Best Japanese Restaurants in Cardiff By The Sea

Benihana - Carlsbad.never disappoints! Service was outstanding (especially Carlie and our Chef) by everyone! We celebrated a birthday and everyone had a fun time!

My kids said it was the best all around in a long time!! The wagyu was exceptionally phenomenal!

King's is part of our Christmas tradition, and last night's feast was the best meal we've ever had there! A big thanks to our server Colette for making our special night even more special! She was so attentive, and we didn't feel rushed, even though it got busy. Her recommendations were spot on, and our dinner was delicious! It was the first time my husband tried key lime pie, he hasn't stopped talking about it since. It was DIVINE! We'll definitely be back!

We were greeted with a welcome and they remembered from my reservation that this was my wedding anniversary. We choose an indoor seat by the window. The waves looked nice as we could see them roll in. The food was very good. We had the Shrimp Dumplings which was good--sort of like a Chinese potsticker, but soft. I had the Lobster and Shrimp Chowder, excellent. My wife had the Mixed Organic Greens, very good. We shared both. For our main course I had the Seafood Pasta lobster, shrimp, scallop & mahi with smoked tomato sauce, Thai basil & parmesan. I liked it very much. My wife had the Pacific Paella grilled lobster tail, mahi, clams, scallops, shrimp & saffron Arborio rice, very good. The quantity of those dishes was more than what we expected--we could have just ordered one or the other and shared.

The food is excellent but the customer service could use a lot of improvement. For starters, the restaurant was nearly empty when we went for dinner on Halloween night, but the hostess asked us if we had reservations and then proceeded to make us wait to be seated. And even though there were three people in our party and only one other set of diners, she gave us only one menu. When we asked for more menus, she brought us only one more even though she could clearly see there were three of us. Once our food came, the waitress kept hovering around and near us, and pounced on any empty dish she saw in our table even if it meant leaning over one of us or interrupting our conversation to ask if she could clear the empty dish or pass it to her. After bringing us our check, she again hovered around and started to clean up while we were trying to box our leftovers and calculate the tip.