"Red Geisha is a Foodie": Shinsengumi - 4 stars for food and 1 star for the seating host

Category: Japanese

Neighborhoods: Gardena, Torrance area

We love Yakitori and this is the place that we always always go to. The food is a 4-star hella excellent, the atmosphere very noisy b/c they do a traditional Japanese welcome shout. Some would say is rowdy and all too loud but when you're drinking, it all becomes great fun. So once you are seated, everything is great. BUT the SEATING HOST is a SUREFIRE 1 STAR wonder. Here's my annoyance: We waited for over an hour this past weekend but that wasn't the kicker. The kicker was the Seating Host -- 1. Spoke extremely poor English 2. Did not know how to manage the flow of hungry people signing up -- so he told everyone the wait was 15-20 min. THEN on top of having our names on a waiting list, he would jump around to the ppl who he could speak Japanese to. My party of 4 got bumped off TWICE. WTF? He said, oh those ppl to bar, you no bar right? I said, bar or table is fine by me...but he managed to hear what he wanted to hear. Our usual Shinsengumi guy - Teppei - was not there to impress our out of town guests, so it was an embarrassing experience for us. The Seating Host needs to be switched out immediately or we probably won't go back. The South Bay has lots of Japanese to offer. Once we got in, thankfully our Sapporo beer was served promptly!

Shin Sen Gumi Yakitori
4 star food/1 star service
18617 S Western
Gardena, CA 90247
(310) 715-1588

Shin Sen Gumi - All Star Delights

BEST: Chicken Meatballs & Bacon Wrapped Asparagus