Nicole Thomas
Google
I was afraid there would be a long wait because I couldn't find a way to make a reservation online, but the restaurant was pretty empty, especially for dinner time on a Friday night. I see why now. There were plenty of staff members working, but it didn't seem to matter much.
I actually wonder at this point if the incredibly slow service and missing items are by design. It's all you can eat BUT with a time limit. If they can delay serving and replacing food for as long as possible, you end up getting significantly less food than you would at a lot of places for such a high price. I honestly was still hungry leaving, but our time was up, and even if it weren't, I didn't want to wait around long enough to track someone down to request the food then wait to receive it then wait to cook it.
The price does include the experience, so I get that it's a little higher, but it's still nowhere near a good value for the amount of food you end up getting or the service. However, most of the food itself was delicious.
The service was not good, in terms of speed, accuracy, and explanation of the process itself. After the entire dinner, I was still never sure who our actual server was. For groups 6+, they also automatically add a 20% tip, so there's no incentive for them to even attempt good service from that aspect either, as that's about 12% more than they deserved tonight. Even the bill we had to wait a really long time for, get up and request it, then wait a while more to actually receive it.
As another reviewer mentioned, there are also things that would never be acceptable food standards if someone else were cooking it. You use the same tongs and scissors for all your food (pork, beef, chicken, raw, cooked), have to just kind of guess if/when your meat is sufficiently cooked, and the burnt sauces and bits will get transferred onto the next thing you cook (see picture). There also aren't separate serving plates from what the raw meat is brought out on, so if you want to put something somewhere other than in a bowl at that moment or leave it on the heat, you have to put it back on the serving dishes covered in raw meat juices.
Overall, the food was good. If 1-2 people go, I think this could still be an enjoyable experience and you'd be more likely to get your money's worth and probably more likely to get decent service if their tip depends on it.