Benihana

I’ve eaten at saga and just wanted to compare them and I found there really was no difference they are all the same you go for the ambience and entertainment however expect the food to be mediocre at best

I rate this as a one star, the server was the bartender and our server during happy hour! How is that a good idea? The presentation of the food was awful. Compared to other restaurants this is my least favorite.

After dealing with the cranky old lady at the front counter, we sat up in the lounge to get the $ 15 drink special. It was a big fruity drink that wasn’t bad for the price. 3 of us finished it in 5 – 10 minutes. For a $ 20 meal (chicken hibachi), the food presentation was sloppy and the chicken was very dry. The salad tasted like dish soap. The fried rice and veggies were average. Our server was the bartender and the waiter at the same time… When we got here he started off good, but as the night went on he got progressively slower. Nice guy, but took forever to get the bill. Definitely the worst hibachi place I’ve ever been, worth the trip to spend the extra few bucks at Ichiban.

This may sound terrible, and I apologize in advance. But ever since all of the Japanese people left, this place hasn’t been the same.
Years ago, this place was incredible!!! And don’t get me wrong, I still eat here religiously. I mean, who doesn’t love the shrimp sauce!!!
But I feel like the atmosphere has changed drastically. I miss that authentic feel.

My son’s girlfriend told him that she wanted to eat at a hibachi restaurant. So I thought what a better place to go then the original, Benihana. It’s been a while since we ate here since other places have opened in the neighborhood.
We made our reservations for 6:30pm and did not get seated until 6:47pm. No explanation, no apology, nothing. They weren’t even close to being busy.
After being seated our conversation was interrupted by two issues. One the door to the kitchen squeaks, loudly. Now you can just imagine how many times during a dinner that door is used. Buy some WD40 please.
The open hibachi station/​seating area next to us was being vacuumed. Which I found rather ironic since the carpeted hallways that surround the bar were so dirty it made me think about leaving.
All of this compounded by the hostess being more concerned with takeout orders, a manager walking in circles and not doing a thing.
Overall, very dissappointing experience. There are much better and cleaner options.
I am not commenting on our chef/​cook because I could tell he was new and not well trained.

This Benihana location is pretty great, I must say. We eat there a few times a year, but most recently for my daughter’s 10^th birthday. She wanted the Beni shrimp, and she had such a good time! Our waitress Minsook was so sweet and attentive to our party, I can’t say enough about her.
The thing I don’t like about hibachi is waiting for a table, so I definitely recommend making a reservation (can be done on their website) and going on a weeknight. I also don’t like crowds and I was surprised at the fact that it wasn’t very busy on a Thursday night. The wait time for our table was surprisingly very fast, too! We had 6 in our party and I appreciate that they didn’t throw 2 strangers at our table.
I deducted one star because since we’ve eaten hibachi so many times, the ‘show’ is starting to get a little boring. The onion volcano and zucchini boat are great but give us more!

First off, if you haven’t signed up already, sign up for your birthday coupon. So clutch! We went for dinner one weeknight to use my birthday coupon, and the coupon makes your meal free.
We decided to sit in the bar area so we could have a conversation and it was the best decision we could make. We were able to get the same, awesome hibachi food without the table of strangers and able to have a conversation while we ate. Our waiter was seriously the best. He took extra special care of us and really just made our night. So my suggestion, if you don’t want the show, but still want the deliciousness, sit at a table in the bar, you won’t regret it. And get the filet with chicken with extra shrimp sauce. SO good.

Went for a friend’s birthday and had the worst experience ever. We waited a while to order food once we received drinks. The waitress wasn’t very good at explaining the menu, we then sat and waited at least a half hour before a chef arrived –only to tell us that he was taking another table and we’re getting a new chef… the chicken was chewy and undercooked, and 2 people at our table didn’t receive what they ordered. When it was time for checks the waitress became standoff — ish with us telling us that someone needed to pay for the food that wasn’t received because she has nothing to do with the chefs. We requested the manager and explained that our chicken was undercooked. He actually ate the chicken off of a plate and told us it was fine! !!! At the end of it all, the waitress didn’t even know her managers name and was bashing him to our party. Very unprofessional. I won’t eat there again, and will be sure to advise others to do the same

My favorite place ever! For celebrations or just when I have a few extra dollars and am craving their fried rice and shrimp sauce. Mmmmm I could eat here everyday but I’d be broke, lol.
I first encountered this hibachi steakhouse when I lived in San Diego, CA and was super excited to find out there was one in Pittsburgh, PA.
Reservations are advised to sit at the hibachi tables, which I think everyone should at least once. If I’m going out after I usually just sit in the bar area at a regular table and skip the hibachi show.
I’ve NEVER had a bad experience at either location I’ve gone to in over 10 years.
I’m not normally a fan of fried rice, however, Beni fried rice is phenom and I always get an extra side to take home. Its worth the extra $$ and it re-​heats perfectly.

Extremely disappointed, food was absolutely awful. We sat at the bar and ordered from there. Benihana special rice tasted like overcooked white rice with salt and chicken stock poured over it. Our vegetables were so soft, they all tasted the same, mushy. My sushi (Hamachi) had a 1.5″ x .5″ piece of underbelly still attached and was also inedible. Our chicken was flavorless and rubbery.
To top it off our server was uncaring and disinterested. This will be our last trip here as there are now much better options. It’s too bad a once gold standard restaurant is not any longer.

Since the changes its just awful. Shortcuts in sushi. Quality of food is just not the same. The staff is very neglecting. It’s sad to see what was once a great place go downhill due to changes in management. Very sad.

For my friend’s birthday, we went to Benihana to celebrate. Honestly, the only time I have ever been to Benihana has been for birthdays. As many Unilocalers noted– their parking lot is VERY odd. Be prepared.
I wanted to try some items that I never had at Benihana before, so I decided I would be adventurous and try some sushi… vegetable sushi that is (I am not a seafood lover). The vegetable roll consisted of: green leaf, avocado, cucumber, tomato, red cabbage and yamagobo. I dipped it in some soy sauce and added a small dab of wasabi to each bite. I didn’t love it– I think sushi just all around is not something that I enjoy the taste of.
For my meal, I ordered the hibachi chicken. My boyfriend ordered the spicy hibachi chicken. The first course was soup. It was a light, chicken broth based mushroom and green onion soup and it was decent, nothing crazy or packed with flavor. The salad came shortly after– ice berg lettuce, cherry tomatoes, thinly sliced radishes and ginger dressing. I loved the dressing! I wasn’t a fan of the mediocre choice of greens and vegetables though.
The main portion of the Benihana/​hibachi experience, is the show. Our chef was very nice and very talented. He recognized the birthday girl at our table and gave her a special chef’s hat, haha. He prepared our vegetables, shrimp appetizer and main entrees in front of us. The vegetables consisted of zucchini and onions. I agree with other Unilocalers– the vegetables could be improved. The portion isn’t very large and more variety could be added. Having said that, they were delicious. The shrimp was also very tasty.
My entire table ordered the fried rice with their meal and I HIGHLY recommend doing so, rather than ordering the white rice. The fried rice is made fresh right in front of you and is very good! The yum-​yum sauce, of course, is the icing on the cake… SO GOOD. It went perfectly with the rice, chicken, veggies and shrimp. My whole table asked for additional sauce to go and the staff was very friendly and super accommodating! The hibachi chicken was very good and came with sautéed mushrooms. I really enjoyed my boyfriend’s spicy hibachi chicken– the sauce was wonderful.
At the end of the meal, everyone had a choice of sorbet. I had the rainbow sorbet– it was the perfect ending to a delicious meal. The staff also took our picture and printed a copy for the birthday girl.
Benihana is not my favorite place to eat at all, but they are a great place to go for a birthday. The staff was wonderful, the food was good and we all had a great time. Oh and a side note– their Shirley temple’s are awesome!

Benihana is my absolute favorite restaurant. Every time I eat here the food is delicious and consistent. I pour that delicious pink sauce («yum-​yum sauce») all over everything, I would probably drink it. Although it is pricey, it is great for a date night!

Benihana is good, yes, but it is not updated as other hibachi restaurants. The furnishings, carpet, set up hasn’t changed in years and the staff/​food isn’t always up to par. I can eat Paleo here though, which was a new discovery. I’ve always appreciated sushi, but I never ordered it raw without the fun additions of tempura, sesame seeds, soy sauce, cream cheese, and everything else that makes sushi AWESOME, so this was a new experience. I ordered the Tuna Tatiki, which was 10 chunks of raw tuna. I ordered it without sauce or seeds. It was a little tough to get down because there were so many pieces and after a couple raw pieces, I needed some extra searing, which they did for me no problem! The server was wonderful– she was helpful and had no problem going to extra mile for someone with diet restrictions! I was very happy about this because the last time we sat in the bar, our waiter was really odd. He didn’t explain the foods and extra charges (our waiter last night did) and he seemed like we were bothering him. I was happy to have a better experience last night, but I do think that Benihana needs to monitor their staff better. I had negative experiences twice related to incompetent staff, which really made my overall feeling of Benihana go from positive to neutral. Not to mention, the last time I was there, perhaps because we got hibachi at the bar, but it was not very good at all, and I got the most expensive dinner on the menu: «Ocean’s Treasure.» More recently when I visited Benihana though (the same time I got the raw tuna), I had a better experience– I ordered salmon and yellowtail sashimi. I was very nervous to bite into a raw cut of fish by itself, but was pleasantly surprised at how good the cuts of fish were. The yellowtail had a sweeter taste and the salmon was less sweet, but more flavorful. It was a great to jump outside of my comfort zone and appreciate the rawest of the raw food! I would definitely recommend Benihana due to its location– I love that it is on a hill all to itself, and it’s unique mark in Pittsburgh, but I would choose other hibachi restaurants before I would choose this one.

Seems my review was filtered so I’ll share my 2 cents again, this place is sad. Awful service, awful food, and the lack of knowledge is a smack in a real Chef’s face.

My family and I have been going to Benihana for about 5 years now. We’ve always had to wait at least a half an hour to be seated, even when we’ve had reservations. In the past its been forgivable, mostly because its close to home for us, the food is okay (albeit a little pricey), and my Grandmother absolutely loves the entertainment of hibachi. But that all changed last night when we went out with a party of 8 for my and my mothers birthday.
I made reservations two weeks in advance for our birthday dinner. When I called they were almost totally booked and only had a few spots left that evening. Our reservations were for 7:30.
We arrive a little early at 7:20 and I let the hostess know that we are there and she checks us in. Then we basically just wait and wait and wait. We notice the hostess turning people away, and we notice two tables who have been seated for about 30 minutes now haven’t even gotten their soups or salads. By now its nearly 8 O’clock. Then my mother overhears the hostess telling someone that they are short staffed and the wait is going to be extremely long. By this point we’ve been waiting for 45 minutes. My sister takes a walk through the restaurant and notices there is only 1 hibachi chef working, but there are SEVEN tables seated, all waiting for food/​drinks. So I ask the hostess how much longer before we are seated. She informs me that it will be at least another half an hour before we get a table, because two hibachi chefs and two kitchen chefs called off sick. It would be another hour after were seated before they would even start taking our food orders.
This is TOTALLY UNACCEPTABLE. First of all, the hostess should have informed us when we arrived that they were short staffed and we would have a very very long wait. OR, the manager should have phoned people with reservations and asked if they could reschedule. Either way, we should have been informed instead of letting us stand in the lobby for an hour, not knowing that it would be another hour and a half before we would actually eat, on an evening when we had reservations.
We decided to call Ichiban to see if they could accommodate us. They told us we could walk right in and be seated immediately. As we were leaving we ran into a gentleman who was outside smoking who told us that his party had reservations for 6:30 and they still had not ordered their food! It was now about 8:20pm.
Our first dinner at Ichiban actually turned out to be much better than our previous dinners at Benihana, so I don’t think we’ll ever be going back there. I think Ichiban will be our new hibachi restaurant of choice.

This place has the weirdest entrance ever. Just be prepared.
Came for my sons 5^th birthday last night. He’s a little foodie. The restaurant itself is nice and we were seated pretty quickly. Our waitress showed up 2 seconds later to take drink orders and appetizer/​sushi orders. I just asked for water and some time to actually look at the menu. several min later out waitress came back with drinks and asked to take orders. I ordered chicken and steak along with a cranberry mojito. Quickly after taking orders our waitress brought out our soup. I liked it but it lacked salt. Before I even finished the salad course came out. I was able to enjoy both before the chef came out to prepare our meal. What did bother me was all the dishes in our area. I can’t stand a dirty table and I wish our waitress would have removed them sooner. Our chef Penny wasn’t the best hibachi chef I’ve seen but she was great with my son and he really enjoyed watching her. She was honestly a lot of fun. The hibachi itself was pretty good. I liked the fried rice which is an up charge. The steak was good and so was the chicken. I honestly don’t think it was anything special. Dessert was ice cream also nothing special.
So to sum it up our waitress seemed overwhelmed and managed to make me feel rushed even though I feel she could have visited our table a few more times then she did. That along with being overpriced is why only the 3 stars.

I thought the food was absolutely delicious and fresh. Our hibachi chef, Hoy, was fantastic! I ordered tofu and veggies (asparagus, broccoli, onion, snow peas), for me everything was prepared to perfection. We didn’t get a show, but we had really good conversation throughout our lunch.
Our server was, in his words «still waking up» and not on top of his game at all, he forgot to put in my boyfriends extra fried rice and something for the guests we were seated with. When the server doesn’t put in an order, the kitchen doesn’t put it on the cart and when your chef gets to the grill, he doesn’t have everything he needs and everything gets held up.
I left with a big happy belly which is not usually the case when I eat hibachi and everyone else in my party was just as pleased!
Fun fact: Benihana is no longer able to pop food in your mouth because someone (in Florida I believe) got a hot shrimp to the eye and sued the company.

This is the WORST Hibachi I have ever had. We came here for a friends birthday, and I will never be going back. Service was mediocre, but the food was the real travesty.
You go to Hibachi for a show, but it’s not fun when the cook makes the SAME Giant Eagle joke the entire time. He also couldn’t perform all the tricks that are pretty standard from Hibachi chefs. The food. Not good. My boyfriend ordered tofu and it was cold in the middle. He didn’t bother to have the guy heat it more, b/​c it would have just been a hassle. The chef forgot one friends meal completely and got rude with the server. Then after everything was cooked, he looked at me and asked did you eat all your shrimp. I replied «no, you never served me any.» (I had ordered the chicken and shrimp.) He then sends the server back into the kitchen to get more. By the time they were cooked, everyone was finished eating. Come on. To make matters worse, when we left we saw that he was the head chef. That doesn’t say too much for the rest of them.
I don’t know how people keep coming here. There is WAY better hibachi in Pittsburgh, for a lot less money. I mean honestly, I paid $ 9.50 for a glass of Kendall Jackson. No.
The best part of the meal were the cupcakes that my friend brought. Do your wallet and your stomach a favor and go to a different Hibachi place. Benihana is not worth your time or money.

Had a wonderful experience at Benihana with the family last night. We love hibachi restaurants and go to various area restaurants on a regular basis. Benihana is the oldest of the hibachi restaurants in the area, so we had not been for a while. We arrived early before the rest of our party and the staff was very welcoming. They would regularly stop by and make sure we didnt need anything. After our party arrived, we were seated and our chef came out. He was very entertaining and the food tasted amazing. The best part was how accommodating the staff was. One member of our party had a food allergy and the manager specifically came over to ensure that all food would be made in the back and would not come in contact with other ingredients.
We had our 2 year old daughter with us and part way through the meal she started squirming and wanted to walk around the restaurant. After a few «laps» of the restaurant, without us asking, the manager came out with crayons and paper which made our daughter VERY happy.
Everyone was so pleasant and the food was better than I had remembered. Benihana has a lot of competition from Saga, Nakama and others, but after our most recent visit, Benihana definitely has the best value and the best staff. We visited Saga shortly after going to Benihana and just kept commenting on how much better Benihaha was.