Hibachi Express (Raleigh)

Ok, we went to Hibachi Express last night. They have three locations - one in Cary, one in Apex and one in Raleigh off of Capital Blvd near BJs (that's the one we tried). I love the idea of having an Express Japanese style restaurant - fast Japanese food is a great idea. They serve lunch which will run you any where from $4.75-$6.00 depending on your appetite . The prices rise rise after 4 P.M.

They serve chicken, steak, shrimp and vegetable options with your choice of rice or udon noodles and choice of sauce - basically teriyaki or a soy-ginger sauce. First, we were greeted by an all American staff which I thought was unusual for a Japanese restaurant , but - ok. We ordered our food and were directed to choose a seat amongst the many empty booths. They call out your order number when your food is ready. Then you have to go and pick it up. I felt like we were in a Japanese style Moe's Southwest Grill without the 'Welcome to Hibachi" when you walk in. First of all, they messed up our orders and then when I looked at the bill, they didn't place my order for my starving 4 year old son - so this was the second order mess up. It took forever to get our food - and to top it off my son's food didn't come until 10 minutes AFTER everyone else's food. Way to go! To my amazement the food was simply awful. I really thought it would be hard to mess up the flavors of sweet teriyaki mixed with Asian noodles but you can -and they did. The steak was very tough and chewy. The noodles were more like linguine, rather than an authentic Asian noodle. The sauce was thin and had a very light teriyaki taste to it. The spring rolls were pretty much empty and tasted like grease (and the grease dripping down my fingers led me to believe an amateur made them). Everything else we tried was really disappointing and needless to say, this was definitely a thumbs down from our crowd of foodies. Hopefully they can rebound on our next visit.