Sogo Japanese Steakhouse

Reviews 4

ER

Erica Fogerty

If I could give 0 stars, I would. I eat out all the time and have waitressed in a lot of restaurants, and have never had a worse experience than this place. So bad, I am compelled to write this review even weeks after visiting. We arrived the ONLY table in the separate, not hibachi grill room (which FYI is separated by a wall with windows and a closed door in it... what is up with this setup??? super strange and tacky looking). Many staff walking around, and even a manager looking person flitting around the bar/hostess area, yet NO ONE came to talk to us for OVER 30 minutes. Normally, I would have got up and addressed this with someone, but out of respect for my date, stayed at the table to talk and look over the menu. Another table arrived. They got service in a few minutes. I was astonished. Obviously, someone had been keeping tabs on the area -- yet didnt think to get the attention of the waitress who was supposed to be taking care of us??? This waitress walked right by us, no look, or anything. I stopped her as she was passing us by and let her know how very long we have been waiting with no attention. She looked annoyed and said, "Well Im not your waitress... Ill go get her for you". Another waitress came to take our drink order and rushed off so fast we couldnt get a food order in. She dropped off the drinks with water dripping all over her hands. She forgot the drink order my boyfriend ordered, said she didnt hear it, and the funny thing is -- she repeated it to us when she took the drink order! The whole time she then served us, she would drop off food, and run right off before I could even ask her for something. For instance, our silverware. When she finally brought that, she dropped it loudly on the table with other plates in her hands. Just jarring, tacky, unpleasant. Not the kind of attention you want after you have been waiting for 30 minutes to get service. Now, the food: The soup came out, and under the red glow of the lights directly over head of our table -- everything looked so disgusting. The soup was basically broth, with 1 or 2 onion strands in it. I like seeing my food... and I couldnt get a good idea what the soup even looked like other than that. It was tasteless, thin, and unappetizing. I asked about adding onion crunchies to my sushi. She was like, oh, you like onion crunchies?? okay, Ill give you a lot. I never said I wanted a lot. The sushi came out with a MOUND of onion crunchies on the top. Like nothing I ever saw before. Where is the manager, chef, or some kitchen staff checking these dishes before they come out?? Completely amateur, and GROSS. I had to wipe all of these onion crunchies off of the sushi, to only find the sushi was STUFFED with them as well. Terrible. The fried rice was awful, what a let down. It had the texture of box rice and had no veggies in it. The hibachi was drenched with soy sauce and was delivered with no meat, because she misheard our order. All in all -- tacky ambience, horrible service, and yucky food. Would never go back. No one should ever waste their money at this place. There are far better hibachi places in Rochester.

CA

Carol Andrews

Disappointed! We havent been there in a couple of years and we decided to go there for lunch yesterday (Sat.). I first checked online to make sure they were open for lunch on the weekend and they were. We got there around 1PM and the place was empty with the exception of one table. There was no one around to greet us and so we stood there for about 6 or 7 minutes. During that time we saw no one but the party at the one table, no wait staff, no one behind the sushi bar - no one! We opened and closed the door 4 times to set of the chime that tells them someone has come in. Finally someone came out of the kitchen to bring supplies to the sushi bar so when he saw us, he seated us, by then we had been standing there for about 10 minutes (we should have left). The waitress came to take our drink order. When I asked what they had she said they had pepsi products and tea and they were low-ish. I asked her what that meant and she said they were low on a lot of stuff. I ordered a pepsi. We looked through the lunch menu and when she came back with the drink she said I should let you know that we dont serve from the lunch menu on Saturdays and Sundays. That meant we had to order a dinner for our lunch :( We started with the appetizer that we specifically went there for - age tofu. She said Oh, I dont think we have any tofu, let me check. Hmmm, a Japanese restaurant with no tofu???? She came back and verified that they had no tofu so we went with our second choice veg. gyoza. She said "Im sorry we dont have any". Third choice - veg tempura... It was good. She left with our dinner order and then came back with our salads - before we even got our appetizer! The meals came, they were generous and I liked mine but my husband said his was so-so. The brown rice was dry, hard and chewy, I had to put some soy sauce on it to loosen it up so that I could pick it up and that was with a fork. The white rice was also on the dry side, it wasnt sticky as it should have been. When she came back to see if everything was ok she put the check on the table and said "Ill leave this her now because, well just because" and smiled and left. The cute little colored lights over each table cast such a tinted shadow over your food that it was hard to see it. Our light was green so our salads looked great ;) everything else - not so much... The couple sitting behind us also was told they were out of, or could not serve, several of the choices they made - they got up and left. We will not be going back there.

AN

AnticapAnge

Ill start with the good things: the hostess. She was friendly and honestly did most of the waitresses work. Now on to the bad: The waitress. Unbelievably rude. Made tasteless (and racist) jokes all night. I felt I was an inconvenience when I needed something. It was a very bad sense of humor. The cook: Rude. Also fancied racist jokes. And sexual jokes. We were a table of 12 (30ish) year olds and maybe he thought we would find it funny. I did not. He was bad at timing when food should go on the grill as well. The meal was not plated in a sensible and timely fashion. I truly felt like I was in the front row of a comedy show and the comedian decided I was the one they were going to roast tonight. If I wanted that experience there are restaurants intended for that purpose. The food was okay. Nothing special. I wont be going back.

A

A Private User

Nice first visit! We did a side by side comparison between this restaurant and Plum Garden in Pittsford. The quick answer is both are good. The comments from our party of four was as follows: Sojo gets higher ratings for its style and "newness". Plum Garden gets the nod (by just a slim margin) for its food. The reason its slim is both restaurants presented a similar menu and the food was great in both places, but everyone said they "think" the Plum Garden had a bit better flavor (seasoning) . The Sojo chef (Tony) won hands down and was entertaining throughout the evening. Saki Bombs are retched but effective.