Cleanliness of restaurant

For those of you who have never been to Sakura, let me tell you a little something about the way they prepare your food. You have a choice between sitting at a nice table with your family, or sitting around a grill with a cook throwing things at you. Of course we took the second option.

You would think a restaurant that prepared food at your table would be a little messy, but to my surprise, it wasn’t. I even went to the bathroom to try to find something wrong! Besides a crack in the sink, I couldn’t find anything wrong in the cleanliness department. (And I was really trying!)

Quality and speed of service

We called ahead to make a reservation, but we found out that they don’t do reservations, but they do have a “call ahead” program – which we did. When we arrived we got to walk in front of all the other people waiting and sat right at our table. (I am sure this made them very happy.)

We sat at our table for what seemed like a long time before our server came around to get our drink order. I am not sure if she knew the hostess had sat us there or not. (I was getting thirsty without my Diet Coke.)

Unfortunately for me, this is another Pepsi restaurant. (If you have been reading my other review, you will remember that I consume more Diet Coke than most small countries.) So today I had to have Diet Pepsi. I am sure my server appreciated the fact that I had only 6 refills.

Besides the little wait at the start, the service was fine. She was quick with the refills and the check was presented at the proper time.

Quality of food

Let me tell you how it works. Your table places their order and your server gives the information to your chef. Your chef gets your uncooked food all prepared and brings everything right to your table.

After playing a few “egg” tricks (yes, raw egg tricks) he starts cooking up your food.
If you have never seen this before, it can be a lot of fun!

My wife ordered the Teppan Shrimp and I ordered the New York Steak and an appetizer of fried calamari. Before our meal they delivered a type of broth soup which we thought was really good (after we picked out the mushrooms – sorry).

The calamari was good. Even my wife who has been afraid to eat calamari thought it was good! They threw in a couple extra goodies on our appetizer plate: a fried mushroom, fried cauliflower, a fried zuccini, an onion ring and a fried carrot. Yes, that is right, a fried carrot. (I lost my sense of adventure on the carrot.) Everything so far was good.

Our chef was young and a little inexperienced when it came to his show. (I actually watched a different cook part of the time!) But he did give a nice show and cooked our food very well. You get a choice between white rice or fried rice for $2.00 more. The fried rice is worth it! We were very happy with the fried rice.

Somehow our chef ended up preparing an extra steak and we all enjoyed eating more steak than we paid for. But he asked us to not tell anyone so if you are reading this, shhhhhhhh, keep the secret. So my portion was very generous and it tasted wonderful! My wife’s shrimp portion was also generous and she enjoyed her shrimp as much as I did my steak.

They like to give you “freebies” here – like the extra goodies with the calamari, extra steak -everyone got a little steak even those who didn’t order it – and everyone also got a little shrimp – even if you didn’t order it.

Overall Dining Experience

We enjoyed going here. The price was fine – 2 meals, 2 soft drinks and an appetizer for about $60.00. After the check was presented I leaned over and asked my wife if she had her coupon and, to my surprise, her response was, “Sorry, no coupon”. (If you have been following along on other reviews, you will remember my wife almost ALWAYS has a coupon!.) So anyway, besides the slow start everything else ran smoothly and tasted great.

Oh, before I forget, we got a visit from the manager. He just wanted to make sure we had a good experience. Nice touch!

I recommend Sakura for anyone who wants a different type of experience, wants to have fun and wants to enjoy good food.

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