I'm actually a little surprised to read some of the more recent negative reviews. I've been to Kobe's a few times now and have never been forced to order drinks at the bar. Yes, one time it was extremely busy and we were asked to sit in the lounge for a bit until there was space, but we weren't forced to order anything. The ladies working there were all quite nice and welcoming.

Last I went there was around September. We were brought upstairs right away. It was 7pm on a Monday evening, so I guess that's probably a good time to make your reservations. We sat down, and within a few minutes the servers brought us water and took our orders.

The food was tasty. Maybe not worth as much as they charge, but if you have an Entertainment Book, that makes it all better. One great thing about these kind of restaurants is that they cook it right in front of you, so how can you go wrong - if something doesn't taste right, the chef is right there to fix it up for you. You'll never complain about something being too cold.

To expand on that, they give you a great show when they cook. It's full of laughs, and food is flying everywhere (controlled of course). Our chef joked with us, made us laugh, and did all sorts of cool things with his cutlery. The lighting is a little dim, but with all that fire going on it doesn't stay dark long.

I would call this a special occasion type of place. Good for a date or some kind of celebration. You might stink from the food and smoke so hitting up a club after this wouldn't be smart. However, if you're just there to have a good time with friends or your SO, this is a good choice.

I went few nights ago with couple friends for dinner only to find that we had to wait 45min to be seated upstairs even though we arrived earlier than our reservation time.

Before you go upstairs, you HAVE to go throught the bar to purchased over priced drinks. We didn't want to order any drinks because we already had couple drinks at our friends house so we kindly asked if we can skip the lounge/bar. They refused because apprently upstairs was too full. Why would you make so many reservation that you can't even fit everyone in the restaurant and make them wait an extremely long time.

So finally we go upstairs to the 3rd floor where theres bigger tables. We had to share with other people, which was fine but had to wait till the seats were full to even order. One other point was that the waitress not the cocktail servers or drink servers doesn't speak english. I ask them simple questions but they look confused and don't answer properly which I had no clue what they were saying. One question I asked was if the beef was actually from Japan. Some other waitress came to me and answered my question only to say that ITs NOT. ITS ALBERTA BEEF NOT REAL KOBE BEEF. Finding that it's not kobe beef, it's extremely highly priced. not worth it.

We waited 45min and I wasn't planning to go to another restaurant so I ordered the Seafood combination. The chef came pretty fast which was nice, but after a while the 3rd floor was super hot and smokey. I asked if they can turn up the AC or do something with the smoke but nothing changed through out the dinner. it was very uncomfortable, disgusted with the heat. the most unpleasant experience I had in a vancouver restaurant. The food again was average, nothing special. My friends had the actual kobe beef dinner but honesly you could find better japanese restaurant with better services and better priced menus.

Heres the one thing that people seem to skip over about Kobe's.
After you eat there,you stink.
Seriously,funky, BO type stink. The problem is,because everyone in your party smells,you dont notice it until you go out to a club,and people say, "whats that smell?"
Its from all the oil in the air coming from the teppanaki grills.

The food is "meh", meaning not very good for what they charge.
Ya,its somewhat entertaining to watch the chefs in their rehearsed acts,but I think thats kind of over and done with.If i'm paying huge bucks for a meal,I dont care about how they cook it,just how good it is.

(PS- Febreeze doesnt cover it up either.)

We go there about 2-3 times at Kobe for a night out during special occassion. We were there last Saturday. The place was packed but been there so many times, I had made reservation for dinner. Food was good, I loved the mustard sauce, we were at Osaka Teppanyaki on West Broadway, Kobe's quality is much better than Osaka, then you also pay more for the quality. All in all, it was pleasant and the food was good. When the bill came, we were shocked to see services charges being charge, if we didn't check the bill properly, we would have given them tips on top of the service charges that they charge us without telling us. So, check your bill before you pay. I wonder how many people paid tips on top of the service charge that was charged to the bill???

Food: we ordered the Teriyaki Chicken and Hibachi Steak. All dinners come w/ rice, soup, appies, and veggies. The soup was very light and flavourful. The appies consisted of 3 little shrimps, but were very tasty. Overall the food was decent. It was cooked just right but I couldnt help but be reminded of the Koya at the food court...

Service/Ambiance: very attentive servers on hand in the vicinity. The ratio of staff to customers when we were there was almost 1:2 for a majority of the time. Our chef was nice and put on a little culinary show. It was not as flamboyant as some of the others we caught but it may have been due to the fact we had small children at our table. Decor wise the downstairs was very modern and upstairs it feels a bit more authentic w/ the subtle asian touches. I felt as if we were part of a production or show where everyone knew their parts very well. It was efficient but almost routine like and I was part of their assembly line and felt a bit rushed when they handed me my bill while I was still in the middle of my entree.

Value: Your def paying for ambiance, location, entertainment b/c I'm not sure my meal was worth the price tag. However, if you have your entertainment book card, do bring it to save a little mula!

This is an excellent place to sit back and enjoy conversation and a unique dining experience.

Myself and three of my associates came here on a recommendation and spent a good amount of money over two hours. We had no reservation and were in little hurry when we entered. We passed the time in their lounge until being invited up to the restaurant proper. Menus were presented, food was chosen, and soup was served. The food took some small time to arrive and was cooked in the proper Teppanyaki style, which is to say at the table. The chefs were witty and the service efficient and that's the best one can expect from most places.

What sets this restaurant apart is the quality of the food and the ambiance. The steak and lobster are simply exquisite and their specialty drinks are also worth taking a look at. The air in the restaurant is quiet, not nearly as smoky as one would expect from restaurants of this type, and conducive to speech. I despise restaurants with loud music or garish themes; the understatement to be found here is something more restaurants could learn from.

Overall, an excellent place that I will be recommending to my friends.

Okay, so they don't have beans. They do have really good food, though. Noticed the minimalist entrance and went inside, thinking it was just a bar or lounge or something, but when they asked me if I wanted to eat I said sure and followed the lady upstairs. I grabbed some sake and ordered some steak and lobster, had a good time watching the chef cook it and even bought him some sake. Dude practically juggled his knives while cutting the food into bite size chunks. Lobster was great but the mark of a good place, I think, is the steak, and the steak here was simply fantastic. Definitely coming back.

I had heard that this place had not improved much over the years but had to check it out for myself. As the other commentators have mentioned, you place leaves you smelly. The smoke from the grills permeates clothing and ruins the atmosphere. When we were there last week we noticed a lot of shadey characters wearing a lot of cheap looking bling. Lots of high end gangster looking cars parked out on the street too. The lights are always down low in the expensive bar on the ground floor. My sense is that the only people that frequent this place are gangsters, people with coupons, first timers who do not know better, and unsuspecting tourists. The little show the chefs put on has become rather lame over the years. I would not recommend this place as it continues to dissapoint.

I do a little bit of globe-trotting but felt the need to register my two cents about this place I was eating at three nights past. I must confess that I had found myself less than impressed with Vancouver – the over-abundance of sushi places in this city is matched only by those of donut shops in Toronto, hot dog vendors in New York, or bad teriyaki dives in Seattle. I was getting tired of sushi, even if most of it was quite good, so the people that I was staying with recommended we hit this place.

My friends demanded that we get there early, as tables fill up quickly. There were three of us and we were seated fairly quickly, arriving at six and arriving at our tables about ten minutes later. I've been to teppanyaki restaurants before, in Japan and elsewhere, and have visited a place very much like this in Palm Springs a number of years ago and another one in Hawaii one year past. This place blew them all away.

In many of my experiences the chefs are a dry and stoic lot, friendly up to a point. The chefs here were friendly and amusing, sharing small little anecdotes and playing with the faux-foreign ambiance that the restaurant seems based around. The food was also magnificent, but that was only to be expected given that my friends, like myself, are all foodies.

Overall, an excellent experience. They make an excellent Bloody Mary, though they call it them Caesers in Canada for reasons that I have never been able to understand. With luck, the next time I happen to be in town, I will be able to visit this place again.

I dined here 4 days ago with my wife and her friend.
It was a great experience seeing our food prepared in front of us and the little
jokes the chef made as he was cooking.
We met a really nice couple seated at our table thingy and had some great
conversation.
The ambiance was great and everything about this place was spot on.
My only reservation was the portion size. Small.

Thumbs up for this place.