Benihana - Japanese restaurant in Bethesda - 7935 Wisconsin Ave, USA

I visited a couple of weeks ago. I had heard a lot about Benihana, mostly through a documentary I had watched about the owners of Benihana creating the restaurant as a competitor to bring in more customers & money, making people think it was a rival restaurant. The restaurant is dingy inside. Not very appealing. It can really use an upgrade. I’m not sure if all their restaurants are like this but it’s nothing that I would go back to. The hostess that sat us was nice & attentive. The show wasn’t anything spectacular. Although I had the vegetable plate, they offered a lot of food for those who had the “normal” meal. They were full!!! I did hear others who had gone there a couple of times and had a good meal. There is no parking at the restaurant but there is paid parking spots behind the restaurant.

I ordered for delivery. Benihana doesn’t taste good like it used to. I order steak yakisoba and the noodles were very dry (added soy sauce and it did not help), the steak did not look like the picture because they were cut so tiny, that I could barely taste it, and the hibachi veggies were julienned so small… there were few pieces of zucchini and too much burnt onions. I also ordered hibachi shrimp rice and the shrimps were cut into extra tiny pieces that I could barely taste them because they were cut so small. I will not order from here again

Good entertainment and lots of tasty food. Highly recommended. But this is not the place for take out food, need to dine in to experience the full package.

Everything was just average when I visited on June 25, 2023. If this is your first time at a Japanese hibachi steakhouse, then you may think it's okay to good. Based on my experiences of dining at almost a dozen different Japanese steakhouses from Kobe to Tsunami to Arigato's from NY to Florida with over 50 dine-in experiences, I would rate this one in last place. The service was subpar, as we sat for long periods without refills and had to continuously ask. The hibachi steak I ordered was tough and more sirloin like, it was not tender like the other steakhouses. My wife asked for noodles, we were charged an ala carte fee, and she did not receive any rice, we felt that she should have received both for the price charged, The kids meals were upcharged for rice, the waitress asked if they would like rice without mentioning additional fees, so we said yes. We weren't used to this, as it was included at the other places with no extra charge. There seemed to be an upcharge for everything. Dinner for 2 adults and 3 kids with soft drinks and no desserts or alcohol ran around $230, which is about 20% more than the other places, and the quality here was about 40% less, so an underwhelming experience. The cook seemed new, the restaurant could use a refresh, and the exhaust ventilation could be improved. Maybe this night was a one-off for Benihana, where everything was not going perfectly. On a positive note, the shrimp and rice was very good, they sat us right away, and they were really nice, so we still left a good tip.

The chef was great had excellent customer service! However our waitress was great at the beginning of service , all of a sudden she started rolling her eyes a being a bit nasty especially to my Dad. We felt as though she was overwhelmed and became mean after we asked for our checks.

I am been to off brand types of cook in front of you restaurants and I was excited to try the original. I was sorely disappointed. The waiter seemed bothered by any requests. My daughter ordered a drink and asked for vodka instead of rum. After quite some time we asked about the drink and the waiter just said oh “they said no”. We then reminded him my other daughter never received hers. The food was good but it was cooked quite strangely. First he cooked zucchini and the have each person zucchini. Then he cooked onions etc. so basically we ate on item at a time. He even cooked each entree one by one. It was over 200.00 for 4 adults and was not at all worth it. I would not recommend this restaurant. Not worth the time or money.

Outstanding service from our waitress, Marcella! Throughout the whole night Marcella was patient and took care of me and my family with the most friendliest and quickest service!!!She made sure we were satisfied and that our expectations were met. The chef was so skilled!! Did so many tricks it was fascinating to see. 10/10 would recommend to my friends. My family and I will definitely be back!

Ma wife and i ordered Hibachi Streak with fried rice and shrimp sushi. It’s not that very nice cause I know about steak meat. And that was not very good quality. But the shef’s performance was there and he made us fun. And so we were enough to enjoy a dinner there. But the price is a little bit expensive.