Curry House CoCo Ichibanya - Torrance — Restaurant in Torrance

Bad early lunch experience at Coco Ichibanya Torrance. 4-25-24

After ordering our food, we noticed our daughter’s blood glucose reading was high. She has an auto immune disease called Type 1 diabetes. Simply put, she cannot have too many carbohydrates with her meal when her numbers are high or her blood sugar can spike and it makes her feel sick and can ultimately lead to diabetic keto acidosis.

We decided to place an additional order, for our daughter to eat. We asked our server, named Jada, for an omelet curry with no rice. She told us no, and we could not order that dish with no rice. Her customer service was not very nice. At that point we asked to speak to the manager.

The manager, Sebastian T, came over and we explained our medical dietary restriction and even showed him the Dexcom blood glucose reading of 236 and asked for omelette curry with no rice. He said they have to charge an entire meal even though we did not want the rice. I told him that was fine and that we had no problem paying for that. Sebastian took the order and left.

When Sebastian returned with omelette curry he went out of his way to tell us the management at Coco Ichibanya has very strict ordering rules. He said he was making a one time exception and in the future ordering no rice would not be allowed. He also explained this request that we made is more time consuming for the workers and would not be allowed anymore.

I find his management style to be very unprofessional and discriminating to our daughter’s medical needs. I’d understand if I was asking for add-on accommodations but I asked to take away the rice item, which is actually less food/ prep and removes a step. So I do not understand how removing rice is more time consuming.

If a child is allergic to an ingredient, example corn, will Coco Ichibanya refuse the customers kids meal order because the meal must include corn?

I am terribly disappointed with Sebastians management style and Jada’s lack of customer service.

Most people know it’s not what you say but how you say it. Both Jada and Sebastian delivered hard no with lack of empathy or compassion came off cold and harsh. I’ve worked in the customer service industry and this type of customer service is unacceptable in my book. Maybe Jada is just following her managers management style, so I ultimately place the responsibility on Sebastian to be a more compassionate leader. He needs to learn how to deliver a “No” without being deliberately obtuse. He also needs to learn the difference between a reasonable and unreasonable request. I do not feel we made an unreasonable request.

Correct me if I am wrong,...

I have been here in the past with my family numerous times and the food has been superb. However I am not sure if today was an off-day but today's experience was poor and beyond satisfaction under some supposedly "new team and management". We had arrived at 12:35pm and had confirmed a spot on the waitlist under my name for 3 at the counter. Lo and behold, we are left waiting for 20 minutes when the counter spots we requested for were ready for seating, so it was natural to check up on the status of our calling. It was greatly infuriating to hear that our spot somehow "did not register in the system" when it clearly confirmed it on their tablet software, and so we were placed to the last spot on the waitlist by default. The servers even had made eye contact with us on our way in, so we know they knew we had been waiting for 20 minutes plus before a mob of 10 people showed up. After speaking to the manager, there is clearly a sign of incompetency with the manager we spoke with today as they told our party that we would have to wait for our counter seats provided the other guests did not request for them as well, so they would ask each party for their preference. This seemed fair but it was once again a disappointing experience as NONE of the servers nor the manager asked each waiting party for their seating preference, and we soon realized they would only ask based on the speed of the queue. The service was horrendous and we are disheartened to see such a good restaurant that we have always been to suddenly change and have no discretion or care towards any of their customers.

Postscript: In addition I would like to provide some critique and helpful feedback so a case like this does not occur again. It would be advantageous to monitor and update your queue system regularly to resolve any potential bugs in the software. A second note would be to train each server or staff member to be observant of parties waiting at the door, especially when spots they have requested for have clearly been open for seating. Finally, if you are going to suggest a solution by verifying each party, please do it immediately as the sense of urgency was utterly disregarded and hence led to our exiting of the establishment. This should be a fundamental golden rule of customer service...

First time for us to eat here! This is Japanese Curry restaurant! Yay!!!! I love Japanese curry flavors which is very different from the Indian curry. Japanese curry is sweeter. There was a 20 minute wait but it was worth it! We checked in on YELP and it was convenient to keep track of when our table would be ready. While waiting, we looked through the menu and soon learned there were so many options and making a decision was difficult. I ordered the vegetable curry and added eggplant and spinach( additional veggies are a few cents more ) . You can add more rice or less than the standard and the price is a few cents more or less. You can spice up your curry from level 1 which is the standard level or go up to level 24! My husband ordered the chicken curry, level 6 and it was perfectly spiced,however, next time he will ask for a Level 12! We added 2 garlic naan. I had the Japanese Ice tea, which was a barley ice tea, not a green ice tea. I love the nutty bitter taste of barley tea and you get free refills!

Many folks were ordering TAKE OUT meals too. There are several southern Californa locations.

Covid Safe. The table was cleaned and sanitized. The utensils arrived in a neat basket.

Parking available right outside or anywhere in the large strip mall. There is a Baskin...