Happy Bento — Restaurant in Washington

TLDR version: bad service, poor cleanliness, sub par miso and inedible shrimp.

I went into happy bento hearing great things, so hoped for a great date night. Unfortunately my experience was not a charming one. It is a cute restraint, but our table was sticky, as was the floor under our table. The miso soup had no tofu or wakame. While the stock had a good flavor- it would more accurately be called miso broth. Looking at my wife's egg flower soup (which was visually appealing and per her description - delicious) it was a further disappointment. Service was, to put it politely - minimal. Which can be good at times, but when you ask for a soda and the waitress sighs and asks if we won't be fine with just water,it's not a great impression. The server never asked how the mask was after putting the plates on the table. When she brought the check, it was a quick "when you're ready to leave" and immediately without pausing turned and left.

On the meal front- portions were solid. My wife's chicken teriyaki was delicious. My beef was acceptable, and the teriyaki sauce is excellent- though the beef was under seasoned a bit, and overcooked. My big issues were the shrimp- it was unfit for human consumption. It tasted and smelled horrific. I am guessing it was not kept at temperature prior to cooking, because it has that smell and taste. When I brought up that the shrimp was not edible at the register, I got a literal " it's shrimp, it happens" from the young guy at the register. No apology, no taking it off the check, or adjusting anything. He didn't say another word.

I cannot recommend happy bento on any...

This was the first time (and now our only time) we ordered something from this restaurant.

My husband had went online to check the reviews for the restaurants and he said they had some good reviews, so he placed a phone order and I went to pick up our dinner.

The young girl working the register that was taking orders at first was nice and friendly but quickly turned very rude.

I had added on a Bubble Tea and she asked if I wanted tapioca or gummies. I told her no to the gummies but she must have thought I said no to all of it. I got my drink with no tapioca, a simple miscommunication so I asked her if they could put the tapioca in. She stopped smiling, scowled and snapped, "I asked you if you wanted that and you said no!" But she took the drink to the back and had someone put the tapioca balls in. She processed to snottily tell me that that would be 50 cents at that point I put my card on the counter to pay the 50 cents because I didn't have any coins on hand and a very nice lady standing at the other side of the counter said, "Really, thats all you need is 50 cents", and she told the girl she would take care of it. I thanked the person that took care of the 50 cents and told her that was very kind of her.

That was the only thing that was good at this restaurant. After we had returned home with our food and already started eating we noticed all the chicken meals were severely undercooked, still bloody and pink, and all the rice tasted heavily of shrimp.

I do not recommend this restaurant for the food or the customer service. However, the customers...

Food is delicious! Gluten free options are very limited. I asked if they had any gluten free options for the sushi- as in, using gluten free soy sauce. Waitress showed me only egg drop soup, and fried rice as options (which is odd considering theres gf soy sauce in the fried rice). I googled it myself and selected the spicy Cali roll. My daughter got the caterpillar roll, son had fried rice. We all enjoyed the egg flower soup- my favorite. Egg flower soup from here beats any place I've been to. Waitress hardly spoke, just delivered water, walked off, came back and asked what we are ordering. She took off without another word, brought over food. And as we were eating, dropped off the bill. Didnt ask if we needed anything else or wanted something other than water. I would've ordered tea and another sushi roll. There were a few empty tables, so it wasn't busy. She walked by, ignoring us several times. I waved her over, asked for a dish to go, which she repeated back. As I was still ordering, she grabbed the bill and took off. I had to call her back so my daughter could order to-go as well. Food was dropped off with the new bill. A different woman delivered the to go order and said "thank you!", smiled. And that was that.

We had a similar first time experience with the service but not as poorly as this last time. The service sucks, but food is tops, so I'm torn on...