Sushi Tango Woodbury — Restaurant in Woodbury

Have you ever loved a place so much then one bad experience ruins your entire view of it? That's how i feel about Sushi Tango after tonight. I was excited to show a close friend of mine an affordable sushi restaurant in Woodbury, that I have had nothing but positive things to say about until today. After ordering our food, we received it in a timely manner for how unusually busy they were. I had ordered chicken stir-fry with rice and baked green muscles. Our waitress had forgotten my rice but I assumed that it was on the way so I took a bite of stir-fry that was cold, I took three more small bites just to ensure that my dish was indeed cold - I was right. For the next 25 minutes I tried to get the attention of our waitress as she had not came back to ask us how our food was, yet she has checked on the table next to us four times within that time frame. When I finally grabbed her attention my friend had finished all of her food and I kindly asked for my meal to be removed as I had not ate any, my rice was missing and our dinner was now over. She went to ask a manager and I was told that they would only take 10% of the meal. I had then asked to talk to the manager as that is ridiculous and she pointed to behind the full bar and said "sure she's right there", as if she expected me to push through the people sitting at the bar to talk to her. After what felt like 10 minutes of waiting I was finally greeted with the manager full of attitude saying, "so you wanted to talk to me?" I then explained to her how much I loved Sushi Tango and actively come here for take out and dine in but I had not touched my food and if our waitress would've been attentive I would have asked for it heated up prior to spending over an hour in the restaurant already. She then raised her voice at me that they were busy, I could just say that I don't like the food(?) then rolled her eyes saying she would take it off the bill. If you made it this far I would recommend the baked green muscles, they are delicious and going at a time that the red haired manager is not working as if there is an issue with the food or service she will try to make...

Took my 13 and 16 year olds here for lunch because they LOVE sushi. Our family enjoy sushi. Woodbury has a very limited selection of quality Asian restaurants. Recently, my go to sushi restaurant (Kyatchi in Saint Paul) closed so we were hoping this place would fill the gap.

Restaurant appearance: ok. Has the dark black and red open floor plan hip vibe. But the table top we were at was quite sticky. Not sure whether it’s because that’s how the tables are or whether it was caked in with stuff over the years.

Service: there appeared to have 3 staff Around the dining area (2 at sushi bar). They were courteous when we did get a hold of them. They just weren’t really receptive to serving customers it appears. Not rude nor Mean. They just were inattentive? Once we got a hold of the server, he took our order fine. Now, it did take a LONG time for the order to arrive. We ordered Tako yaki (this came at a reasonable time (about 10 min). The rest - spider roll, spicy yellowtail roll, eel maki roll, and ikura sushi seem to take an unusually long time. (We looked around and saw maybe one or two other tables with 2 ppl each so it wasn’t because it was crowded. So this was a miss.

Food taste - it was alright. Nothing to write home about. Didn’t feel worried about food poisoning nor were we impressed. Deep fried softshelled tasted slightly old but not spoiled.

Value / price We were not aware that the portions here are 1/2 the size of other Japanese restaurants we dine at even the prices did not reflect this. Kids were still hungry after the three rolls, appetizer, and ikura sushi. sonny had to go searching for a server to order two more rolls.

Overall, we will continue searching for our sushi restaurant after this experience. Sonny would give it a 1-2 stars. He was really put off by the service and value. I’d probably give them a 2.5. Now time to get some more...

Had the dynamite roll, yellowtail roll, and spicy tuna roll. Though the sushi itself was pretty good (tasted fresh with no fishy smell), the rolls looked pretty uniform and we couldn’t tell what was what nor was it pointed out to us by the waitress. In fact, it looked like two rolls because one side was standing up and the other side was laying flat. We had asked the waitress if another roll was still coming out after we had finished our plate. She stated that we received all that we had ordered and that the way the sushi was laid out was what differentiated the rolls from each other. I didn’t want to argue because I did not know what we ate or what we got because it wasn’t made clear when we received it at the table. THE DYNAMITE ROLL IS COMPLETELY DIFFERENT from other restaurants (refer to menu). The staff told me that what I was looking to order is actually the spider roll which looks like a dynamite roll from other places. 🙄 So just FYI.

Beef tataki was delicious last time I had it here a few years ago along with the oyster sliders. However it made me sick this time around. We had asked for it to be made spicy and they had put a lot of Thai chili slices on it. I think it’s rather difficult to control the spice level with Thai chilis bc after you have a slice, your mouth is on fire already. Something tasted odd about the beef, even after I squeezed lemon over it. I think the beef might have gone bad.

To top it off, we overheard some chefs speaking in their native tongue and complaining about certain customers. It was not professional and it made my husband and me self-conscious. We really wanted to support them but after what happened, I don’t think we will be...