Sessyu

Sessyu is one of my mother’s favorite restaurants and we used to go there for lunch from time to time. We would both get the standard teppanyaki set lunch each time and though this doesn’t change, we don’t really get bored of it.
Back in December of 2013, we had some family friends over and we wanted to bring them here for a nice lunch. My mother called to make a reservation and told them that we would like to reserve the private room for the six of us. She called again to change the date, so there were actually two phone calls to confirm this, but when we arrived they told us they just led us to the bar table and when we asked about the room, they told us we had never reserved it. What?! We confirmed it not once, but TWICE, with you over the phone and you’re just denying it? It was clear why they did this though; the room was occupied with a pretty large group (eight people, if I remember correctly), and the restaurant wanted to give the room to the larger group as they can set a higher minimum charge and earn more money that way.
Moving on — today was my mom’s birthday, and she said that despite our bad experience that time, she was craving their teppanyaki and wanted to go. We ordered the standard teppanyaki like we always do and as usual, the food did not disappoint.
My favorite part of the set surprisingly is always the rice. Sesame, preserved vegetables and pickles are tossed into the rice and cooked expertly by the chef right in front of you, and yes — it’s just rice — but it’s really good rice. The chef also does this thing where he mixes a little bit of rice and preserved vegetables, flattens it and adds a small amount of oil for it to lightly fry. This creates a thin, crispy sheet of rice that kind of resembles the texture of chips. The rice today was a little saltier than usual, but still good. The first teppanyaki dish, the shrimp and scallop is really good too and complemented very well with truffle sauce. I always opt for the beef tenderloin for the main course, and I found that the portion was larger than previous times today!
I asked one of the waiters if the restaurant had anything special to be given to my mother since it is her birthday today, and he wished her happy birthday and told her she would get dessert on the house. We added that we would get a dessert since it’s part of the set anyway, and the waiter said something about how she would get two. He then returned with a milk pudding for my mom in an obviously larger glass and said that this was ‘king size’, then gave me my milk pudding in a shallower glass. But actually, both are the same size, just that my mom’s was in a bigger glass! I put both glasses next to each other to check, and the width of our puddings were exactly the same and they came up to the same height.
So, food doesn’t disappoint here, but I can’t say the same of service. If you preferred to offer the room to the bigger group, that’s understandable — be honest and tell us that. If you don’t have another dessert to give my mom or anything extra in the kitchen for her, tell us honestly too. We won’t be mad because it’s not like you are obliged to give my mom another dessert because it’s her birthday, but you are obliged to respect your customers enough to be honest!