Sakanaya Japanese Restaurant
Sakanaya is a Fresno Japanese Restaurant that's got the bases covered - teppanyaki, sushi or regular Japanese dining - whatever you feel like, they've got it!Teppanyaki is somewhat of a Japanese tradition, where specially trained chefs prepare the meal in front of the diners, on a large iron grill. Your meal will be more entertaining the more skilled the chef is.
A great teppanyaki chef can play lots of tricks as they cook - juggling and flipping the utensils and ingredients to wow the crowd.
We invite YOU to share your own personal restaurant experience by submitting a restaurant review. We and our readers would love to hear your thoughts!
Sakanaya Japanese Restaurant
9447 N Fort Washington #116, Fresno CA 93720
559.433.6607
Location: At the NE corner of Friant and Ft Washington. The complex is across the street from Woodward Park.
Review by Fresnohub Reader, submitted 03 Nov 2005: I have tried this restaurant several times. Each time the food gets
better but the customer service just kept getting worse. On Tuesday November
1, 2005 I had a horrible experience. Our chef was funny, talented, and
charming, and the food was great.
Just after being served our waitress
brought me a to go box and with the bill in one hand asked me if I was going
to like any thing else. Reminder, I had just been served and it was only
7:30 pm and they don't close until 10:00 pm. I told her that I would like to
finish my meal and then decide if I wanted anything else.
Fifteen minutes
later a waiter came over with the bill acking if we wanted anything else.
Now my boyfriend and I were annoyed. Behind us they had just sat a family of
four, and in the next room a party of twenty had just been served their
salad, so it was apparent they were not getting ready to close.
So why were
we treated like they were rushing us? My boyfriend asked the waiter if they
were trying to close our section. Embarassed the waiter said no and left. A
minute later the hostess who is always cold and brash returned with the
bill. She didn't say a word just pushed the bill under my plate.
Customer
service is so important for the survival of a new restaurant in town and
this place certainely has something to learn. At 7:30 customers should not
be made to feel that they are being rushed through their meal.
Fresnohub Review Team: This restaurant is nicely furnished, from light colored furniture to bamboos and water fountain.
You can choose to sit at the sushi bar, dine at the teppanyaki tables or just regular dining. They have an extensive menu ranging from appetizers to sushi, noodles, salad, bento box combination, etc.
Prices for items on the Sakanaya Teppanyaki dinner menu maxed out at $38.95 for their Seafood Combination with lobster, shrimp and scallops.
Their dinner entrees are more affordable ranging from $13.95 to $16.95. They serve up the usual suspects such as chicken, beef, salmon and filet mignon teriyaki; tempura, chicken katsu and saba shioyaki. Dinner entrees come with soup, salad and rice.
They also have a "Dinner Deluxe Combination" for $18.95 which was pretty reasonable considering it came with soup, salad, rice, tempura, chicken wings, one of the dinner entrees and one more item from their list of 9 (4pcs sushi, 8pcs california roll, 2 egg rolls, 8pcs spicy tuna, etc.). It was enough food to feed 2 people really.
The food was good and comparable to the other Japanese restaurants in town. Service could be improved, however. It did not seem that the servers knew who were responsible for what.
While we did not have the teppanyaki, we sat close enough to watch the "action", which unfortunately was quite lacking. The chefs were probably new and not skilled at this. Teppanyaki is supposed to be entertaining - that's what you pay for!
What we saw were newbie chefs trying to get their act down, hardly wowing their diners - performance was like a 3 out of 10.
Also note that at Sakanaya, they do not provide free refills for soft drinks - they are $1.00 each!