Hana Japan Steak & Seafood

MORE LIKE TEPPAN-​YUCKY
Are you thinking about eating here? Don’t! The only person who should go here is a health department official… and soon! My family and I were poisoned; sick to our stomachs. We couldn’t go to work the next day! And are still suffering two days later. Save yourself! DO NOT EAT HERE!
I ate here once about 5 years ago, so I was prepared to see the 70 year old filthy carpets inside and out. We had a reservation and were seated after waiting about 45 minutes in the lobby. It then took over an hour before the chef arrived to our table. We arrived at 8 for our reservation and didn’t leave until almost 10:30!
The soup was salty and the salad was sitting in a pool of watery dressing. Both equally terrible. We were a party of 9 with many of us ordering different entrees and working out bite for bite deals. Filet mignon, NY steak, teriyaki streak, shrimp, scallops, salmon, lobster and chicken. Lucky me, I tried them all! The lobster stood out as the worst. It was rubbery, over salted and just plain weird. But it didn’t matter, we had waited almost 2 hours and would eat just about anything put in front of us at that point.
We were poisoned by this overly salted, buttery rancid food.
The only good thing was the presentation by the teppanyaki chef, Sonny. He should go work at Benihana.
This is not teppanyaki, this is teppan-​yucky. This restaurant should be reviewed and closed down for public safety. The owners should be publicly humiliated and shamed in the streets for what they have done to their patrons.

Took my daughter for her 9^th bday which I’d made an 8pm reservation for. Not only was a larger party with a later reservation seated before my group, we ended up waiting almost 2hrs. I was continuously told by staff that it would be 20 – 25 min (which was hardly the case being that I waited longer than the time frame I was informed about) I finally asked to speak with the manager (Oliver). Oliver is ultimately why my family and I left. First he completely ignored me and when I mentioned that another group had been seated before my group he responded «Not my problem.» At that point I asked his name. No response… I asked for another manager who may be able to provide Resolution… No response. I ultimately had to ask the bartender to provide the name of the manager. Oliver.
I think I’m going to have to pass on Hana Japan as our dining hot spot. It’s unfortunate because we’ve been dining there for years. But that just shows how poor customer service discourages consumers from patronizing any business or establishment.

WHEN WILL Unilocal MAKE THE 0 STAR OPTION??? a couple of friends and myself went to this place this past Tuesday due to Groupon. What a JOKE!!! We walked up and noticed that the carpet leading upstairs to the restaurant was dirty but hey… it’s outside so what should you expect? We arrived about 4:30pm. We made reservations for 4:15pm, the woman that we spoke to said that we must have a reservation. I thought the place was going to be packed, there were 2 ladies in front of us. We were seated… everything went downhill from there. As we walked to the table and were seated, our feet sunk into the sticky carpet. My sister was directed to sit at a corner seat which had an obstructed view due to the pole from the table being in the way. The table tops were sticky as well an there was a smell of mildew as well. The hoods over the stove had WAYYYYYY too much gunk… Needless to say… We didn’t grab no shoes or nothing… We ran straight out of there.
Will I return… NEVER !!

The restaurant is in a nice location, but would not come to this location again.
[Saturday] We arrived for our 8PM reservation at 7:45PM and checked in with the hostess. We kept checking in with the hostess to see when we would be seated and apparently they waited until 8PM to tell us that they could not seat us right away because we had one more person in our group than originally reserved. Although the reservation was our mistake, they could have at least told us how many people they had down for our party. People had reservations at 8:15PM and 8:30PM and did not get seated until 8:45PM or later.
We finally sat down at 8:45PM and didn’t leave until 10PM (closing time) !
Service: It was alright.
Cook: He was good and better than the other chefs I saw performing.
Food: A bit salty for me, but the cook did well !
Restrooms: Pretty bad, two stalls, not clean, smelly
Groupon: We tried to use a groupon but they did not accept it because we had to order 4 meals. We ordered 3 meals because it was getting late in the evening (9PM) and didn’t want to order more food than we could handle. No where on the groupon states that 4 meals had to be ordered.

I don’t know what the point of making reservations is if, upon arrival, we still have to wait for open tables and watch as they seat others who have been waiting – albeit walkins – first. No matter how entertaining the environment and tasty the food, if the beginning is compromised, the rest of the experience is tainted.
Also, I don’t expect receiving an attitude for inquiring about the status of said reservation. And, just because I have a Groupon doesn’t mean I deserve to be brushed off vs other «full-​paying» customers. I’m still a potential tipper and if you regard those with Groupons as annoyances, why bother posting a Groupon at all then?!

We are foodies and love to venture to find new eats and if you read my other reviews I’m pretty optimistic and fair which makes me sad to review this.
I love teppanyaki, so with this deal on Groupon I thought we’d try it. Initially I bought the Groupon which was $ 30 for $ 50 value for 2+ people intending that this would be a date night thing, but we ended taking my son and mother-​in-​law. They also had a Groupon for $ 60 for $ 100, but since I already had the first one, I opted to simply buy another $ 30 for $ 50. I mean it was the same price overall. This is where the problem started.
We arrived to the location which was by the Berkeley Marina — I was pleasantly surprised because I love the waterfront. The restaurant is on the second floor of the building up two flight of stairs which is no biggie unless you have issues with mobility (not sure if they have an elevator??). I only mentioned this because I had to shuffle my baby’s carseat up the stairs. Mommy woes. Lol.
We did have a reservation and though they weren’t packed it took us 15 minutes to be seated. There was four of adult diners and baby. I explained to the waitress that if we could split our bills two adults each, so that we can redeem our Groupon. She says she cannot do that. She gets the manager over in which I explained the error of our Groupon purchase, but overall it was the exact same value. He says he cannot allow it because we walked in together. Thus instead of redeeming our two $ 50 Groupon, I had to purchase a third for $ 100 for us because I was not going to pay full price at this point. Now I’m stuck with two more that I will not use there. Hopefully Groupon will help me resolve this.
Now on ward… chef came about 15 minutes later. He wasn’t the most dynamite personality. The other chef at other table seem more fun. Anyways that isn’t what matters most. He quickly cooks my meal… which is salmon. But my family’s food took much longer and mine was cold by the time theirs was done. My salmon was undercooked as the center was raw and cold, so I asked him to recook it. It still wasn’t all the way cooked but I was tired because it was taking him so long to cook the remainder of our meal… rice…veggies…meat etc. The portions are kind of small for the prices they charge (in comparison to other teppanyaki restaurants I’ve been to). It’s about $ 25 a plate.
We eat and pay and are on our merry way. That evening I started feeling horribly sick to my stomach and feverish. Weirdly I have never felt that way expect when I’ve gotten food poisoning. I sleep it off and didn’t come too until the morning that maybe it was the half cooked fish. I was the only one that got sick and the only one with half cooked fish. Everyone else got steak and chicken. Well who knows… but unfortunately this is the first and last time we will be visiting. Thanks Groupon for the experience but we shall pass on this.
P. S. Groupon did refund my other Groupons… thank goodness… I couldn’t stomach visiting again.

First time here but can already tell it’s a hit and miss kind of experience. Guy we had knew how to cook but that was about it. He barely did any tricks, and his volcano/​chu chu was half assed (guy behind us had a damn pipe yo do the whistle sound; that made me realize this visit was a miss) that barely impressed my 6yo. Essentially paid premium prizes to have a line cook cook in front of us.
Edit: Sorry but had to remove 1 more star; I’d go as far as to give this a 1.5 star but that’s me being generous for a local place. Just tried my son’s chicken that we took home and while the chicken itself was cooked, it had a coating of burned scraps since the chicken was cooked last and I guess he didn’t really clean his cooking area before hand.

We could take our seats at around 9:00pm even we had reservation at 8:00pm. Performance was nice but food is too salty.
We tried to use groupon but they didn’t accept because they changed condition without saying anything about that.
You shouldn’t choose Hana Japan steak and seafood especially for special occasion. You definitely feel bad at least one point (service, time or even food) as we did.

Made a reservation and was seated on time and then waited 50 minutes until a chef came to our table. 50 MINUTES!!! There were 2 full tables next to ours waiting on their chefs too. Showtime was just under 25 minutes, less than the amount of time spent waiting and starving!
Food was average and not worth the price. Wouldn’t go back there again.

Came here for a birthday hoping to be able to utilize the birthday discount and the groupon but was only able to do one or the either. Be aware that one table seats 8 so if your party is smaller than that, expect to be seated with other people. The meal comes with miso soup and a salad; both were fine. I ordered the New York steak with fried rice. They cube up almost all the food so the medium well steak I ordered ended up being well done. Others in the party ordered the shrimp, salmon, and scallops and they ALL had a seafoody taste so I’m glad I ordered steak. The food was expensive and mediocre and probably only tasted good because everything was cooked with butter. Th only highlights were probably the fried rice and super enthusiastic chef that gave us a show.

Good food for the price, if celebrating a birthday please remember to bring a copy of birth certificate if Child’s birthday or a I D card to show proof to receive discount. Fun atmosphere.

Came here because of Groupon. There was no parking. Had reservations for 5 at 6:30pm. Arrived at the restaurant at 6:20pm. We were not seated until 6:45pm. We had to ask the front desk if we could order twice. They finally took our order at 7pm. The family sitting with us had reservations at 6pm and waited longer than we did. 7:45pm the chef never came so the whole table (2 families) bailed. Don’t waste your time coming here.

Ehhhhh, service was not good. Even the owner was rude at first when we tried to redeem a
voucher. We went on Valentine’s Day and apparently he didn’t want to honor it because of some deal he had with the website however the website didn’t specify that it was not valid on Valentine’s Day. So instead of taking it out on us, he shouldn’t have hassled us or given us a hard time because it was not our fault or problem. That is between him and the website. Our dinner was ruined because of the issues but he did let us use the voucher for the discount. Won’t be back again because of the treatment. Food was ok. Benihana is way better.

Friendly waitresses, food was good, and the cheff was a master!
3 stars because even though we made a reservation, we got seated 30 minutes after our reservation time.
After we got seated we waited for 45 more minutes for the cheff to come and cook.
1 hour and 15 minutes wait, with reservation? Ridiculous

I can’t believe I’m giving this place even one star. I am with a group of 12 that made reservations over 2 weeks ago. Apparently there is only one table in the restaurant that is large enough to accommodate that many people. The group before us allegedly showed up 45 minutes late and were still seated knowing that our party would be showing up about a half an hour later. We are all currently still waiting to be seated and it has been ONE AND A HALF HOURS. I sure hope that they plan to comp quite a few meals for us and I can guarantee that I will never be coming back here or recommending it to anyone.
Silver lining: I’ve had plenty of time standing and waiting to write this review.

I HAD to jump on Unilocal to write a review after the enjoyable experience I had with Hana Japan.
My company scheduled a last minute Happy Hour dinner here (approx. 25 people). The staff was very accommodating and was able to make the necessary changes to ensure they could fit my large party. The restaurant is located right along the Berkeley Marina and offers spectacular views of the city and skyline! This was definitely a treat for my coworkers (as this was a much different experience than we normally expect for our company happy hours).
As soon as we walked in we were greeted by our friendly host, who directed us to our tables (a private area that had beautiful views of the bay). We were then showered with excellent customer service, including a visit from the owner. The chefs and show was also a fun experience!
The food was delicious. The service was welcoming. AND they included some extra treats for our team.
Overall, I would definitely come back!
P. S. Get the steak! It’s delicious!

New owners are great, working very hard to make the restaurant better than before. Service and wait times have definitely improved, quality of steak and shrimp are great. Pancho is an amazing chef, he threw a shrimp into the mouth of one of the people at our table.
Give it a shot. Make a reservation and order the NY steak.

Casual place for a dinner that could use some renovation.
A bit loud.
Food taste average and could be a bit improved.
Fried rice is previously steamed and taste like one.
Shrimp is three star one;
Calamaris are excellent;
Chicken on the average side;
New York steak medium rare flat.

Think Benihana on a budget — cheaper ingredients, very basic staff training, unmaintained decór. The result is a deadened experience, a sad parody of teppanaki.
Worth avoiding, even at a quarter of the price.

Pros: Absolutely nothing…
Con’s: I have been here a few times and each experience has never been pleasant. This past weekend, my family and I made the last minute decision to bring my mom here for her birthday (BIG MISTAKE). For one, we completely forgot their rule on cake cutting. First, let me say that I have never been to a restaurant that does not allow you to cut a cake. I was not aware that there are major issues associated with something as simple as cake cutting. I asked the waitress, if we figured out a way to cut the cake could we have plates to distribute it. She said No, we would have to take our cake home. Keep in mind, this was an ice cream cake so there was NO WAY it was going to make it to our destinations.
The last thing that was really frustrating is their policy for the birthday dinner discount. What average 13 year old has a passport? Let alone, how many 13 year old’s do you know that carry around their birth certificate?
I don’t know why we decided to give this place another shot… oh yeah, I remember, reservations for Benihana’s were full. This place is sub par to say the least and no where near as good of quality as Benihana’s. I will NEVER come back to this place.