Tamari Bar — Restaurant in Seattle

TL;DR Horrible service, not upholding reservation time, forgetting food, poor quality of food, forgetting they told us we would be discounted for their mistakes. Read on for details:

Extremely dissapointed in the place as it used to be one of my favorite spots. I had horrible service and the food wasn't very good either.

Girlfriend and I came here for my birthday a year ago and it was amazing so we came back again this year, and we will likely not be visiting again.

We made a reservation for 7:00 and it took until 7:30 to even be seated, since they gave our spot accidentally to someone who came in after us. Once we were seated, we waited 15 minutes for water! I think they are short-staffed so I'm sure the servers were just as unhappy as we were, but that is no excuse for ignoring us and over-booking... that's the whole point of making reservations. We were told our whole check would be discounted for their mistake(they ended up forgetting this).

The chirashi bowl was basically all the scrap cuts of fish, and not at all what I would consider a $28 chirashi bowl to be. It was also just filled to the brim with raw cut carrots? This is all after being told by the waiter multiple times that my bowl is "just now being made" as I would then wait another 20 mins to get it. It's like they waited to use all the scraps from the fish they sold other people to make my food.

I really don't like leaving bad reviews, but I really just don't want someone to experience what we had to. To top it all off, our server never told us their name, then asked us if we wanted to just give her our card or see our itemized bill. We asked for the bill and saw that the discount they told us was not applied, and she responded with "they were going to give you dessert" which was not what we were told or even offered when they literally tossed the menu on our table and ran off. The problem was that instead of telling us how it was, they made an excuse or unreasonable expectation every chance they had.

Again, I think they were short-staffed so maybe it was a bad night. However, with how many people we overheard saying the same things, I think we will just be avoiding this restaurant from now on until they can get their front of house and...

Low quality food. I'm not sure if the quality and care of the food went down because of covid, but a lot of the food didn't taste good. I had several things: salmon sashimi, the house poutine, the pork belly bao, a cilantro udon, and a waygu + uni box.

I'll start with the good things first. The salmon was good though a bit thinly sliced, and had fresh wasabi; the pork belly bao had good flavor.

Now for my issues. The poutine was disappointing because it had a laughable amount of cheese on it. Also, parm is not a good cheese to use for a poutine, but I think it's an interesting take on the dish so I'll give them credit for that. The cilantro udon was way too oily and lacked depth of flavor: it could've used some salt (or at least put give us some salt packets). It also would've been better as a cold dish, because some of the the fragrances & flavor from the cilantro and greens are lost, and it would have also provided a better mouth-feel, compared to the feeling of drinking warm oil. ew. And finally the worst for last: the wagyu and uni box. It had 3 components, and all 3 were bad. I went in for a dine-in dinner, but the beef was cold when it came to us. You know how if you cook a steak and there's leftovers that ends up cold? That's what it reminded me of. Though the quality of the meat itself was good (it was still very tender), the temperature and quality of care ruined the waygu. It could have been forgiven if the sushi rice was good, but no that was terrible as well. It was cold and dried out, like it was sitting in a fridge for the entire day (perhaps it was...) Finnaly, the uni was actually disgusting, and tasted rancid. Normally it's sweet and has a mellow briny flavor, but this had a sour after-taste like it had gone bad. I couldn't even finish the dish.

Overall, I cannot recommend this place (at least right now), get something else nearby that's cheaper and...

My favorite Japanese place in Seattle. I prefer it over their sister restaurant Suika actually! Amazing sashimi. Every single thing I’ve ever had has been amazing. Be aware, although reasonably priced individually, these dishes add up so quickly! It’s so fun to just order a ton of little things to share. The waygu uni sashimi is the “best bite” ever, don’t skip it.

Edit 2022* still a cap hill favorite. Such a fun and celebratory place. Their patio addition is awesome, it’s fully tented and heated and very cute. Tamari bar is always busy, they rarely have walk ins available on a weekend other than MAYBE a seat or two at the bar. I’d recommend reservations. They always have a fun rotating menu that’s confusing and wonderful, start with drinks and apps and you’ll figure it out.

My favorite way to order is to start with a best bite and a toki highball and then figure out what special you want. The Karage is always so lovely so that’s a good one. Then I like to do some sort of sushi for myself, if they have a special I’ll do that, and then if you’re with a group sharing the 5 kinds sushi tower is so fun. I like to get a maze men to share, it’s a thick udon dish that reminds me of Italian Amatriciana, I think it’s so funny and smart. It’s spicy and crunchy and garlicky ground pork with shredded hot pepper strips and PARMESAN! So funny, so delicious. Nice and spicy. If you have a group you can get another main or 2 to share, maybe a couple bao, and then a couple matcha crème brûlées and a nightcap. When I was there last they startled doing this thing where they’ll add smoke to any drink you want! So cool, the guy down the bar from us was doing a mezcal old fashioned and that sounded amazing so we did too. The mezcal with the woodsmoke was amazing. Perfect winter end of...