Jeff S.
Yelp
I decided to take my wife to Yakitori for dinner the other day. Yakitori is located in a bustling shopping center in the heart of Boca Raton off Mizner Boulevard, close to Mizner Park.
Since there are many restaurants in the shopping center, parking is an absolute nightmare. Not only was the small lot full, but people were double parking all over the place, making driving difficult. I'd definitely recommend an Uber if possible.
Upon entering we saw a huge crowd by the door. There were heaps of Uber Eats drivers, staff members and people waiting to be seated all milling around and trying to talk to the staff. It was chaotic.
We had a reservation for 7pm, but they didn't have a table ready for us at that time. They told us it would be another 20-30 minutes. I found this to be unacceptable. The point of the reservation is to hold a table at a particular time, not to give us a 30 minute window of when it could be. Maybe don't book so many reservations if you can't accommodate them in a timely manner?
After being seated it took forever to get a menu, I wanna say 15-20 minutes. After we finally got it, it took another 15-20 minutes to place our order. Really slow!
The staff seemed frazzled the entire night. They were clearly not up to the task and were either rushed or nowhere to be found throughout the evening, mostly the latter. Frankly, it's unacceptable for management to have 2 over matched people serving an entire packed restaurant. But luckily, I have an easy solution for the owners: Hire more staff!
Anyway, we finally got to order and we decided to split the robata grill shisheto peppers and the salmon sashimi which came with fresh Asian pear, sea salt, yuzu, truffle oil, and miso. For my entree I got the Out of Control roll which is tuna, salmon yellowtail, tempura flakes, scallions, soy paper, four kinds of tobiko, spicy mayo, kimchee, and eel sauce. My wife got the Sea Bass over bok choy.
Considering the long wait for everything thus far, we were not surprised when the appetizers took a really long time to arrive. Like 30 minutes for the two dishes, which put us at around 1 hour 20 minutes after arrival before we even got a bite of food.
The peppers were definitely tasty and the presentation was nice. However, each skewer only had 4 peppers on it. If you've ever eaten shiseto peppers before, you know 8 peppers for 2 people isnt a generous serving. The salmon was good too, but the truffle oil was hard to detect and I didn't feel like the pear or miso added much to the dish. I liked the salmon, it was just rather plain.
We finished those and waited for our mains. It took abother 30 minutes or so to get them. The waitress served the dishes quickly and took off for another table. Unfortunately, as she rushed off, I realized she forgot to give me soy sauce for my sushi and utensils and chopsticks for both of us. I waited and waited for her to come by, but ultimately decided to go in and find assistance inside.
I will say the Sea Bass was excellent. Good quality fish with a very light and flavorful sauce. My specialty roll was average. It had a supernarket sushi vibe to it, nothing special at all. The entree portions were very good size.
Yakitori definitely had some bright moments with the food, in particular the Sea Bass and the peppers. The outdoor dining ambiance was nice too. But everything else about the evening was subpar or irritating. It was also really expensive, well over $100 with tip for a meal that was mixed quality. For these reasons I give Yakitori 2 out of 5 stars. Both my wife and I would not recommend.
