Doanburi – Good Water, Wish I Could Tell You About the Food Too

After seeing some posts on social media and seeing positive reviews online, I decided to make an Opentable reservation at a Japanese restaurant called Doanburi. When we arrived, the hostess asked if we wanted to sit at the sushi bar and so we did.

For the next 15 minutes, we were ignored. No one came by to introduce themselves, take water or drink orders or talk about the menu. When I saw couples seated after us on each side being greeted and served within minutes of sitting down, I finally decided to flag a waitress down. Told her they forgot about us. She apologized and I gave our order as we obviously had time to study the menu.

Waited 15-20 minutes for food. Nothing came. The couple to our right, who sat way after us started getting food. At this point the “meal” was getting ridiculous. I followed up on our order and the server said “oh there is it (pointing at the sushi chef)”. I watched the dish she said was ours then served to someone at the end of the counter. To top it off the couple on our left, who also sat after us, started getting food also!

At this point I asked for the bill as I’d had enough. The server said she ordered us a free salad. I said I didn’t want it though it eventually came anyway. At the same time, another server came by to say she spoke to the manager and we could just leave. As a final annoyance, our server made excuses on the way out saying that the sushi bar was backed up and the reason we didn’t get food is that we only ordered sushi. That doesn’t explain why no one came by when we sat down, why our order was supposed to be coming but went elsewhere, or why other parties who sat after got food. Bad service and would not go back. The only thing we got to try that night was the water.