Iron Chef

WOW I can’t believe Iron Chef has so many bad reviews, my husband and I LOVE this place! We had our first date here and now that we’re old married folk with kids we order take-​out regularly. The food is awesome! Don’t let the poor reviews scare you away!

This place has the best sushi I’ve ever had — anywhere! I’ve tried tons of sushi places statewide, and this place by far takes the cake! It’s always fresh, beautiful, and delicious. The service is always good, too — and the restaurant itself is beautiful.

Haven’t been to this place in a while and I really wish I didn’t waste my time. They messed up my order and were rude on the phone. I’m sticking to Tokyo II in North Have from now on.

Love the sushi at Iron Chef. As a kid, I had a Japanese step mother, so I’ve been eating sushi since I was about 7 and have tried it all over. When my now husband, brought me here 5 years ago, claiming it was the best sushi, I had to see for myself. It was so very delicious. I was really impressed. I believe the fish comes in on Tuesday or Wednesday, so that’s the best day to go bc it’s that much more fresh. Atmosphere is your typical Japanese restaurant and the service is pretty good. Definitely a place you want to try out.

We have been here many time and things have been good. But i mist confess that today was terrible. Service was non existent. Our salad was never delivered and our soup was delivered to the wrong table. And the evening seemed to last forever. Wont be back.

This is the first time coming to the restaurant — my family made a reservation for hibachi for my birthday. Things started off pretty well, we ordered some drinks and some rolls to try before getting into the actual hibachi dinner. The scorpion bowls were tasty and the rolls we ordered were pretty awesome.
The 6 of us ordered our hibachi meals and I also ordered some sashimi. Some time later the hibachi chef appears and I remind our waiter of the sashimi order. It seemed like he had forgotten but that he was going to put that in. So now it’s time for the show… which was mediocre compared to other hibachi places I’ve been. The chef was pretty liberal with the sake so I will give him points for that, and the balloon hat was cute and different from other places I’d been. Near the end of his cooking I mentioned I could use some more water, which he called out to the other servers. About 20 min later he’s cleaning up and I still have no water or sashimi. I ask for water again and finally someone comes by with it. At this point I figure they forgot about the sashimi, we had all eaten our fill, so I simply say to one of my party members that they forgot so just make sure they don’t add it to the bill, not really a big deal.
Now we are waiting for them to come back to do the free birthday dessert. It seemed like they must have heard my comment because all of a sudden the sashimi appears. This leads me to become kind of annoyed at the service… and then this happens which really made me drop the stars:
The woman server let’s me know I get a free tempura ice cream for my birthday. I say, «with banana right? ««No only ice cream» «But your website says tempura banana with fried ice cream on your birthday ««I will have to check with the manager». I of course know I’m right (and will include a screen shot with this review) so order a tempura ice cream and banana, regular ice cream, and the lava cake for everyone to share. They come out with 2 fried ice creams instead of one tempura one regular, and the piece of lava cake is miniscule. These were really more annoyances, nothing actually angering. I didn’t even say anything to them about the incorrect order because at this point everyone just wants to get home. We get the bill, a few hundred dollars spent between the 6 of us, and… you guessed it… they charged us for the tempura banana with tempura ice cream even tho it clearly says that this is free if you celebrate your birthday there. Apparently even if you’re a good customer, they still can’t honor their commitments.
All in all I don’t think I will go back even for the sushi. There are definitely better options in the area where you will get better service with high quality food.

One of the best finds in Wallingford. Service is great, the place is cool, and they have the best Sushi and Japanese food around including New Haven. Keep up the great job!

Completely average! I have been to alot of hibachis in CT and this one set the bar at a new low. When you spend 20 dollars on chicken and vegetables it better be amazing! Everything here was average not worth the money!

I would give 0 stars if possible! Went there for sushi last night. used to have a great rep so we figured why not. We waited FIFTY MINUTES to get our sushi… my boyfriend got a sushi star which are good sized pieces of fish and last night they were tiny!!! The waitress seemed to avoid us the whole night and we heard multiple people say they were hungry and wondering where their food was. On our way out, at 9pm, there was a woman standing there complaining of waiting since 7:45. incredibly bad service. will never go back.

I’ve been here a few times but tonight was the best experience. I got to sit right in front of the sushi bar while my dad ordered sushi and I got hibachi chicken. There is this sauce called yum yum sauce and at first they didn’t know what it was but apparently up here they call it seafood sauce (it tastes so good with rice and chicken). While sitting in front of the sushi, the prepper gave my dad a plate of octopus and mackerel for free! He really enjoyed that. The wait staff is very good despite the language barrier

This is one of our favorite places to eat in Wallingford. Great service. We love the Tom Young soup and my very favorite is the seasonal salad. The food is always great. It is a very calming atmosphere. The rolls are great too and the prices are very reasonable

Love the sushi, but the service needs to get better. Some of the best sushi I’ve had. However, often times the service is slow and inattentive.

I’ve been going to Iron Chef for going on at least 8 years. The food is good, even with the menu changes, etc. The service has always been quick, but never friendly per se. No worries. I can deal with it if they aren’t rude, and they’re quick. However, why I’m reviewing with 2 stars is due to an experience this New Years. I made reservations for Hibachi (which I’ve never actually sat down for at Iron Chef) at 8. I came in the door and the hostess greeted me and when I said I had reservations, she interrupted me and told me to hold on. She was taking phone orders and ringing people out. Normally when I go to Iron Chef there are like 15 waiters, this time I saw about 5. The hostess ignored me for 15 minutes while taking about 5 takeout orders. Finally I went up to her and she said oh! Your table right. I’ll go check. Ten minutes later she finally comes back, ignores me again and walks to her post. By this time the lobby was filling up including a party of 13 with reservations for 8pm also. Finally, she comes back, after ringing some tables out, and seats us. We saw a waitress once and waited an hour for the hibachi chef to arrive. By this time we had been waiting for an hour and a half in total, normally I would have ordered, eaten, paid and left within an hour. I kept picturing Gordon Ramsey’s face from Kitchen Nightmares while I waited. Finally our soup and salads came. I looked around at that point and realized that there were only two hibachi chefs on New Years Eve for 8 hibachi tables. No wonder it was taking forever! I expected a good show, but the poor guy was so tired, he hardly said anything, dropped his spatulas while trying to do tricks, dropped the eggs while trying to do tricks, and when he squirted sake he ended up squirting it all over people rather than just in their mouths, me included. Almost everyone at our table ordered filet mignon and they ran out before our orders were put in. We all asked for our steaks medium rare, the poor guy cooked them medium. While the food was decent, I will never go back for hibachi. I was planning on having my stepdaughter’s 16^th birthday there, but we will go somewhere else. They really should have had many more people on staff that night, and should have comped drinks or something for all of the customers waiting. For three of us, the bill came to $ 120. My brother in law had two beers and sake, and my husband and I just had cokes. With food, drinks and tip, that’s $ 40 a person! Not worth it. I’m not trying to be mean, but I worked in Food service for many years, and service like this would have been unacceptable. Iron Chef needs to think about their service standards because their poor service and prices will inevitably cause them to shut down. This is coming from a loyal Iron Chef customer who is now thinking of attempting to go back to sakamura even though I don’t like them as much. It’s too bad.
Update today’s January 14^th-​ordered takeout. We waited two hours for our takeout on a Sunday night. We placed our order and came to pick it up 45 minutes later. I had been waiting in the car for like 20 mins and my husband finally came out and said, «its still not ready and they’re giving me the runaround along with everyone else here and they won’t give me my money back.» I got out of the car and went inside. Waited another ten minutes and asked how long it would be and was told it’s coming right out. I waited another ten minutes and told the waitress I wanted my money back and was going to leave. Why they charge you before you get the food is beyond me. That’s not how it should work. So I went back and forth with the waitresses who said it was busy it was raining etv. I told them I was sorry for them, but I didn’t care. I asked for it back immediately. They refunded 20% and said the manager was bringing our food right out. Five minutes later a man scuttled out gave my husband the food and ran off. I asked if that was the manager and they said yes. Really? No apologies and he couldn’t even look at us. I will never go back there again after 8 years of going to the restaurant and the last 6 – 7 times of crappy service, they have lost our business.
Get it together, Iron Chef!

I am updating my previous review–
The first time we went… not so great. Tonight– wonderful! We went for dinner and our waitress was attentive, friendly and very polite. She made sure to refill our drinks multiple times, stopped by to see if we were doing well, and it looks like the owner really went out of their way to better train their servers. The owner /​manager sent me a message due to my last review and I was happy to see that he/​she reads Unilocal and is concerned about their business. Everything we ordered (including the AMAZING chicken lettuce wraps) was so delicious. I would definitely go back… it looks like the first time was just a bad day.

I would give this place zero starts if possible. I have NEVER had the level of «service» in an establishment as I did here.
I work right up the street. Was in the mood for sushi so figured I’d drop in at lunch. I pull in… Open sign is on and blinking. I walk in… Get ready for it…
A girl is SLEEPING ON THE BAR! not near the bar… Not close to the bar. ON the bar. RIGHT when you walk in. All of the lights inside were turned off. You can’t tell from the outside the way the place is set up.
The girl «woke up» and turned her head to me.
Didn’t get up. Just tilted her head and stated «were closed til 430»… I kindly asked. «Oh well the door was open and I’ve heard great things… I’d love to place an order and grab some lunch». «Are you sure you wouldn’t like to take my money».
She replied «no we closed til 430 come back later», and she continued to put her head back down to go back to sleep.
As I walked out I told her to enjoy her nap and let the owner know he lost a customer in me. And I’m sure customers from my place of employment.
She didn’t seem phased at all
This place will forever be on my «no go» list.

We frequent Iron Chef about twice a month and always have an excellent hibachi meal. Our service is always friendly and the owner is hands on, always checking to see how our meal and service is. We recently met 2 other couples for a night out and chose Iron Chef — everyone commented that their food was delicious and that they would return. I highly recommend Iron Chef to others looking for a quality dining experience.

I would give 2 ½ stars since the sushi is very fresh. However, the rolls are small and the sushi rice has no flavor. Actually much of what I ate had little flavor. This was the first time in a while eating in. Took out last week. Same result. We had seaweed salad to start and it’s the same one you get everywhere but his was about 2 degrees away from being frozen. Many other choices in the area.

Don’t get me wrong, the food is great and the chefs really make for a great time.
But the service sucks so bad I will never go back. The waitstaff literally rushes you out from the second you sit down. Guard your plates cause they will be removed even if you are still eating.
The male waiter in particular is the reason I will never dine here again. He is a prick, and I’m sure has lost more business than just mine.
Saki Mura is up the road, do yourself the favor.

SUSHI was very fresh and tasty. Loved the variety of rolls. Had a tuna martini appetizer that was delicious and artfully presented in a martini glass. Cold sake was good too, as were the mai tais! Service was ok, a little slow at times even though it wasn’t crowded and our waiter didn’t come by much or offer us more drinks, however the food was so good that I was able to get past that! Dessert was wonderful! I had a piece of cheesecake that was very creamy and not too sweet, just delicious!

Good choice for special rolls, and not terribly expensive. I was there at off peak hours, but the service was efficient and friendly, and the sushi was fresh.
Worth going again!