Sakekawa — Restaurant in The Woodlands

Tonight my mother and I decided to eat here. The service may have been the worst I have ever received. To start our server rushed the table in ordering the food. We ordered 2 sushi rolls, 1 shrimp plate and 1 combo steak and scallop. When the hibachi chef came out he did not entertain our table with knife tricks or anything other than rice tossing into our mouths. He starts cooking and begins serving our food, he plates rice on everyone’s plate but my mother’s then ask me to split mine with her as he didn’t put any on her plate. Next he cooks the steaks ( we request medium rare). The steaks were cooked to medium / medium well and he then proceeds to ask if we would just accept the medium . I request for a piece to be prepared medium rare as ordered. Keep in mind our sushi still had not come out and at this point my water glass was empty. I am not one to drink fast either. But anyway so now he cooks our seafood ( it was good no complaint that’s why I am giving 2 stars). Now veggies. He prepares the veggies and splits them among the table, the 1st couple for theirs then my mom and I got ours. Together we counted there was 4 pieces of veggie (1 broccoli , 2 zucchini, 1 mushroom) between the two of us and a few onions. Now remember we hadn’t had our sushi and my water ran out earlier. The hibachi chef finished just as we got our sushi appetizer and my water did NOT get refilled. We ate our food hoping we get refills or some type of service. Nope. Everyone at the table finished and the server never came back. We waited on our checks for a good 5-10 mins after finishing eating and the entire time the dirty plates from sushi, hibachi and empty glasses linger. He finally came and dropped the checks and stood literally rushing us to pay. We paid. We tipped 10% opposed to the typical 20% we would tip based on the service we received and not believing in not tipping at all. Now here is the icing on the bad service as we walked out I politely attempted to inform the front desk staff of our poor service and was told “ well sorry have a good night anyway”. No Who was your server, where did you sit, what happened... none of that. No concern at all.

All of this in mind one more side note when the sushi did come out it was not cut very well and not very good taste wise.

We have no intention of coming back regardless of how much we love hibachi. With small serving sizes, bad cooking, horrible chef engagement, no refills, and lack of concern when attempting to share our experience.

Hopefully someone in management will see this and stress the importance of quality...

It was my first visit and on my Want to Try list so I was excited to share a late sushi lunch with my mom. It was definitely good but IMO it wasn't a standout. Wah-wah -wah! Good not great for an almost $100 lunch for 2 probably does not equate to a repeat customer. The entire experience was a bit odd due to super awkward waiter interactions, BAD timing of food delivery and underseasoning of EVERY item we ordered (without exception). There was only one other table of 2 in the entire place so I can't explain the delays/timing. Here we go! We both ordered sake and I asked for mine to be a "purple" sake. I was served my sake (without a cup) plus a lowball glass of Chambord that I had to pour into the sake myself. Apparently, that's how they do it here but they should reconsider such approach as most of the time the Chambord wound up all over the table as it doesn't pour very well out of a drinking glass. Despite the fact that there was visibly ALOT of sticky chambord on the table, our server never offered to wipe it off even though several times when he approached the table I was dipping my napkin into a water glass to poorly clean up/smear it everywhere. On with the food! We ordered edamame (underseasoned with no evidence ANY kosher salt or seasonings), yellowtail collar (which takes a while to cook) was a beautiful, large portion but was disappointingly dry, a veggie roll that was okay, a couple pcs of maguro (with no wasabi so they were also underwhelming), a tuna roll with avacado and cucumber also devoid of any wasabi, had very little rice and was too loosely rolled. Are we seeing a trend here?!!!! Our specialty roll (can't remember the name) had soft shell crab topped with eel, roe and I believe drizzles of both mayo and eel sauces but was delivered VERY tardy into the meal. It should have tasted amazing based on the description on the menu but it was also underseasoned which made it a bit dry. As such, I ordered some extra eel sauce. It was a good roll but nothing really popped on the palate. The entire meal could have been spectacular; it wasn't. Suffice it to say that when they completely forgot our lobster roll, I was already over IT completely. I don't know about other diners but I love my sushi restaurants to provide a hot wet cloth for my fingertips. Yes? Anyhow, upon review of my tab, I was a bit dismayed to find they had charged me almost a buck for the extra eel sauce (whaaatttt?!). True story. Based solely on other diners' high reviews, I MAY go back and not slide Sakekawa into my One And Done list. Perhaps it was just an entire table gone...

I am writing this review to alert the owners of the incredibly poor customer service that my family experienced at the Research Forest location. If the owner reviews this and would like to contact me to discuss this service, then I’m happy to remove this review. I don’t want to hurt the business if it’s responsive to this complaint.

We live close to the Research Forest location and have gone to the restaurant for sushi and hibachi multiple times. We stopped going due to poor customer service but decided to try again (after waiting about 6 months) in the hopes that management might have changed. We recently went two times - once a few weeks ago and once last night. The experience a couple weeks ago was good, and the waitress that served us was attentive and polite. But yesterday when we went the person at the hostess stand (which I believe was the manager - a female that I have seen there before) was very rude. We came at 930 pm because the restaurant advertises that it is open until 10 pm. In fact, it has a reverse happy hour that specifically advertises food and drink availability at that hour. We chose to go because we wanted something that would be open at that hour. We brought our family - our daughter and two grandmothers who are here to celebrate Christmas. When we were asked for a table, the hostess (manager) told us in an impolite manner that if we were seated we had 30 minutes because the restaurant closed at 10. I asked if that meant that she did not want to seat us and did not want us to eat there. She replied curtly that if we ate there we would have 5 minutes to order and indicated it didn’t matter to her whether we ate there or not because she “[doesn’t] get tips.” I was very upset by how rude she was and I told her that she was very rude and as a result of that and being told we would have only 5 minutes to order that we would not be eating there. My family then left. We had dinner instead at another restaurant where the service was good and they were happy to seat us.

My family owns restaurants (different food and not a competitor) and we understand staff needs to go home both for their personal life and due to payroll but there are better ways to talk to customers and explain it. What we encountered from this individual (which, again, I believe was a manager - which makes it worse) was completely...