FOODIES

The good news is there is now an Olive Garden in Derby. The bad news is that, even though it’s only their second day, the food and service already suck. LOL.

The calamari was not as good as the the calamari at the Central and Rock location. Then again, maybe Olive Garden’s calamari is just not as good as Carrabba’s calamari. I have to admit, it’s been a while since I’ve eaten at Olive Garden. Maybe Carrabba’s has spoiled me.

Brian and I weren’t supposed to eat out again in January to start. At least we were good and just split a chicken flat bread pizza. Although, it wasn’t even that good. The flat bread pizza we had at Granite City a few months ago was better.

As for the service, where do I begin? I had to ask her for paper napkins almost five times. She kept forgetting to bring them. The salad and bread sticks took forever to arrive at our table. When she brought us our salad, she placed the big bowl of salad on our table and then proceeded to talk to the other table, without giving us any salad pates. After she was done talking to the other table, she almost took off with the salad plates if we hadn’t protested. She didn’t bring me my minestrone. She said that she thought I didn’t want it because it was extra. Hello? If I didn’t want it, I wouldn’t have asked for it. Our server just seemed very distracted and was all over the place. She kept forgetting stuff.

The sad thing is that usually the food and service are fantastic when a restaurant first opens and it is only after several months that the quality starts to decline. If it’s this bad at the start, I can’t imagine how much worse it will be a few months from now. Ugh. I feel sorry for the people of Derby. One can only hope that the restaurant will get their act together eventually.

Brian, Jenni, and I had the opportunity to check out the new Tokyo Steakhouse in Derby on Thursday night. The Derby location is actually proprietor Henry Hein Son’s third in the area. The original location is location in West Wichita. The other location is in Northeast Wichita, where the old Sumo used to be. I’ve never been to either location, but have been curious about Tokyo since the Northeast location opened. Brian and I are huge fans of Sumo so we noticed right away when the Tokyo opened. I thought that was a really wise move to take over the old Sumo location because Sumo had become really popular over the years. I’m sure Tokyo picked up more than a few unsuspecting persons who didn’t realize that Sumo had moved.

Being loyal to Sumo, we never really had reason to try Tokyo Steakhouse so to this day we haven’t been to the Tokyo location close to our house. However, since were going to mom and dad’s in Derby we figured we would take advantage of the opportunity to try Tokyo Steakhouse. At present, there isn’t any other restaurant like it in all of Derby.

When we arrived, there a few people waiting already and were told that would be a ten to fifteen minute wait. I would suggest making reservations beforehand. This is the first thing that the hostess asked us and it was evident that patrons with reservations were given preference to walk-in patrons. I would have made reservations, but I didn’t know their phone number.

There were two hostesses that night. They seemed to be at odds with each other. Brian, who was closest to the hostess desk listened to their argument. Apparently, one hostess wanted to hold tables for reserved guests while the other wanted to go ahead and seat the people who were already waiting. We were all waiting at their mercy because they could not agree. Finally, a group of people who were tired of waiting told the hostesses to take the them off the list because they were going to eat elsewhere instead. I think this was the much-needed reality check that got the ball rolling because we were seated shortly after that.

Anyway, the wait wasn’t altogether unpleasant. I was actually impressed by the internal architecture of the restaurant. They had a huge faux rain water feature that spanned almost the entire length of the restaurant. It looked like one of those bridge-gazebo-type things in Japanese movies. The water came from the roof and fell into the pond on the floor, just as if it were raining. The soothing sound of rainfall is supposed to improve one’s appetite so I thought this was a brilliant idea. The only downside is that if you’ve had a little too much to drink, it makes you want to pee. LOL.

On the way to our table there’s these rocks of various sizes clumped together in the middle of the floor. Upon closer inspection it appeared to be concealing a power outlet. It’s much prettier than a looking at a power outlet, but I’m not too sure it is a good idea. I could envision someone tripping over the rocks after a few cocktails. Perhaps it would be better to hide it using a nice decorative table or vase of some sort? I guess drunk people weren’t a huge concern at the moment because the restaurant is so new that they don’t even have their liquor license yet. Brian pointed out that there was a sign at the door that said they could not yet serve any alcoholic beverages. When the alcohol comes though, I would highly recommend removing the rocks. It just seems like an accident waiting to happen.

They were pretty busy that evening so we waited a few more minutes after being seated before our chef finally came. In the meantime we got to enjoy miso soup and salad. The miso soup is okay. I found it too plain and not as flavorful as the soup served at Sumo. I can’t say anything about the salad because I didn’t eat mine. I always skip that part because I’m not too fond of the ginger dressing. Jenni and Brian both agreed that it was missing the crunchies that make the benihana salads special.

Our chef was a young guy who appeared to me to be new to hibachi cooking. Although he had pretty good spatula and knife flairs, the rest of his tricks were basic and sloppily executed. He failed at all three egg tosses and had to pick up the shells from the cooking surface. He also burnt the fried rice and the eggs. How you burn fried rice is beyond me. That is probably the simplest thing to fix of all because it is already pre-mixed. All you have to do is warm it up. He tried to hide the burnt fried rice by dousing it with a generous amount of soy sauce, as though making the rice brown will conceal the burnt parts. That would have worked were it not for the crunchy burnt parts. Fried rice shouldn’t be crunchy.

The veggies (the bean sprouts in particular) were burnt also. The shrimps were almost overdone, but better overdone than undercooked because undercooked shrimp can cause you to spend several hours in the bathroom. I know Brian has had a bad experience with undercooked shrimp before. I had filet mignon and shrimp. I ate most of the shrimp but I didn’t like my steak too much.

Overall, I think Tokyo is promising. I would try it again and just hope for a different chef. We at least have to return to try their sushi. Anyway, if you’re curious about what other people think of Tokyo I found a couple of reviews online (these reviews are of the West location, though, if I’m not mistaken so please keep that in mind as you read them).

Other local competitors include:

• Sumo (our favorite because they serve good sushi that is second only to Hana Cafe)
• Kobe (I think this is the first benihana-type resto in Wichita)
• Sal’s
• Kyoto
• Osaka

There may be some others but I’m not sure. I’ve yet to try Kyoto and Osaka. As far as hibachi goes, we like Sumo best with Kobe being a close second. Sal’s is okay, but not our preference. What about you? Which ones are your favorite?