat. I wish I could say I'd be back, but I just can't...