Kobe Japanese House of Steak, NC — Restaurant in Smithfield

I was in for dinner last weekend, having never tried this place before but always been curious, and I can’t begin to describe my disappointment. I was seated away from the hibachi area, which is fine and what I wanted, but the seating available in this other area was uncomfortably close to other patrons on the shared half booth and where I was sitting, with one party to my right, one to the left, and one in front of me, it was extremely hard to hear anything or enjoy and ambience. I expected the non-hibachi areas to be quieter but more the fool is me I suppose. Anyway, I ignored this and moved on, waiting for my server to come by.

It took a while but I understand because they were busy and I don’t fault them for that. What I do fault them for is the total lack of care or, more importantly, knowledge, that this particular server had. I have dietary restrictions and I spoke with my waitress about this. I asked her what came in the very basic seeming dish I wanted, the Kobe Vegetables entree. She just flat out said she didn’t know but she “thought” it was just zucchini and onions. She made no effort to check for me or make sure, just doubled down and said that’s what it was. I said okay, because it seemed fine, nothing I can’t eat, and even though it’s not a huge variety, these entrees come with a soup and salad so that’ll help.

My final order I gave her: a milk tea, the Kobe Vegetables (which from her understanding was rice, zucchini, and onions), the two starters which were some soup and a salad, and lastly an Inari roll because they’re my favorite anywhere I go and I figured I’d give them a chance here too. Worth nothing that the menu also says something about a shrimp appetizer that comes with these entrees, to which my waiter replied “no, no I don’t think so” despite it being written there. Anyway. I wait. And I wait. 10, 15 minutes go by. Nothing. No drink, no soup, no salad.

I only end up getting my soup because the server comes out with two soups and salads for another party next to me, but then the girl there said she didn’t really want hers, so the server turns and asks me if I was supposed to get soup. I said yes, she shrugs and just drops this woman’s soup on my table instead then. Okay… love secondhand soup. Well, another 10 or 15 later and no sign of anything else. A very sweet lady from the kitchen came out to deliver a sushi roll to another party but she noticed I didn’t have a drink yet. She asked if I had ordered one and I said I had, a milk tea, and she, a knowledgeable employee, immediately tells me they’re out of milk tea. I guess my own server, who had been back to this area no less than 6 times in the last 30 minutes, never deigned to tell me that. This lady from the kitchen then, whose job this is not, went out of her way to bring me some green tea, which was very kind of her.

A bit after that, no salad ever in sight, my entree comes out. And it was not at all what my server told me it was. A super small amount of rice, then a big plate full of things that are only maybe 20% zucchini and onion, full of other things I can’t really eat instead. Plus, the rice itself was laced with egg, which she did not mention despite the dietary restrictions I had shared with my server, so I had to pick around all of those tiny pieces too. The vegetables were light on any degree of hibachi sauce or seasoning, and what I could eat of them was very lackluster for a $20 dish.

About halfway through, my Inari roll came out, and that roll is the only reason this is a two star review instead of a one star. It was delicious and largely well made, even if some of the rice was falling apart a bit.

By the end of the meal, still no salad. Soup was okay but a bit one note. Half of an entree I couldn’t eat because my server was careless and uneducated on their own menu. Tea I didn’t really want because she also never once decided to tell me they were out of milk tea even after I had my green tea. And the only saving grace being 6 pieces of tofu wrapped in rice. I will never be back here. I advise you...

2 stars for the awesome work the sushi men do. My significant other and I have given this place multiple chances and spend a lot of money here. We always sit in the bar or cocktail area and tend to have the same server, we come here when we want a nice date night and are planning to spend $100 plus. We both have worked in the service industry so we always tip well (25%+) despite the customer service being very subpar. The sushi is good but pretty expensive seeing as most places do bogo these days and Kobe doesn’t. The crab Rangoon’s are mostly cream cheese and we are lucky to get a few tiny shreds of imitation crab in each one. Once we went here celebrating a promotion and staff were openly talking to us about issues they were having with the manager, which is very unprofessional. We called takeout in a few times since service is always subpar, and the order always takes over an hour despite being told it will be about 30-45 minutes. We took a break and have been making the commute to Clayton for Sushi Iwa where we always have a great experience; but tried to give Kobe yet another chance by ordering takeout another time so we didn’t have to deal with the bad service. I specifically ordered the sushi and sashimi for two and instead they gave us and charged me for the sushi for two (10$ less) and the manager said she could charge me for 2 sides of sashimi which cost the extra 10$ but does not equate to the 15 pieces of nigiri you get for the sushi and sashimi for two. We were upset and didn’t come back for several months. We decided to give this place one final chance because I had been gifted four $25 gift cards. The service was subpar per usual, crab rangoons mostly crabless and just fried cream cheese, the sushi and sashimi for two was pretty good per usual (just pricey). I wanted to try a dessert but didn’t get a chance to tell the server who barely checked in although it wasn’t very busy before she laid the check on the table. She later took the gift cards and dropped the receipts off before I could get a word in. We waited another 5 minutes before I flagged her down and asked which card had a remaining $12 balance so we could tip appropriately and in cash for her. She assured me it was a certain card and even “went and checked it” for me. We left $20 in cash on our $88 tab and took the card i was assured had $12 left on it. After trying to use it twice and getting it declined I called to check the balance which was ZERO dollars. I will never spend another dollar at this establishment again because of my poor experiences with the server who is not attentive, unprofessional, and now has intentionally lied or neglected to truly “check which card had money left.” As a former server/bar tender, I hate leaving a bad review but multiple terrible experiences leave me no choice- along with the more expensive menu, poor service, and manager who the staff talks badly about openly and also did not care to help us with the messed up take out order- we are done. The hibachi service may be a better experience but we have had 4-5 very bad...

Service and food was not good. To start, our waiter seemed to be new because there was another waiter assisting him while taking orders. I understand that some things need to be taught to new employees but he did not understand basic customer service and safe food handling! When taking our orders he gave up half way through and had the assisting waiter take it instead because he “couldn’t hear anything” when he could’ve just asked us to speak up. He sounded annoyed and acted as if it was our fault he that couldn’t hear us when the other waiter could hear us perfectly fine.

When our soups were brought out, he had his finger inside the bowl touching the soup, for ALL THREE soups at our table. He could’ve easily carried the bowl on the outside rather than pinching the rim with his finger inside the soup. This is not something that can be played off as him being new. It’s COMMON SENSE to not stick your fingers in peoples food. He also spilled part of one of our soups and did not clean it or apologize. It is common sense to not stick your finger in someone’s food.

Later on, our sushi was brought out and they brought out two rolls that we didn’t order on the same plate as the rolls we did order so we had to send it back. So this means the waiter took our order wrong and added two additional rolls to our check. Also, a lot of the rolls were nothing like described. We ordered two spicy rolls and they had nothing spicy about them. We also had a spicy salmon roll which has always been made with raw salmon in every other restaurant but ended up being cooked salmon here when it did not state that on the menu. We also got a shrimp tempura roll which usually comes with cucumber at EVERY OTHER restaurant I’ve ever had it at. At this one it’s was JUST the shrimp and nothing else inside.

On top of all of that our waiter had messed up our hibachi orders and wrote down only zucchini for everyone when some of us also wanted onion.

Our hibachi chef also did not make the experience the most entertaining which is not the worst thing ever but still it should be stated. He did a couple tricks with his cooking spatulas but dropped them multiple times and brought out a chicken toy but other than that he didn’t try to crack any jokes or anything like that. There wasn’t even the typical onion volcano or anything.

Last but not least, the atmosphere of the restaurant definitely shifted after we addressed the soups, the wrong sushi, and the wrong vegetables. The waiters there all seemed annoyed and acted almost as if we were being annoying and an inconvenience when we simply were just a trying to get the food we ACTUALLY ordered without it being wrong or touched. I wished we had looked at the reviews...