Aoyama

Had dinner at Aoyama with Katherine and Adrienne. We ordered several dishes to share:

A sashimi plate

Spicy salmon hand rolls

Assorted tempura (shrimp, squid, vegetables)

Mango ice cream mochi balls for dessert

We also had shrimp tempura and spicy salmon maki rolls and the marinated black cod. The food itself was really good: fresh, simple, delicious. While there was nothing that outstanding in terms of creativity, I had nothing to complain about in terms of the food. Everything was really tasty.

Where my complaint comes in is the service. Okay, I get that it's a small restaurant with maybe six or seven tables total, but don't tell your customers that they only have 40 minutes to eat because you have an 8:00 reservation coming in and they need the table. We had made a reservation for 7:00 and by the time the waitress came to our table to take our orders at 7:20, she said, "You must order now, you make reservation at 7:00, we have another reservation at 8:00." And then we were like, "Uh, okay, can we get some maki rolls?" And the waitress tells us, "The chef is very busy right now, it will be a long wait." Essentially, she told us that, a) we have 40 minutes until we have to leave, and b) we can't order what we want because it'll take too long to make. That is bullshit. Seriously.

The food was fantastic, but I'm probably never going there again.