Stopped by this new restaurant in Ladner at lunch time on Friday. Having seen the signs (and wincing at "Oki Doki") announcing a "now open" Japanese restaurant in small town Ladner, we had to give it a try.

Starting with service.... I think they may be still "settling in". Service seemed distracted and at times hard to come by. We sat for quite a while after finishing while the manager/owner (?) and several servers looked directly at us and then ignored us. We finally had to ask for the cheque. Also, the green tea we asked for never did show up, after asking twice.

Food was OK. Nothing very special. Every single Special Roll had crab in it, which made it unapproachable for me (allergy). The Other Half ordered a sashimi lunch special. With only four small pieces of salmon-and-maguro sashimi, the lunch special came with miso soup and a roll from a list. At $14.95, the price seemed too steep. I ordered a meal combo with choice of two items. I asked for shrimp and vegetable tempura and spicy tuna roll. For $9.95, this came with run-of-the-mill miso soup, two tiny mounds of "special rice" = (Japanese rice) and a green salad. The spicy tuna was odd, hot and sweet, almost like Thai sweet chili sauce. Tempura batter was fine, but there was only one piece of shrimp. The shrimp was tiny indeed, gooey and battered up to make it look bigger.

Ambiance - not sure if the furniture was left over from the previous East Indian restaurant or not. Wild black and white and neon print on table tops and chairs, with bits and pieces of bamboo kitsch. Place was clean enough, music was Asian pop. The large gangly plants looked "left over"...

Would not recommend. Go further into town and try Maguro.

We decided to try this new place on Mother's Day. Phoned to make a reservation only to find out that they would not take one, first come first served is the policy, apparently. So we got there early to make sure we would be seated.

The decor is indeed bizarre for a Japanese restaurant. The music was equally odd and quit loud. No points for atmosphere, that's for sure.

We were the the first people to arrive for dinner and we were seated and given menus. Then we sat there for 10 minutes waiting for someone to come and take our drink orders. We had a couple of questions about the menu and our waitress seemed both annoyed and confused by our questions, and we were equally confused by her answers.

We ordered our drinks and tea. They were brought and then the waitress disappeared again. In the mean time other diners were being seated and a couple of people were standing by the cash register waiting for take out orders. About 10 minutes later the waitress finally appears to take our orders. She was constantly confused by what we ordered and had to repeat things back a few times, which was a good thing because she kept getting it wrong.

Meanwhile I notice one table of 4 people get up and leave, apparently waiting 10 minutes plus to even be acknowledged by a server was too much for them.

The sashimi and sushi were well prepared and the pieces of tuna and salmon were good sized.

The cooked food was less impressive and took forever. At this point there were a number of people standing around waiting for their take out orders and it was clear that the kitchen was overwhelmed. It seemed that the wait staff were busy helping out in the kitchen and therefore had to ignore anyone dining at a table. I watched a table of 6 desperately trying to get someone to take their order. The staff is expert at not looking in the direction of the tables in the dining area when they make their occasional emergence from the kitchen with a take out order.

I ordered the Tempura Udon, which was pictured on the menu with two big deep fried prawns and assorted vegetables. It came with no prawns at all, just four tempura vegetables. Not a good value for the money.

The other diners all ordered either chicken or beef Yakisoba. These came out one at a time over a period of about 10 minutes. The first one came on a sizzling iron plate, the next two sere not sizzling at all, as though they had forgotten to heat the plates. The actual Yakisoba on the plates was pedestrian at best.

So we finished our meals and sat there waiting for a check...and waiting...and waiting. After about 20 minutes the server, who had been busy filling take out orders at a furious pace, came by to ask if we wanted our check. My Mom said "Yes, unless you are buying me dinner" to the waitress, who didn't even crack a smile. Mind you she hadn't smiled up to this point, so why would she start now?

20 more minutes go by and no check. They are too busy with take out orders. Finally my we get up and go over the cash register to pay.

Having eaten there once, I now know why they do so much take out business. However, judging by the long wait to pick up the take out I don't know if that is something I would do either. They seem to be completely incapable of turning out food in a timely fashion, whether you eat there or pick up.

With so many other excellent choices in the area I can only wish them luck.