The first time, Henry and I were off to the movies at the nearby Cinemark Palermo and decided to grab a bite for lunch beforehand. We walked in, the place was no more than half full. Greeted by a young man at the door, we asked for one of the teppanyaki tables and he cheerfully headed us that way. There are four of those in the dining room – two were filled with guests, the other two empty, and he started to seat us at one of the latter. A young woman, came running up and whispered to him, and then turned to us and said, “could you give us just a minute or two, I need to set something up here first”. She pointed us to the bar.

We sat and waited, and waited, she passed by multiple times. After roughly ten minutes had gone by I stopped her and asked what was happening. She said, “there’s no space at the teppanyaki tables”. I said, “there are two of them empty, and now a couple of seats at the ones that were full.” She said, “yes, but I’m not seating you at those, you’ll have to wait.” “How long?” “At least 20 minutes, probably 30-40.” “You might have told us that at the beginning so we could have made a decision on whether to wait or take a regular table.” “Whatever, you don’t want to wait, you can leave.” We did.

The second time – yes, after that, there was a second time – I was on my own, and home, and noticed that Buenos Aires Delivery has added Benihana to their list of restaurants that deliver to our area. I decided to give the sushi another shot…

… Now, off the bat, more expensive than any of the other sushi delivery options for our ‘hood. By about a third. The sushi did arrive in a timely manner – not delivered by someone from the restaurant, but sent in a taxi – the driver ringing our bell right on time. That’s got to cost them, and might explain part of the high pricing (is this a case where one tips a BA taxi driver, which isn’t the standard? I decided yes.)

The sushi – the selection of nigiri were good – but the same notes on both the wasabi and soy as before – the former being completely devoid of heat, the latter being really too salty to use, thankfully I have soy sauce here in the house that I could use instead. The fish this time tasted much more vibrant and fresher. The same with the two rolls I tried – an excellent “prawn lovers” roll of tempura prawn wrapped in rice and then wrapped in nigiri prawn, and, a decent if not great Rainbow roll. I do like that they sliced them very thinly, makes them more bite-sized than some places do. Plenty of food, but for two rolls and a nigiri selection, the 185 peso price tag is a bit much when I can get the same from other delivery services via BAD or local joints for about 125-150.

Given the service faux pas at the lunch visit attempt, I don’t know that I’d return, and given the prices, I don’t know that I’d order from them again.

I don’t think I’m going to worry a whole lot about it, but thanks for sharing that – it’s almost funny – I wonder how it will turn out. I did a little looking out of curiosity – it was the local franchiser of the property in Kuwait who sued a local blogger. Corporate headquarters of Benihana, which runs the Benihanas in the Americas says that such a move is “unprecedented”, but that they can’t control what a franchiser does (which to me seems weird – usually when a company franchises a branch they include some sort of agreement that they have control over things that might cause the chain embarrassment or negative publicity). Since this just happened in the last couple of days, it’ll be interesting to see what comes of it.