Venus L.
Yelp
Came here yesterday with a friend. It was only early and relatively quiet, since it was a Thursday night. Their menu is HUGE, and includes photos of a good portion of the food, which is helpful.
The sea urchin was super fresh and buttery. The sushi boat is only $65 even if you selected what you wanted from the available items. I was surprised at how tender the chicken teriyaki was. The salmon sashimi was really great, and the 777 roll was delicious. The ribeye with asparagus was lovely. Honestly, all of the food was yummy.
But what made this place exceptional was our waiter, Jay, and we found out later that he's actually the manager there. He was attentive, friendly yet still professional. He knew the menu really well and gave lovely recommendations.
As we were wrapping up dinner, looking at desserts and coffee, this is the phenomenal part. They have a huge menu of desserts, but I was already told they don't have the coconut bread pudding or the flan, both of which I would've really liked, but then I wanted the green tea tiramisu - it just sounded interesting. I asked Jay for a recommendation for a drink, preferably alcoholic, but he felt there honestly wasn't anything to go with it except for green tea, so he didn't try to sell me more just to get the bill higher. Then he found out they didn't have that dessert, or the banana Foster cheesecake either. He suggested the white chocolate raspberry cheesecake then, and even said he would cover it for me since so many of their desserts I wanted was out, (and I said no need but he ended up doing so anyway) and I told him I'll trust him to pair an alcoholic drink with it. He got me a chocolate raspberry martini. Unfortunately it tasted a little medicinal, and I told him that but I didn't expect him to then bring out a different thing on the house - a very lovely plum wine.
My friend asked for a coffee, which he doctored but with cream but she likes her coffee candied, so he brought another one out (apparently they can't bring out the cream for the customers for some odd reason) with a lot more cream.
Honestly, the food tasted really great. Most of it didn't have me roll my eyes to the back of my head (ok the sea urchin did lol) but the food was fresh and hot/warm/cold where they should be and had really good flavors. The desserts were pretty decent as well. But like I said, the 5 stars is Jay's incredible customer service. He checked in on us enough that we were tended to, but not overly crowding us, gave us space, took his time thinking through recommendations, and just really went above and beyond, in my opinion.
I tend to tip 15-18%, and up to 20% when the experience is really pretty good, but this time both my friend and I decided to do 25%+. Yes, because he was just that good. Whatever he's getting paid at the restaurant, I hope he gets a raise!
Come here for the great food and if you want exceptional service that will make your night, ask for Jay!