The birthday celebration continues with a dinner Benihana in Troy. Benihana has a “chefs table” club that offers $30 off on your birthday. You can only use the coupon Sunday – Thursday and honestly, seems like every person there during the week is using a coupon. The birthday drumming is an ongoing cacophony of celebration. I do love the food at Benihana. It is always pretty consistent, and reliable. However I must admit, the show is growing a wearisome. Going to Benihana once, maybe twice, or with children who look at the chef’s display with wide eyed wonder is great, but after that it draws the evening out into a long night of redundancy. I also am disappointed that the service and quality seems to be diminishing.
I should start by saying we tried to make reservations on a Tuesday, only to be told they had no availability. We called Wednesday at noon and was told once again, that there were no reservations. I asked if we could just “walk in” and they said “you can, but you probably won’t get a seat, unless someone doesn’t show up.” They were less than accommodating, so instead we made reservations on Wednesday for Thursday night.
Upon arrival, we were greeted by a less than enthusiastic manager, who explained we were too early, so we would have to wait. When we said we would wait in the bar, he literally said “ok, whatever, we will find you.” We made our way to the bar to have a cocktail and wait for our table. I don’t know what it is, but the bar seems to always be sticky at Benihana. Omar ordered a saki bomb, saki with a side of Kirin beer. I ordered a whiskey punch, which was ok, but a far cry from the Bullet Sour at Eddie V’s.
Our table was called pretty quickly and we were shuffled in like cattle to be crammed at table with a group of strangers. Benihana is hit or miss. You can either be seated with nice, fun people or people who make a long meal even longer. Tonight we had a mix of both. A very nice couple next to us, and a group of very demanding women at the far end.
Our waitress seemed rather distracted all night. The table next to us seemed to get prompt attention and food out in a timely fashion, while we waited and had to keep waving our waitress down. After placing our orders, we got our soup appetizer, which consists of a light onion broth, with crispy onions, mushrooms and scallions. Before we got our salad, however, the chef was already bringing the food out to prepare. Our salads were brought out later as an after thought and we had to hurry and eat before our food was done.
The waitress asked when taking our order if we wanted fried rice. Omar and I both ordered, to which she said “one or two?” I assumed she meant between us, so I said two. Turns out she meant per person. Apparently ordering multiple rice side dishes is a thing there, who knew? We were very surprised when the chef prepared 4 servings of fried rice for us!!
The food is still pretty good. Buttery fried rice, filet cooked perfectly, shrimp, lobster stir-fried with just the right amount of char, sesame coated zucchini, onions and mushrooms (of which I gave to Omar). With the double helping of rice, it was way more than I could eat.
The table next to us enjoyed their ice cream desert and the birthday drums, while we sat ignored. The waitress brought our bill with no mention of desert or our birthday song. When asked, she finally brought our green tea ice cream, but covered with chocolate syrup, which really didn’t belong. She apologized, but said there would be no drums as she couldn’t find anyone to sing. I felt so slighted I did not receive my birthday song!!
Overall, the experience is what it is. You go for the show, not for the service. The food is still good, but perhaps next time I will sit in the sushi bar, order the Teppanyaki and skip the theatrics.