Kirin "Dragon Lady" L.'s Profile

I think this place is my dog's dream.  He's quite the little social butterfly, so being able to play with other dogs for hours on end is probably like doggie crack to him.  That makes him sleep for hours when he gets home, and him sleeping makes me  happy.

One star docked for the following:

Whoever answered the phone did not take my name (I tried to give it to her, but she didn't hear me, so I repeated that I'd like to bring my dog in, she gave me times, I confirmed, she hung up)

I was late to the interview - 5 minutes on my clock, 12 on hers.  Understandable for someone to be pissed, but the "only possible" interviewer left for an hour-long lunch break pretty much on the hour.   Since it was traffic that made me late, I opted to wait for the interviewer to return rather than come back for another appointment.

Yes, the place is pretty ghetto.  It does smell a bit.

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So, the initial service was unacceptable but my dog adores the place.  And people got nicer over time.  Let's hope it stays that way.

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Edit: reduced to 2 stars because they returned my dog to me with his rear end smeared with feces and watched as I struggled to remove it with wet paper towels in their little employee kitchen.  For the price we pay to have our dog stay there, they could at least offer the bath facilities or some sort of better service than that.

I found this establishment through all of the wonderful reviews on this site. Four of us visited the studio, hoping to get new tattoos for at least three of us. Now, I admit that I'm not the biggest "insider" when it comes to the tattoo culture, but I don't feel that excused what happened. The artist who was going to speak with me about my design emerged, looked at us, and turned around and walked away! I didn't even realize that was him until the girl at the counter asked if we'd been spoken to yet, and of course, we had not. She went to the back to summon the gentleman again, and I could see him sitting in a chair and ignoring us for a good five minutes through a mirror. When he came out again (and I recognized the face as he had come halfway out before), he was visibly pissed off to be talking with me. I showed him my design and all he said was, "It's not tattooable." I asked him what could be done to make it more doable, but he just repeated that it wasn't. No help at all, no interest, and I finally gave up, said thanks, and he turned and stalked away. From what I could garner, his name was Joe. I couldn't imagine trusting someone who behaved like that to put something permanent on my body. Two of the others with us were spoken to by someone considerably more accomodating, but the experience annoyed us all to the extent that we decided to avoid the place. I wouldn't be surprised if Joe was the type of person to ink kanji that said "dumb asshole" on someone just because they weren't fluent in Japanese, for example. I understand that artists are fairly antisocial, but so are a lot of tattoo customers and it's difficult to talk to people at all, let alone snappy, surly people. Anyway, despite the fact that only one person there was a jerk, it overshadowed the several other kind people. I just would not recommend Joe unless he's someone you trust already. Oh, and the not-tattooable design is currently healing on my back, placed professionally there by another establishment.

I have heard outstanding things about Dr. Jessica Nien.  However, I never got to meet her.

My first visit for the x-rays and examination went very well.  I was a bit concerned because the lady who took our appointment information (it was a piggyback appointment with my husband, because we have an infant and we lack a sitter) seemed really confused and like she didn't much understand us.  However, the appointment was indeed scheduled as we requested and went off without a hitch.  The office is clean and modern-looking, and the ladies at the front desk really seemed nice.  The exam was performed by people who seemed competent.

That was the end of my positive experience.  

After receiving my treatment plan, I made an appointment to get a crown and a filling done.  The filling was mandatory; it was already broken, which was why I was seeking dental care in the first place.  The crown was highly recommended and for the tooth right next door to the one being filled, so I figured "why the hell not" and scheduled it.

This office requires patients to actually reconfirm their appointments; they don't leave messages as reminders like doctors' offices or most dentists I've been to.  If they don't actually speak to you, they assume you are not coming.  However, they offered an option to be contacted by email for the confirmations instead, and I asked them to please do this so I didn't have to deal with the joys of phone and baby (plus, I just plain HATE the phone).  I feel rather unlistened-to since my wishes were not heeded; they called for the confirmations.

The appointment for the filling came.  I was expecting to meet the fabled Dr. Nien, but this was most definitely not her.  The dentist who treated me came off as very sweet at first, although I was irked when she right off the bat told me that the crown probably wasn't going to be done that day due to a lack of time.  I didn't blame that on her, but I was annoyed.

She shot me up with the novocaine, and let's just say that either I'm a mutant or she didn't quite shoot right, because she had to give me at LEAST five additional shots in order to numb me enough to have me not feel pain during the procedure.   By then I knew there was no way in hell that anything but that filling was being done, but.. whatever.  When she finished filling the tooth, she brought out the bite-check paper and had me bite lightly down on it.  She kept saying to bite harder, as I was biting quite gingerly.  Then I managed to fracture the filling by biting TOO hard.  She asked me to bite harder about five times, and each time I thought I was biting hard enough.. and then I broke the damn filling.  Which meant that it had to be REDONE.  

After that, she seemed to be... it's hard to explain.  Sort of like she really wanted to scream or tell me off, but she realized that she would lose her job?  I felt like a huge nuisance the way she was speaking to me.. "you bit too hard and you broke it... I mean, I GUIDED you to bite too hard."  Sigh.. and then after that, apparently I was also a mutant in the bite department as I STILL can't close my teeth correctly months later without running into the filling - and she tried to hone that for quite a while until she just gave up.

I wasn't ready to give this place a bad review yet, even after that.  

But now I am.  I tried to schedule an appointment after asking questions about whether they had better anesthesia and whether I could see Dr. Nien and not the other dentist this time.   The email exchange began with me asking about the anesthesia (whether they had nitrous) on November 19th, and they got back to me on the 20th.  So far so good.  Another question and they got back to me a day later again.  Then, on December 9th, I sent an email asking if there were any appointments available that week.   No response.  I wrote back on January 2nd to request my x-rays so I could see another dentist, and I received a reply on January 5th that they could call me to schedule an appointment for the service I had asked about on December 9th.

The call consisted of me telling her that my schedule was uncertain because of the baby, since my husband had most of frickin' DECEMBER off but now had to show up for work, and her asking AFTER I said that if she could schedule me.  Like I didn't even say anything a moment before that, or like she was reading from a script.  She also said that they were closed for the holidays, but I reminded her that I had sent that message before the 15th of December.  Finally, I gave up and just requested the x-rays be sent to me.

So, this has to be said and I'm sorry.. but the ladies who work as receptionists don't serve the English speaking community very well.  At least one of them admitted that her English was lacking.. and the lady I spoke to on the 5th did not understand me, nor I her (I asked her to repeat things and she ignored me).

But at least the first visit was good enough to save a star.

Well, the food was absolutely delicious and always is.  However, some things really bother me, specifically about tonight's visit.

1) Why do we have to wait half an hour past our scheduled reservation time to be seated?  Does that not defeat the purpose of the reservation a bit?  I understand that the nature of the seating arrangement (8 per table, related parties or not) may make seating a party of 2 awkward, but seriously.. reservations.  We heard a hostess explaining to a customer that having a reservation means that you will get a table... nothing to do with the actual TIME of the reservation...  what now?

2) The drink service was very attentive at first and then completely disappeared.  Our table (3 unrelated parties) had to flag down a manager to get drink refills during the meal.  Note that the table initially had TWO ladies bringing drinks and crud around that we all thought must've quit somewhere during the meal.   Well, we made our point by giving the bulk of the tip to the chef in cash, since he provided us with service and made our food well.

I'm thinking next time it may be worth it to try driving to a further location.