Benihana

«…the founder of Benihana? Benihana… Beni-f***ing-hana? BENI-F***ING-HANA? WHY? WHY, GOD? Why would You be so cruel as to use the king of Japanese restaurants to take me down?» — Jordan Belfort, The Wolf of Wall Street
I could probably never go to Benihana again without hearing Leonardo DiCaprio’s rant as Jordan Belfort in my head. What does it mean? Nothing, but I thought it was funny!
Anyway, what can I say? Benihana is ok. It is a loud, boisterous, smoke and grease filled communal party where chefs slice, dice and play with your food before serving it to you. My middle school aged nephew especially likes it because he can be his rambunctious little self without other dinners bating a eye, because most likely they have kids with them doing the same.
There are two sides to the large space one with regular tables, a sushi bar and a drinks bar where you can have a more low key experience and dinner at your own, non-​shared table. Most people come for the Teppan, where you sit around a large iron plate grill to see your food prepared before your eyes. If your party is less than 12 people then most likely you will be seated with other diners.
Dinners comes with onion soup, which I found pretty bland along with an equally unremarkable salad. Shrimps, onions and green squash are up next being cooked up and served with sweet and mustard dipping sauces that you can use for the rest of your meal. You also get a choice of rice with most getting the fried version cooked on the Teppan. Steak and Chicken are popular choices. They make a nice sesame coated Tuna Steak, or you can get the Salmon like I did which I enjoyed.
Its a fun experience, but maybe not for everyone especially with all the noise and commotions during busy times. It also can be warm depending on where you are seated and most likely you will go home reeking of smokey grease, but if you are laid back and take these things in stride you should have an enjoyable time.

This has got to be the worst experience ever at Benihana.
1) chef flipping the shrimp tail into hat. missed most of it.
2) making the «volcano» took more than 5 mins to stack up and he basically set the whole cooktop on fire. Everyone basically jumped back when that happened.
3) putting the whole egg with the shell into the fried rice was unsanitary.
4) cutting up the raw chicken and mixing it into the fried rice before it is fully cooked was bad.
5) using the spatula to scoop raw chicken breasts onto cooktop and then use the SAME spatula to scoop the fried rice into bowls to be served right after is disturbing.
6) there were literally 2 bowls of fried rice left on the cooktop after everyone was served and instead of splitting it he just scooped it up and discarded it. What a waste.
7) cooking food on one side while scraping all the burnt gunk off the cooktop was just dirty.
8) we all sat there for more than 1.5hr watching him take his time cooking and burning the cooktop while cross contaminating raw and cooked food.
This location feels like it is where newbies come to train. It is never busy and performance is just horrible. Never coming back to this location again.

I love this place. I’m addicted to their fried rice. also, you can’t go wrong with their weekend lunch specials. also, pretty sure I’m addicted to their mustard sauce. it’s amazing.

Me and my boyfriend visited this place for our anniversary and the atmosphere and the food was very good. The Hibachi chef was friendly and did a few cooking tricks which always amuses me! One of the staff members even took a photo of us and gave it to me to have as a keepsake for my anniversary! Now that was simply unforgettable.

Not quite what it used to be. But still entertaining for the kids. All and all an ok family meal.

You Know This Place Could Be Better If Especially You’re Coming When You’re Hungry. Right? You Come Starving, And There’s A 40 Min Wait, By The Time They Start Cooking, You’ve Already Have Eating Up All The Vegetable and Fried Rice. Before The Main Meal Comes… I Like To Eat Everything As A Whole Meal, You Enjoy The Meal Better. 2) You Bring People Because The Food Is Delicious, But They’re Starving And Can’t Wait 40 Mins!!! Its Hard To Refer Anyone To A Nice Place, To Eat Because The Food Is Great! But A Long Waiting Time To Eat! The Cooks Their Are Great, and Very Appreciative. Without Them IDK Where Benihanna’s Will Be! When You Come To This Place, Make Sure You Had Little Something In Your Belly 1^st. Benihanna’s Make Sure You Guys Get Your Act Together, And Listen To People Instead Of Giving A Cold Shoulder.

This place is the worst waited 40mi for cook by the time he finished had plate of chicken chunks no rice cause I was starving absolutely the worst!!!

Good looking receptionist, but they don’t understand how to put in a reservation. Now I’m heading to another restaurant, The end.

My party and I were seated right on time which was awesome. We received our drinks rather quickly and we didn’t have to wait long for our chef to arrive. The food was delicious and so was the service which makes me definitely want to return. The only reason I don’t give Benihana 5 stars is because my drinks were fairly watered down. I ordered a Benihana punch and there really wasn’t any «punch» to it. If I’m paying for a drink, I’d like to taste some alcohol and not have to wonder if my drink was mistaken for a virgin beverage. I was also told that I could not order my drink inside of a souvenir mug anymore. My drink and souvenir mug would have to be separate so that was a bummer considering I wanted to sip my drink from a mug that evening. Overall, Benihana is a great spot. My party and I enjoyed ourselves and would return again.
Benihana, please let your guests drink their beverages in the souvenir mugs again. It makes the experience at dinner a bit more fun!

Came to this place twice and sadly the the customer service and the order in how they operate and take reservation is horrible. I’ve ate at many Benihana in different cites and the service is exceptional. However the one is not even worth one star. The receptionist that greet you has bad breath and horrible customer service. I wouldn’t recommend this location to any one. Unfortunate I have to rate it for one star in order to post my review.

The place is always clean and all the staff are welcoming and friendly. Most importantly is a great place for any age (especially the kids). You have a choice if you want to sit down by the hibachi grill or not. We love the hibachi grill and see how they prepare our food (you get a show and meal). If you plan on going in as a group MAKE RESERVATION.

Walked in 4:30PM Wed night. Despite being empty wasn’t acknowledged.
Finally got hostess attention. Sat at bar with no menu, no bartender for a good while until the hostess noticed my glare and found the bartender.
She assured me he will be out. I inquire about happy hour she’s clueless.
Bartender comes out like like a Johnny Depp meets Asian hipster with an attitude.
He begrudgingly throws me the drink menu and blurts out «happy hour stuffs on there»
I ask about red wine and he squints, and looks as if I offended his dog.
He wipes clean the glass with a damp cloth that made it look filthy.
(Pretty sure I’ll have herpes tomorrow)
All this was pleasant compared with trying to engage this guy in conversation!!!
Why be a bartender if you can’t chat up middle aged woman an an empty bar??!
He tried a little but seemed as if he would rather lick the floor clean then be there.
I’m not hideous of unpleasant to chat with. I swear!!! Because I had time to kill and a bad day I stayed for 3 drinks! And gotta tell you despite my buzz he didn’t get anymore fun/​pleasant /​engaging/​charming .
When I inquired about food items ie: «what apps do you have that are fried»
His response «uhhhhhhhhhh»
Me: «ok I’ll have the California rolls»
Him: «That’s not even fried»
No shit! I asked for your assistance with the menu and you were rude/​clueless /​unhelpful.
Here’s the BEST part!!! He kept ALL THE CHANGE when I paid my bill out allowing himself a generous 2O% tip! NEVER do that servers/​bartenders !!
Never assume the tip !! You will 99% of the time get it! But don’t take my money and give yourself a tip and ask «oh you wanted change?» Uhhhhh yeah !!!
and such a GENEROUS one when you are so unpleasant!
Really bad!
The vibe in the restaurant overall sucks too. If you go in when they are busy (which I have) be prepared for a long wait for service … Come in when it’s slow (like I did on this review) and be prepared to overhear wait staff bitching about the bartender not stocking the bar, not cutting lemons, and basically talking smack at the end of the bar. So be prepared to feel like you’re invisible.
Staff should speak appropriately if there are 1 or 1000 guests in the restaurant.
One of the WORST experiences I’ve ever had out. I’ve worked in restaurants as a server for many years. I know it can be demanding work. So I’m not a princess sitting here writing this.
This place SUCKS. I read some of the reviews. (mostly bad) the management has the nerve to respond to bad reviews with a promise they are trying harder and a request to return back!
Worst. Restaurant. Ever.

Food was decent but the service was terrible. The chef didn’t come for an hour after we sat down. Over heard the waitress saying she didn’t want our table. We will not revisit!

Great restaurant to go with kids
But don’t recommend for weekend dinner, minimum waiting 45min even though you have reservation.
This is not the best quality food, but its fun enough to visit with kids for a few times.

I’m hanging out with family at the hospital around the corner this week. We were looking for a place to eat and we spotted Benihana last night.
I ordered a sushi and sashimi dinner; my stepdad had the hibachi steak. He liked the steak… the portion wasn’t huge like some other places, but it was fine since we couldn’t do leftovers.
The sushi wasn’t very good; a few pieces were passable… others were mediocre and one piece was downright nasty. I had to spit it out.
The bathroom really turned me off big time… it was filthy. I didn’t use it… but I did wash my hands… and didn’t touch anything else.
Disappointing…this place used to be pretty good.

Came here for lunch with family and it was absolutely painful sitting through the meal. The chef/​cook must have been new bc he had no clue what he was doing. He confirmed our order 3 times, overcooked the rice and vegetables, and it took forever; almost 1 hr and 45 min. He served everything one by one, so by the time you finish vegetables, you had to wait for rice, and when you’re done with rice, you wait for your entrée.
The place is definitely old and not taken care of well. People are nice, too bad that’s the only thing going for them.
As for their secret seasoning… it’s garlic butter and a lot of it. It’s probably about a stick of butter per person for each meal. They use butter to mask the lack of skill.

This location left much to be desired. I’ve been to numerous Benihana locations, our experience here was by far the worst one.
I made a reservation for 7:30 for 3 to celebrate a work promotion. We arrived at 7:30, we were told it would be ¹⁰⁄₁₅ mins. We opted to start at the bar with drinks, the bar was overfilled with other guest waiting. We sat at a nearby table, a waitress apprehensively approached us and told us we couldn’t just have drinks in the lounge, we «have to order.» Since we were waiting for a hibachi table that wasn’t possible…
Our name was called we were sat with 2 other parties. After waiting about 10 mins our server arrived and took our drink orders.
5 mins later returned back with soup
7 mins later returned with drinks
We ordered a sushi roll
3 mins later salads arrived
you caught my drift…
All of this could have been forgiven had or chef had any resemblance of a personality. Won’t be back to this location anytime soon.

I have patronized this resteraunt for at least 6 years. I usually go to the Westbury location because there’s better service. However, as my birthday is approaching my grandma wanted to take me somewhere on Sunday so we went here.
Firstly, we had a reservation and had to wait which was OK because I understand places get busy. We sat at a table with a larger party than us we were three and they must have been 6 or 7. One of the women in that party was a vegetarian Anda health fanatic. She didn’t want any sauce, butter or salt on any of her food. However, we definitely wanted butter and sauce. I specifically told this to the chef who nodded his head.
The woman kept making it a big deal that he was putting butter on the table that her meal is being cooked on so the chef completely disregarded my request and did things the way she wanted it. Why was that? I’m assuming because their party was larger and he would be getting a bigger tip than from our party.
Secondly, the service was terrible. The waitress we had took 20 minutes to come take our drink order and then 10 minutes to bring back 2 cokes and a water. When the salad came out mine didn’t have dressing so I asked for some. It NEVER came. When they took the soup order we were asked to chose between miso and onion we all chose miso. Somehow, we ended up with two onion soups and a miso. When I told the waitress she nodded and smiled like she was going to replace it and again, it NEVER came.
The food took 1 hour before we were able to eat. It was cold at that time and it didn’t taste good because it wasn’t cooked how we requested which was not a special request we just wanted the food to be cooked normally.
Lastly, my mother decided she couldn’t take it anymore and went to speak with the manager. To my surprise, that was a big waste. The manager was simply staring us in our faces and not being understanding. In fact, he argued against us that we didn’t know what we ordered which was insulting to me as I have been a patron of benihanas for many years and have tried almost everything on the menu multiple times. He did absolutely nothing for us aside from say OK we will re cook the rice for you which was NOT the problem. He Was Arrogant And NOT underatanding.
To put the icing on the cake, there were too birthdays on the table mine and someone else from the other party and the waitress was aware. However, she only brought out a cake and sang to the other individual.
I will personally never come back to this location. It was the worse service and a waste of my money as I didn’t get what I paid for. I’m disgusted by the way I was treated and wish I could give zero stars for this visit. Unfortunately, Unilocal won’t allow me to do that.
I think the employees here needs to be retrained on what customer service means and also understand that customers come first regardless of who is paying more. In fact, I felt as though we may have been treated this way because we weren’t your average white customers. I’m very light and so is my mom but my grandmother is dark. Hey you never know but that will be my last visit here.

Never really had any trouble at this location or restaurant. The décor is the same as any other Beni’s you’ve been to. The only downside is that it is a little dated. I wish there wasn’t carpet in some areas.
The waiters are very attentive and the chef listens to all your little modifications of the meat or rice.
It’s never too busy at this location, so the waiting time is never too long.
I usually get the regular fried rice and I make it spicy, if you like spicy as them to add the spicy teriyaki sauce to your rice. It’s everything! I don’t really care for the chicken or steak or fish that much. I can just eat 2 bowls of the rice and be fine with it. I once order that giant blue drink. I don’t care for it.
All in all, I’d come back to this location or any other!

Came in during lunch with the girls from work and we sat at a table. We wouldve liked to do hibachi but were on a bit of a time crunch to get back to work!
I decided to order the lunch boat… It literally came on its own wooden boat! For $ 11 you get a lot of bang for your buck!
I ordered the salmon lunch boat. It came with about a 3oz piece of glazed salmon. Served cold. I choose the miso soup. It also came with their salad. The salad was nice and crispy lettuce and that amazing carrot ginger dressing. A cute little bowl of edamame came on the side.
I wish you had a choice of sushi. Its just california roll. There is also two pieces of sashimi. The vegetable and shrimp tempura was good Not soggy. I liked the way they cut the orange up. It really had some nice knife skills.
All the food came out fairy quick and we were in and out in about 40 mins!