Benihana

We went to Benihana on Tuesday April 1st. for my Grandson's 18 the Birthday.
The noise level was such that we could not hear our server ask questions. The soup arrived and was cold. I asked the server if it was supposed to be cold and she said no and took it back. She returned with four more bowls and these were cold also. The cook had forgotten to turn the stove on. The salad arrived and it had been sitting out for hours and was wilted. The entree was OK though certinly not worth the money and my Grandson's complementary ice cream was good. I was having trouble downloading your coupon and though your manager saw the problem he refused to accept it.
We have been coming for Birthday dinners since you opened but after this experience will not return.

Just wanted to make sure Sergio, our chef for the night receives the recognition he deserves. He did an outstanding job. Very great chef food was great and the service was also amazing. There was a table next to us that a had a chef that seemed to be more quiet. So Sergio definitely stood out when he had continuous conversations with us. Had a great night, i truly hope her gets a promotion some time soon

Sergio great cook food amazing had a great experience there should get promoted overall great experience great food good time

This Benihana is great!

I was shocked that it was so packed at 12:00pm on a Saturday. Glad we made a reservation.

The food was soooo freaking good. I got steak but got to try the shrimp too (woo!). No more throwing pieces of meat into diners' mouths these days. Sad :( But they did the other stuff like the onion on fire and they had a train whistle and catching egg shells in the hat. Our chef was so fun and interactive.

The only thing I wasn't excited to watch was how much butter there was in everything. Sheesh. It was A LOT. Obviously everything tasted great though.

Anyway, great service, food, and ambiance. Also would recommend bringing some cash because they have a required valet.

I've been to Benihana's twice in the past 6 months. Unfortunately the Burlingame location has gone down hill. The general manager Grace lacks everything a general manager needs to be successful. Unfortunately it's been brought to upper management's attention and it's still the same. I used to love coming to Benihanas for birthdays and celebrations but this place just isn't it anymore. Upper management really needs to take accountability for their staff.

The wait time is long, reservation or not. The food is ok, chefs are still great but quality isn't the best. Overall I truly feel like upper management needs to step in to get this place back to where it used to be.

8/24/23

The only reason Zach and I came to eat at Benihana's was because he had a birthday certificate (his birthday was in July and the certificate was due to expire by the end of August). We had a reservation for 8:15PM. We waited about 15 minutes before being seated with two other parties.

My parents had come to Benihana's before and commented that it's just a one time dinner with no need to go back...and after my experience at Benihana's I couldn't agree more. There's a definite appeal to Benihana's for the theatrical portion as the chef twirls his cooking utensils as they cook for you. The food itself though is abysmal and it's too Americanized to be considered real Asian cuisine. It's also super noisy inside, and it just felt weird to be seated with other people we didn't know.

Here's what we got:

- Yakisoba with chicken (mine)
- Emperor's feast: filet mignon and chicken breast grilled (his)

The entire table was started with soup that had mushrooms in it and I believe in a beef broth. It was very watery and the mushrooms were not cooked. After that, small bowls of salad were given out and I was quite disgusted by the dressing they put on it because it kinda looked like vomit. Turns out it's some weird salad dressing made of ginger and citrus. Zach said it tasted fine, so I passed my salad over to him.

The next 10-15 minutes, the chef cooks everyone's order along with veggies. Everyone got fried rice (some with chicken, some without). As I was watching him cook, the chef was too generous with the soy sauce and the butter. I said out loud "Please stop" and everyone (Zach included) looked and laughed at me like I was crazy. The fried rice was more rice than anything with some egg, chicken and veggies. The chicken itself was dry. The yakisoba noodles were decently good. Vanilla, chocolate or sherbet ice cream was served as dessert. I had Zach's scoop of vanilla ice cream since he doesn't like sweets.

Overall, if you wanna try Benihana's, just try it ONCE cuz that's all you really need.

Came here last night for my daughter's second birthday celebration with my family and did not have the experience that we usually do when coming here over the years.

To start my Fiancé called and spoke with Grace regarding the process for us bringing our own cake. Her response was "just bring the cake" my fiancé asked ok, great it is is a 10inch cake can you accommodate it in the fridge? Her reply "just bring the cake" the final question he asked was if there was a cutting fee, which is a valid question... her reply was the same "just bring the cake" My fiancé said thank you and ended the call.

Upon arrival there, my fiancé checks in at the front and brought the cake to hand off to the staff. Grace who is at the front proceeds to tell us that the cake cannot be placed in the fridge and needs to be at room temp for the duration of our meal. I looked at my fiancé and said well we're here now so we have no choice. We get things change but this is why we called in advance to see what the process was. Reservations were at 5:15, we got seated at 5:51pm which we are used to being there not a huge deal! It's supposed to be a dining experience so we get it people are wrapping up their meals.

Our chef, Esdras was great and made it a good experience for the kids.

From the time he finished cooking to when they tried to bring out the cake was 15 minutes. So you expect my table to finish eating in 15 minutes?

We got the cake brought out as expected it was so soft/mushy to cut and just fell apart.

After singing happy birthday, we proceeded to eat the cake. The waitress brought the cake box out and put it on the hot grill after I told her the grill was still hot. It burned the bottom of the box just a little after I told her it was hot. As we were packing our things up...Grace was looking at us giving us dirty looks like we needed to hurry up and rush to get out.

My sister and I have small kids with us which does take some time to get things together.

All while we were still waiting for the bill. Our waitress dropped off the bill but didn't return to pick up. So it's not like we were there just hanging around to hang around. Since Grace was still standing there looking at my family..I gave her my card to pay and as she handed me my receipt rudely said "can we have the table now?" I told her excuse me? She ignored what I said and walked away.

I'm not sure what position Grace holds but it should not be dealing directly with customers. She is extremely rude and lacks basic customer service skills.

Benihanas is not a cheap dining experience at all especially for a large party. For the amount of money we paid to be rushed out and treated with poor customer service is ridiculous.

I can't believe how great the experience was this time. I've been coming to this Benihana's for a long time and I'm used to the same service. First we stopped off at the bar and had a couple drinks with friends. The bartender and staff there were great.
This time our cook was James and this dude was on fire. He did some things that I had not seen before and cooked everything to perfection. This dude definitely knows his stuff and is accommodating to your needs. And above all he's friendly and he's got a great attitude. I had the filet mignon and lobster tail. I have never had ordered medium rare, and had it perfectly cooked to perfection. So much so, that I didn't dare dip it in any sauces! Next time you make reservations, ask for James and tip him well. Thank you James, hope to see you guys soon.

Tonight (this was written the other day) was super busy at Benihana and the parking lot was packed!! I mean it was so full that people parked their cars where they didn't belong, and others had to park elsewhere and walk to and from the restaurant.

They were short-staffed and a lot of patrons complained. They were down a chef or two, that called in sick. So, even though we arrived early, we had to wait about an hour before we were sat. Once we were seated at our table, our waiter, Ellio took very good care of us. He let us know it might take a little while, and it did. The food and service were amazing even though they were understaffed. We had a great family seated with us too. That always makes for a nicer evening, and I celebrated a late birthday!

The view is always pretty awesome! You can see the San Francisco Airport from across the water. Beautiful to see the planes arriving and departing, especially for the kids, or young at heart.

I'm not sure why the parking lot was so packed, and it was a little annoying that patrons parked where they were not supposed to. However, no parking attendants or valet anymore.

I had a great time here , the service was great. I tried the yakisoba entree for the first time. It was soo good it made me sleepy. Thanks for my bday meal. The place is very clean , the food is great,, parking was great.. actually i realized i kinda like it without the valet parking. It was a nice fancy touch when when they had it but seeing it gone or at least I haven't noticed it when I've been here the last times , I've noticed I kinda like it without valet. Ha I love the Tom Hanks picture on the wall too, please never take down.

*Parking: Free complimentary valet parking

*Experience: This was my first time going to Benihana and I was super excited since I've always seen the commercials with the cool grill and tricks. I was really looking forward to the show, but we didn't get any of that. We got a young, part-time chef that didn't want to be there and vented about his life. The only thing we got was a heart shaped fried rice for Valentine's Day and he lit the onions on fire. It was very low effort. Even his "choo-choos" was low energy as he pushed the onions across the teppanyaki grill.

*Food: I got the land and sea. My husband got the chateaubrean filet mignon. The scallops had a weird taste to it. It tasted like soap and I got a stomachache after. My husband was supposed to get 8oz of steak but the chef just stir fried everyone's steak together and allocated the portion however he wanted. So we over paid for the meal cause it wasn't even what we ordered. The fried rice was super bland. The onion soup tasted like something you'd get from a carton at the market. The salad was nothing spectacular. The green tea ice cream in the end was super cheap where it was light green with no tea flavor. Our meal was supposed to come with hot green tea but we never got that. Overall, we paid $150 for food that was worse than Panda Express.