Himitsu Teriyaki

2 Reviews on “Himitsu Teriyaki”

• SK

  Terrible Customer Service. We won’t be returning, and we would recommend that people avoid it at all costs. NOTE: this review is for the food and the service for the sushi and the noodle soups, which started at IKA Sushi and Bento at the other end of the plateau, and followed the owner to Himitsu when he decided to combine the two stores. The good: the sushi is good quality and reasonably priced, as are the noodle soups (ramen, udon). The bad: the management is horrible, which translates into a horrible customer experience whether eating in or picking up takeout Bad experience #1: the owner published a coupon, and already being regulars, we were glad to use it, typically once every three weeks, give or take. On the fifth or six occasion using the coupon over the course of about 4 or 5 months, the owner came out to tell us that he had only intended for people to use it monthly, and we had used it twice in two weeks (shock!) We nodded and accepted the explanation, told him well, now that we know, that’s okay, no problem, and then we mentioned that the coupon didn’t mention that limitation, it just had an expiration date. Most good restaurant owners or managers would have, especially for regulars, honored the coupon that time anyway. This one did not. He didn’t even bother to change the coupon to articulate the secret rules. Bad experience #2: the owner decided to expand his offerings to include Pho (Vietnamese noodle soup), but the implementation was completely confusing for customers… the restaurant was divided (roughly) in half physically, with a noodle side and the original sushi/Japanese side. We experienced (and observed) plenty of confusion… you could order noodles if you were sitting on the sushi side, but not vice versa. And, without explanation, the same bowl of noodles made in the same kitchen was $2 more expensive on the sushi side than the noodle side at a table three feet away. It’s possible (even if difficult) to rationalize that by saying that the sushi side was trying to be more of a formal sit down dinner experience, but what made absolutely no sense was that when ordering for pickup, the restaurant would consistently try to charge us the sushi-side higher price and we repeatedly had to ask them to charge the noodle-side price, given that we were picking the food up. Bad experience 2B: after multiple pickup orders where the beef in the udon or ramen amounted to two tiny chunks (maybe an ounce) of beef and lots of noodles and broth, we made mention. The first time, they offered to not charge us the next time, which of course they forgot about. After a few times with the same thing happening, my wife actually opened the soup while picking up the order to point it out, and they begrudgingly added a few pieces of meat. Bad experience (and strike) #3: tonight we ordered about $40 of sushi, and requested no sauce be drizzled over the sushi, repeating it to make sure it was written down. On arriving, the sauce was there, and she pointed out the error (no sauce written on the ticket, but made with the sauce, which had happened to us before a few times). Rather than even light apology and an offer to quickly remake it, she got effectively a blank stare, as if they were waiting for her to say it’s okay, I’ll take it like this. After some discussion, the owner told the wait staff that he’d remake it, and it was clear from the body language and tone that he thought this was asking too much. With no admission of error, no apology for the inconvenience, and no reason to be graceful in return, my wife asked the staff if they were going to do anything for her inconvenience and having to wait now for 10-15 minutes for the order to be remade, a discount or not charging for some item, and the response was shock and dismay, and a repeated I said I remake!. When the food was finally ready to take home, the order was set down where she was waiting, without even an acknowledgment. On the way out, she said loudly that it was a shame that the food and the main wait staff was so great, but his customer service was so horrible, and she was told no, it’s YOU. And then… then you don’t come back. Trust us… we won’t. It’s good sushi, but there are equivalent options just five more minutes of driving for us in Redmond or Issaquah where they make a light attempt to treat customers well. That makes the sushi taste much better. When you think the customer is in the wrong because they ordered something, made a special request that actually would have decreased your food costs if you’d made it correctly, and then were disappointed when it was made wrong and had to wait for it to be made a second time, its not us. Its you.

  April 13, 2013, 5:53 am

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• Eric

  A Good Experience. The people who own Himitsu are very friendly and personable. Teriyaki is usually take-out for us but we ate in at Himitsu and were surprised at how welcoming and engaging they were. We ordered the spicy chicken, gyoza, and shimp yakisoba. The spicy chicken teriyaki was insanely hot. Next time I think we’ll order the regular and just spice it up ourselves. The gyoza was pretty good. I must admit my previous experience here from years ago wasn’t the best. I ordered the white meat chicken and I found it dry but I think that just comes with the territory. The portions aren’t huge and the prices are probably a little above what you would expect but overall I would recommend it and I will go back.

  September 4, 2012, 5:33 pm

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