mediocre hibachi. jinbeh is lucky - lucky that there aren't many otherhibachirestaurants nearby. certainly, that must be the reason why their business is still thriving. my friends and i went to jinbeh for lunch today and it was packed! we had to wait 15 minutes for open seats at one of thehibachitables. even hours after we first arrived, people continued to come in. judging from the number of returning, loyal customers, you would think this was the best restaurant ever. believe me, it's not.
the waitress was nice enough - she greeted us and got us our drinks and kept them filled. however, after we put in our orders (3 of us put in sushi orders and 2 of us gothibachiorders), our experience went downhill.
we asked for two separate sushi forms so that we could distinguish who wanted what sushi. this was done in vain because the sushi chefs completely disregarded our request and put all the sushi and rolls on the same plates! so we had a lot of swapping plates and reaching over each other to get to our rolls that were on the same plate as someone else's. ridiculous.
also, after the dust had settled, we noticed we never got 2 of the rolls we ordered! also, one of our friends ordered his steak rare in hishibachiorder and told the chef when he wanted his steak off the grill. the chef, who up to this point had not said one word to us, ignored him and continued to cook it. when he finally took the steak off the grill and put it on his plate, the steak was medium well! unacceptable.
that's another thing you need to know about our experience. thehibachichef, who is usually supposed to be most friendly and entertaining person in the restaurant, did not talk at all and never once smiled. he rushed through the entire cooking process and did his entire routine (onion volcano, cracking the eggs, catching the shrimp tails in his hat) in total silence. unbelievable.
i complained to the manager and he thanked me for bringing it to his attention. in the end, he gave us 10% off our bill - which i didn't feel was compensation enough for such a terrible eating experience. i think a lot of people in this area are easily impressed because of the lack of alternatives, but i encourage everyone to drive out a little further next time and find a better hibachi/sushi restaurant!