Tokyo House — Restaurant in Westminster

Update - 8/1/2024

This is in response to the restaurant's response to my review...

I never said the staff DELIBERATELY ignored us. We left because the service was slow and we were hungry. I'm not sure what they expect people to do. Sit around and starve? Good service means serving your customers in a REASONABLE amount of time. 20 minutes with no one even offering us water is unacceptable. We gave them two chances and they claim that the service we received was not typical (yet it was slow both times.). They also admit they have staffing problems on the weekend. Ok, I'll give them one more chance. If I come during the week the service should be much better by their logic.

Stay tuned...

--—------------------------

My roommate and I have been here twice. To be clear, the food is pretty good but the service leaves something to be desired. Our first time there, the service was so very slow. But we decided to give them the benefit of the doubt. Maybe they were having a bad night. We decided to come back and give them a second try since the food was on point.

Fast forward to our second visit. We walked in and were seated. We were given menus to peruse but no one came by to give us water or take our drink order. We spent about 10 to 15 minutes deciding on what we wanted. We put our menus down and still no one came. We gave it a few minutes and then we got up and left. We walked past the hostess (who seated us earlier) and she didn't even bat an eye. No apology. No trying to get us to stay. Not a word.

I don't know what's wrong with this restaurant but they frequently don't have enough help. I want them to know that they are losing business because of their inability to have enough staff. It turns out this was not an isolated incident.

I like to give places more than one chance to prove themselves. Tokyo House fell...

One of the worst Japanese foods I’ve ever had. The atmosphere was generic with Chinese language music playing, which probably won’t bother the average American crowd but if they claim to serve Japanese food, then at least I wish they played some Japanese music.

We ordered an array of basic Japanese staple items including their specialty which is sushi and ramen. Gyoza appetizer was probably the least terrible item we ordered but it was average at best. Chicken karaage, which is also a very simple but a very popular Japanese dish was one of the worst I’ve ever tasted. The meat was way too small, tough and dry from over cooking. They used white meat instead of the thigh meat. Just completely wrong. Sushi, btw they only serve rolls, was absolutely uninspiring. I judge sushi first by their rice and how it’s seasoned. If they can’t get that right, then the rest doesn’t even matter. And their Tonkotsu ramen was not only very watery and bland, they didn’t even bother to use the right kind of noodles (straight).

As a Japanese born person, I honestly didn’t have any high hopes with a restaurant named Tokyo House to begin with, but the food was even more disappointing. They say that 80 percent of Japanese restaurants in America are non-Japanese owned and this one was no different. Add this one to the list of another fake Japanese restaurant in the American suburbs.

I’m sorry but I...

Beautifully decorated in a small mall off the main artery with a nice view of the surrounding area. Staff was polite and gracious and the atmosphere quaint. We may have ordered the wrong items as the Chicken Karaage bento dinner box was not as we expected. The chicken tasted like a frozen “orange chicken out of a bag” rather than pieces which should be crispy and tasty on the outside with a moist center as we were used to. I ordered the Phoenix sushi roll which was okay. The rice was a bit too condensed and wet which made it slightly too mushy and the tempura batter was thick as if it was from a fast food deep fried drive thru.” It was not fried in traditional Japanese flaky batter, We did not try the ramen or the bins which did look delicious. The staff was very nice and included me for a “on the house” miso soup and salad with ginger dressing, as my food order was not part of a meal. We are from Hawai’i so maybe we are accustomed to a different style of Japanese dining. If we were staying longer maybe we would have tried the ramen or buns to give them another try but we are leaving in a. Few days. I feel sort of bad to give this review bc the staff was really nice. Maybe the food was adjusted to westernize it for their main clientele but if you’re expecting traditional Japanese food don’t order the chicken karaage or sushi...