Minato Sushi — Restaurant in Thousand Oaks

Horrible service, but pretty good sushi.

Got there just as they sat their final table, So I gave my name to the host, and she told me it would be about 45 minutes. Alright, so we wait. More people start showing up, and now their is a crowd outside. After about an hour, I see them clearing up a table for a larger party (our party had 8 people). They sit another group (of 8 people) at it. Five minutes later they seat a group of 9 at another table. I walk in and ask what it going on. The host says, "it's not my fault" and that other people sat those groups and didn't consult the list. Well, what's the point of taking names?

Now it has been an hour and a half, and they decide to take some initiative on our part. However, two members of our party have to leave in 40 minutes, so we ask, is it alright if they place their order now, and will it be ready before they have to leave? They say yes and they place their order immediately. We sit, and 30 minutes go by, the only thing we have received so far is water. The two members of our party inform them that they have to leave and what is the status of their order. They hadn't started it yet. So they cancel their order and leave.

Before food comes to the table, the cashier brings us the bill and says, "I hope you enjoyed dining with us.". The bill contained only some of our order and the entirety of the "cancelled" order. We tell her that we didn't get any food yet, to reevaluate our orders, and to consult the two sheets we used to order to figure out the proper bill.

We start to get orders of sushi and rolls and after about thirty more minutes (that's over 2.5 hours now) the waitress comes and asks if we wanted to order anything else... We still did not get our full order, in fact we didn't even receive half our order. We made a list of the things we did receive, told her to bill is only for that, paid, left a 10 percent tip with a note to only be given to the chefs and put this horrible dining...

Very poor service. My wife and I visited Minato for the first time this evening. We were ignored by the "host" for the first 5 minutes as we stood at the front of the waiting area where the host was managing his duties. When we asked for an approximate wait time to be seated he shoved his clipboard at us without a word or even visual acknowledgement. Despite this, we decided we should try the place out anyway in hopes that the host's demeanor was not indicative of the rest of the staff's. Our "waiter" practically threw the menus at us without a word and without even looking at us. When he returned he simply said "drinks"?. Our food was served within a reasonable time frame, though again without a word or eye contact, just some random employee dropping of a roll at our table without even slowing down his/her walking speed. The salmon was fairly tasty (sushi), philidelphia roll was a small roll but above average quality, the eel was subpar, the spicy tuna lacking flavor, and the gyoza was devoid of notable flavor while its dipping sauce tasted like someone had dropped a bottle of ginger in some soy sauce and added some chives. We won't be returning to this...

Sushi here was decent. I came with a party of three, and we had several cut rolls that were excellent, and a few that were disapointing. I always order a Rainbow roll every time I go out to sushi, because I find it to be an excellent gauge of the commitment to quality--if a sushi restaurant can make that simple, standard roll with excellence, it tends to correlate with overall excellence. In this case, the Rainbow roll was really subpar, unfortunately. Dry, fairly tasteless, not great quality fish. However, the No Name cut roll was excellent. Of the six rolls ordered, that was by far my favorite. I also enjoyed the SA cut roll. I didn't love the Minato House roll. I've had better, and I've had worse. I wouldn't come here again, but I didn't dislike my time...