Sakura Japanese Steak House and Sushi

I have been here a few times. I don’t know why I keep trying.
Service: during lunch it is slow. They are not busy but I have no idea why it can be snail paced slow. Dinner hibachi was fine. The waiter was excellent. The chef was nice but nothing spectacular. The manager is irritating. It feels like he didn’t even care if anyone came back or not. I accidentally bought a groupon and gave me the hardest time for using it because we didn’t make reservations. I admit I didn’t see that in the fine print but I have bought plenty of groupons from various vendors and haven’t ever had to do such before. The waiter tried to explain that it was because its only for Sunday through Thursday. No weekends. That’s fine but I am here on Thursday and obviously you are not busy. There was only 8 customers in the entire place.
Food: I really like the bento box lunch and the sushi is fairly fresh. I think they gave up on the Chinese food side of things since it wasn’t very good. It was greasy and didn’t taste quite right (go to east lake if you want authentic Chinese food, seriously it’s up the street one mile). Hibachi was very good but how can one screw up hibachi (don’t answer that).
Please only go to eat bento lunch if you have to go at all.
Décor: it’s weird. Huge water fountain in the back which my son loves and some fish tanks.
Overall: don’t go. Just save yourself the hassle. With the groupon, they even automatically put 18% tip for just two people… Sigh. They should have put that in the fine print. If you want Asian food go across the street for everything that’s better than this.

Made a reservation for 7:30, was seated at 8, wasn’t waited on til 8:30. Waited at the bar to be seated, we were the only ones there and it took 10 mins for someone to show up and give us a drink. They ran out of salad which is included in the meal. The food was overcooked right in front of us, I literally got to watch them burn my chicken. This placed was very understaffed for a Friday night. They need more cooks so people aren’t waiting around all night for dinner. If you make a reservation, do it 2 hours before you want to eat. Asked for the manager twice, was told he was put back smoking a cigarette, shouldn’t you be more worried about the business you’re driving away? Finally got hold of him, explained everything and he offered 20% off. Also received a card for 20% off our next visit (up for grabs). They also charge you 18% gratituity for groupon users which wasn’t stated in the groupon. ¹⁰⁄₁₀ would not go back. But good for them for trying. Decided to stick to Kyoto.

It’s really slow. We waited for more than 1.5 hours. Last time we had nigiri and it had fish bone in it.

Horrible service. If you use a groupon they will charge you 18% on the full bill. Read the last 3 reviews in the last months and it sums up our experience. We will never go back.

I’ve been to a lot of hibachi restaurants and Sakura was by far the worst experience. My wife and I decided to try a new place the day before Thanksgiving 2015, and Sakura had a coupon in a local ad that brought us in. My initial impression upon arrival was good. After being seated I looked around and only a few hibachi’s were occupied, the rest of the restaurant was pretty much empty. I thought to myself hey at least we should receive fast and friendly service. Unfortunately that wasn’t the case as things went downhill quickly. The waitress took way too long to take our water order and even longer to deliver our waters. The chef arrived talking a mile a minute, nearly impossible to understand.
So the chef begins his routine, which was very sloppy; dropping utensils, breaking an egg doing a trick, food flying everywhere. Normally its funny and entertaining but this chef appeared to have one too many saki’s beforehand. I ordered filet (rare) and chicken hibachi. The guy next to me orders his steak well done, and my wife orders chicken and shrimp. He mixed up several orders at the table, forgot my wifes shrimp and my chicken was given to another person who didnt order chicken. The steak was put on my plate as «steak well done» from the chef. Once again he screwed up an order. Everyone else had food, and here I am waiting as a new raw piece of chicken and steak are brought out. At least they fixed there mistake, but by then I was annoyed and ready to leave.
The bill came and I placed my credit card in the book and waited for someone, anyone to pick up our check. 10 minutes go by, nobody but us in the restaurant, and 2 female employees are having a conversation with each other near the bar. I had to walk up and hand my credit card and receipt to our waitress. No apology, nothing!
Stay away from this place! Absolute disgrace, and I won’t be surprised to see them out of business in the near future.

The place was clean and not crowded on a Sunday. The chef was very efficient and the food was flowing very quickly. I can definitely say the food is wayyy better than other hibachi places and my kids both agree! My 7-​year old managed to finish her filet mignon and it was a good size! We are definitely coming back.

Ordered carry out for the first time from Sakura and was impressed with everything we had! The sushi was very fresh and tasty, the seaweed salad was good and the hibachi shrimp was good. Loved the hibachi noodles and the chicken fried rice. Will definitely be ordering from here again or coming in and eating at the hibachi grill!

Stay away if you want entertainment. If you go for good food at a normal price you’d like it.
I went on a Saturday night and the fact it was so dead in the hibachi area should have been a huge sign to not bother with it.
There’s probably about 8 – 10 stations and only 2 were filled and my group of 3 was sat with another couple. It took us 10 minutes to get anything to drink and took a good half hour to 45 minutes to even get a cook. Our cook was terrible. In my opinion hibachi should be interactive and fun and there was none of that. No tricks no conversation the only interaction we had with him is when I politely declined shrimp because I don’t like it and he pretended to spray a bottle in my face. I’ve been to hibachi at all different places and they usually do some funny way of throwing eggs around and throwing things in their hat, there was none of that.
I had to ask for water more than once because the guy who was filling the waters would disappear and never come back.
Also we had the 20% off valpak coupon. No where on the coupon did it say one per table or group. So the three of us decided to split our bill and just use the coupon. We were told we couldn’t do this and it would only be able to be applied to one of us. We decided not to argue or have them put all of us together and pay with 3 different cards.
I won’t go back. There’s better entertainment with the same quality food at different places.

Deserted on a Sunday night. Great service. I got sushi, which was delicious and beautifully presented. Highly recommend.

I have been here at least three times and the service has always been very quick. The staff is courteous as well. The food is good. I prefer it over the commercial places like Benihana. You get quite a bit of food for a very low price. They actually give you noodles and rice with your entrée. I would recommend the steak and lobster. The regular strip and filet are good. It can get a little drafty depending on where you sit but that’s a minor detail. There is a nice waterfall in the back that is calming to listen to as you eat. I would definitely recommend eating here.

No no no no no no no.
Very expensive, poor service, not great food.
It’s part of the great Chinezation of Japanese food in America.
Just really…
No no no no no no no.
Do you want really delicious Japanese food made by Japanese people and served by Japanese people that tastes like Japanese food? Go to Benihana’s a few miles away.
Goodness no…

We love this place for hibachi. Right now it doesn’t seem to do a ton of business, which is great for us because we can always walk right in – but we want it to stay around so hopefully more review will help it stay in business.
4 stars instead of 5 because the wait staff can be inconsistent. For example, we asked for chopsticks and never got them one night. But the hibachi chefs are always great.
Come here!

Sakura definitely saved the day today for a friend and myself. We went to Kruse and Muer for Troy Restaurant Week — I had called to make sure they were serving TRW lunch today, the first day of TRW, and they said yes — only to find out they in fact, were NOT serving TRW until dinner. Most of the restaurants doing TRW usually don’t serve Sunday lunch, also. I remembered Sakura was good last year, so we went there instead.
I was pleasantly surprised to see they were doing the TRW menu, although it was the dinner menu all day ($ 20, vs. $ 35 at most of the TRW places, though). We had SO much food and I definitely have enough for lunch tomorrow.
You get to choose from:
–soup or salad — but they actually brought us both. Love the ginger dressing on the salad, too, although it was a whitish color which was interesting; I’ve only ever seen it as an orangey/​brown one.
–appetizer — my friend got edamame and I got the California roll, even though I’m not a huge sushi person. Mine was very good though.
–choice of two meats for hibachi — I chose steak and chicken. You also get a few shrimp with it too but we declined that, since neither of us like shrimp.
–dessert: ice cream (green tea ice cream! interesting) or mango cake. I chose the cake.
Presentation was perfect, service was great (my water glass was always full), and it was a very pleasant lunch. I don’t doubt that Kruse would have been too, but they really dropped the ball (AGAIN … for my 1^st time there they did too) so I’m glad we ended up at Sakura.
I want to go back for hibachi lunch sometime during the week too, they do like an $ 8 – 10 special I believe. I’ve been to Shogun and I *think* Benihana (would’ve been a while ago, though) and Sakura is just as good as those, if not better — I think the value at Sakura is better than both, though.
Thanks, Sakura, for a great meal! Yum. Good way to start off TRW, too.

Restaurant seems to be spreading itself too thin with sushi, hibachi, and Chinese food offerings. I’ve tried a few of the Chinese dishes, and while they were all good/​authentic, the restaurant is grossly overpriced. However, one unique thing is that they have Peking Duck here, which is a rare find in the metro Detroit area. As good as it is, at $ 45 for duck served 2 ways, I’m questioning if it was really worth it.

They messaged me saying they must have been busy that night. I have to say they weren’t busy at all which was why it was so shocking. Hopefully in time they will improve the customer service.
I have no negative comments about the food, just re service.

it was mediocre.
service, food and the place.
They were out of some sushi ingredients which prevented us from eating the choices we wanted. Not a big deal I suppose but worth mentioning.
The sushi itself was meh. It was good but nothing more. Same with green tea, I had better.
Overall I cannot complain about my experience, but it was very average. I wouldn’t come back or recommend

My daughter always takes me to her local Hibachi in Arkansas, So I was more than ready to try this Troy Restaurant Week deal for $ 12
Walked in as soon as they opened at 11 am, they were not quite ready for customers, so waited in the bar area for a few.
Shortly thereafter, they sat us at a hibachi grill, and took our orders, they proudly showed off the trw menu & did not make you feel guilty about it, the owner even stopped by & shared how new the place is & how he is using trw as a promotion .
The $ 12 Hibachi deal :
Chicken, steak, shrimp, calamari or salmon
clear broth soup
ginger salad
rice
grilled veggies
Coke or Hot tea
and 1 or 4 appetizers & sauce to select from.
I broadened my limited palate & tried Gyoza, pan fried
Oh my it was like a Asian pierogi & loaded with flavor, lightly browned 4 of them & a spicey –sweet dipping sauce
I ordered Hiabachi Steak, medium rare, chef Randy grilled it & the veggies perfectly
Chicken Fried Rice was a $ 1 upgrade & worth it, I think
as the 4 of us at our table all had the same rice off of the grill, but I supposedly had the chicken friend rice upgrade? I still do not know
My friend encouraged trying the ginger salad, so glad I did, it was a nice change & oh so fresh.
The former DSW has been very nicely transformed inside to a nice looking place, hopefully the exterior is soon to follow.
So why 3 stars
1.Our server took my soup away & I wasn’t finished with it, I asked her to return it, she never ever did.
2. I’m being kind
I’m all for a very clean looking & presentable restaurant
HOWEVER
as you opened the doors & entered Sakura you could smell that someone went heavy with the $ 1 store Fabulouso floor cleaner, to the point it was a distraction & my shoes still have that smell 5 hours later

Came here for Troy restaurant week with one of my favorite Unilocalers, Ron C! At $ 12 a person we couldn’t pass up the deal!
We got:
tea/​soda, gyoza, shuami, onion mushroom soup, ginger salad and he had steak while I opted for shrimp hibachi with mixed veggies and chicken fried rice!
Everything we ordered was great! We snacked off each other and I have to say I preferred his gyoza over my shuami because of the crispy texture! While the flavors were spot on for both mine was a little too soft (steamed) but tasty none the less! Soup was great and the salad was too, but the dressing wasn’t your traditional ginger dressing. It was sweeter and creamy– not bad at all though just different! (Forgot to take a pic of the salad :()
Randy was our chef and had a rocky start (dropped his utensils when doing tricks) but he was fun and made the food as requested! The smell of that place was amazing as is with any other hibachi joint!
The portions were generous, the price was right, food tasted great and I had great company! The only thing they need to work on is the rice. It was rather boring :/​
I would highly recommend this place over nasty Benihana!

Went for a birthday celebration. It was fun at the Grill. Our chef was pushing his limits, making a few drops along the way, but that made it fun. The long toss to customers to catch with their mouths was a crowd favorite.
The filet is strongly recommended over the steak. The shrimp was good. Plenty to eat.

Tip: They have 20% coupons running in the Troy Times newspaper.
Just went back to this place with my niece and nephew (8 years old) and felt compelled to update my original review. I definitely noticed that our chef seemed to ramp up the showmanship with kids in the audience. Again, they brought the fire and added some new tricks that I had not seen either in years or ever. Some were successful, like a gag doll that peed out the flames, some nifty egg balancing on a spatula, and flaming shrimp racing across the table. Some were not so successful, like when the chef ended the night by trying to juggled these wooden mallets. He dropped one and it nearly ended up in my nephews lap. Again, the meal was good and they actually added some teriyaki fried noodles to the dishes everyone gets, which I enjoyed.
Along with the added tricks, I notice our chef kept having little mistakes here and there. This is to be expected, but the lawyer in me kept thinking of potential accidents and lawsuits. Furthermore, there was an incident at the table next to me where a young child was hit or nearly hit with a utensil To be clear, I did not see it, I just saw the baby crying afterword. However, my wife swears she saw the child get hit. All I know is that he cried for at least 5 – 10 minutes after the incident.
In sum, this place is certainly amping up the thrills, but seeing some of the mistakes also makes me realize why places like Benihana have dialed down some of the tricks. Also, this place has particularly small tables, so the room for error is much smaller. Here’s hoping that performances get a bit more crisp.