Shinto Japanese Steakhouse & Sushi Lounge

Have been coming here for a bit and I really liked the food and wait staff. However, my partner and I stopped in for happy hour and were told they couldn’t serve us until 5 (which is when I was told happy hour was over). Then I saw some people who were waiting only 5 more minutes more than us be seated…with happy hour menus. We got there at 4:40pm. Kinda soured our experiences here. I guess I won’t be rushing to make it for happy hour here anymore :(

I had the Chirashi Bowl- the bowl itself was great and had a nice balance of ingredients. While the salad was fine, the miso soup that it came with was a little salty.

Was thoroughly disappointed with the customer service. While ordering a shrimp + steak combo, they asked which steak we wanted. We asked what they recommended and went with their recommendation. We were then surprised to see the bill as this different steak had a $10 upcharge for each combo (this was not shared by our server). Not very fair to recommend upgrades without sharing the extra cost. When we tried to use a coupon and gift cards, they told us we couldn't use both, even if we had two separate checks. Food is okay, but not worth spending more than $60 each. Will not be going back after that disappointing experience.

Upon our arrival we were joyfully greeted by hostess and she knew my name immediately when I said we had reservations for 3 at 8p. Since she knew my name without me saying it, I presumed she was the person that I made reservations with on the phone. She said it was actually her coworker, standing next to her, that I had spoken to. I thanked her for making the reservation. They told us to wait by the tropical fish aquarium until our table was available. It bears mentioning, that the aquarium in the past was kept very clean. On this day the tank smelled very bad and the water was a bit murky. As I'm a tropical fish hobbyist myself, I could see that there were very small babies in the tank which was possibly why they had not done a deep clean. Here is where it starts to get interesting. While waiting about 10 minutes at the aquarium for our table, a group of 3 people came in who appeared to not have reservations based on conversation I overheard. However they were taken to a Hibachi table within 1 minute. A few minutes later the hostess that I initially made reservations with, took us to our table. We sat down and got our menus and she said someone would be with us shortly to take our drink order. We could see another table that had a group of 3 people that arrived after us, were sitting by themselves reviewing the menu. Within a couple of minutes the hostess came back to our table, apologizes and tells us the table is broken and we will need to move to another table. I thought it was strange that she even offered to get her manager in case we were upset. We said no need for a manager especially since the table is broken. She promptly guided us to another table where another group of 4 were at. We were not sitting for no more than 1 minute, when we noticed a party of 5 were being sat at our original table that was so-called broken. Our waitress comes to our new table to take our drink order and acknowledged she witnessed us moving tables earlier. She offered us discount on our meal which I appreciated. We did let know her know that we were disappointed that we were unnecessarily told a "tale" about table being broken in order for us to move tables. Fast forward our hibachi chef arrives at the table and reviews orders with each individual at our table. As my wife normally does, she explains that she wants extra garlic butter and lemon on her entrée while it is being cooked. The chef tells us that we need to request lemons from our waitress and he "does not have lemons" available for food preparations. At our request our waitress does bring us some garnish styled lemon wedges in a bowl with ice. As the chef is preparing the entrees he must have discovered he has lemon halves in his cart that he starts using for food preparation. The chef glares at me presuming he can see the look of bewilderment on my face of him having lemons and me pointing at the lemons to my wife. While the food is still cooking he asked how many extra garnish style lemon wedges she wants used on her food. She said just a few. Then he acts as if he does not understand what she was asking for based his facial expression and how he was gesturing his hands. So I say in his presumed primary language that she wanted 4. He appeared to then get frustrated with my response because he starts taking the 4 garnish wedges one by one flicking ice from the bowl onto my plate and on the table. Although it was not necessary, our waitress had discounted our entire bill which again I truly appreciated. We explained in detail to her that it was truly a very disappointing experience. Although the food was not the best of quality and taste as we have received numerous times before from Shinto, we still left a very nice tip on the bill. We can only wish that the tip would not to be shared with chef or the hostess that told the tale about the table being broken. If this was our first experience here, we would never step foot in this establishment ever again nor would we patronage them again with their food delivery services.

Such a great experience! Food was delicious, server and chef were very kind and helpful. They were knowledgeable and accommodating to my gluten free diet.

Great experience, food and awesome staff