Horrible Dining Experience!

We went out for dinner today to celebrate my friend's boyfriend's birthday and also Mike passing the first part of his interview.

We were going to go to Sushi Ya - it has received excellent reviews online and we both have friends that love it there. Unfortunately, their website did not say that they would be closed for the week while they were on vacation, so it was closed when we got there. We decided to go to the place next door instead, Gozen Sushi and Grill, even though we had heard some bad things about it.

When we went in they were annoyed that we didn't have a reservation even though the place was empty - literally, no one else in there and it was about 5:30 pm. They seated us at a booth, gave us menus and were very slow to even take our drink order. When we opened the menus, there were post it notes inside each one saying that they weren't licensed yet - this place has been open for at least a year now, if not two - why are they not licensed yet?! We were really looking forward to having saki, wine or beer with our meals. We grumbled a bit amongst ourselves about it and just ended up ordering water and pop - tip, don't drink pop while eating sushi, lol. Most places that we've been to give you unlimited green tea to drink - not this one... I don't remember how much it was, but it was expensive for a small pot.

I assumed that everything was made fresh, because... sushi in a sushi restaurant is usually made fresh. Mike and I were going to share one of the platters - it had spicy salmon rolls on it, which I know I do not like. I asked her if I could sub them out for California or avacado rolls because I like both of those and they were both cheaper on the menu than the spicy rolls so I didn't think it would be a problem. Apparently it was, she made a big deal about how they can't sub things out because some of the platter (the rolls) aren't made fresh. I ended up ordering another order of rolls just so that I could have something that I really liked - rolls are my favourite part, lol.

Our food got there and looked pretty good. The tempura that Mike and I ordered was alright, it wasn't nearly as warm as it should have been but still tasted good. The rolls on the other hand were a completely different story - when we picked them up with our chopsticks they would fall apart. We resorted to using our hands, which has always been fine in every other Japanese restaurant we've been to, but the waitresses all scoffed at us and were giving us dirty looks.

When it came to our sashimi, the slices were extremely thin and the quality was severely lacking - especially for the price. The sushi was the same story - small portions and not that great. They also don't put wasabi on their sushi, which is not common around here at all. The sushi was so small that I could easily fit the entire thing in my mouth, I normally have to take it in two big bites. Nothing on the platter tasted fresh at all and the fact that everything was falling apart only confirmed that.

When our bill came, it was split up into three different bills for some reason, even though we had asked for it all on one. No big deal, Mike and I just paid for ours and Kat and Nick added theirs together and paid. We specifically told the waitress THREE TIMES to keep the change (only around $5, which is a bad tip considering our bills combined were around $90 but our service and the quality was BAD). She came back a few minutes later as we were finishing up our drinks with change, and the wrong change at that - she gave us back $1.24. We just said screw it, she messed up her own tip, whatever, and left. Another woman that was working there that had been hovering over our table immediately went over to check how much we had left, she was interrupted by having to seat someone else so I took that time to scoot around our the door so I could look in the window - she immediately went over to the table to check out tip. I told everyone what she did, the consensus amongst us was "she wasn't even our waitress!". Next thing we know, she's coming out of the restaurant yelling at us for not leaving a big enough tip. I was stunned, Nick just told her we were poor and don't have any money.

Now, everyone except myself has worked in the restaurant industry and we all have friends that work in it and understand - but we ALL refuse to pay for bad service and bad food.

I love all of your replies! I was so stunned that I didn't even know what to say... usually I have a big mouth, lol.

I think the woman that came out after us is the daughter of the owner or something. Apparently, most of the servers there are related to the owner - our actual server was white, so I doubt she was.

I posted a review to their website and emailed their owner. I also posted a review on Urban Spoon - that's where we get most of our restaurant recommendations from. We would have gone somewhere else - there are TONS of sushi places in London, but we had already paid to park ($5) and Nick can't walk very far... it was the closest one. The rest were like 4 blocks away. We also had to get to the play right after we ate.

We always tip based on the service we get - taking into account the things the poster above me said. HOWEVER, this was by far the worst experience I have ever had, I had read a few reviews that said similar things, and I was listening to their conversation, lol, they were upbeat and cheerful to each other - so I expected the same with us. Since that did not happen - AT ALL - we just told them to keep the change. It should have been around $5-6, our bills total were around $80, but she screwed herself too by bringing us the wrong change.

Surprisingly, my review is still up on their website... whether that's because they haven't checked it yet or because they agree with what I wrote - only time will tell. I'll keep checking back on it to see if it stays up.

I work with people in retail - we have some customers that are downright NASTY but we try to be cheerful to everyone. Sometimes one person just ruins your day and makes you a bit crabby with everyone else, it shouldn't happen, but it does and I know it happens to me.

We have to get good service to tip 15%, sometimes we do tip more - but it depends on the service we get. Our standard tip for servers that do the bare minimum is 10%, it's extremely rare for us to give less than that.

Not sure if you're aware, but the cooks usually get a small percentage of the tips. Everywhere that Mike has worked as a cook it's been that way, he says it's standard procedure. I think he said it's something like 10%.

One thing about this place that irks me is that they say they serve fresh sushi - even then waitress admitted that it was premade.

There is a wondeful place much closer to us where you can get a good sized sushi/sashimi boat for around $35. It was enough to feed Mike and I two meals and a snack (and Leiki stole a piece, lol). They made it right in front of you as well and asked if there was anything that you didn't like and they would sub it out for you.

We're going to try Sushi Ya, the place we were originally going to go, for lunch in a couple of weeks. It's supposed to be cheap and pretty good, so hopefully!