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| - This review comes with the caveat that we will almost certainly be back, despite the low rating. The other caveat is that we just got back from Japan, so our standards may have been a little too high, but my quibble is not with the food!
We came here on a Wednesday night around 7pm, during the first week of opening. The 7pm timing was fortunate as we were the last group that did not have to wait for a table. We were seated at a high-top across near the TV and bar. Our server came over and dropped off menus, then returned maybe a minute later to ask if we were ready. We asked for water and a few more minutes (the menu is pretty extensive).
More than ten minutes later, still no server. We flag down another table's server and ask him to send her out--we're pretty hungry by this time. She shows up a few minutes later and we order some ramen, some yakitori, and a maki roll.
Another twenty minutes pass. Our server stops by and comments with surprise that we don't have our food yet, and tells us she'll rush it. The ramen and maki come out together, which was a little frustrating as we like to share and both should be eaten pretty much immediately upon receipt. A minute later the yakitori come out in a pretty cool presentation--there are flaming sugar cubes alongside the skewers.
We dig into the maki (Alaska Fresh Roll)--quite good by Pittsburgh standards (obviously it didn't match the freshness of Japan)--and the Santouka ramen. The ramen came with two choices of noodles...neither of which were ramen noodles! Odd. We opted for udon over soba, and the perfectly cooked egg and pretty gluten "chip" were certainly reminiscent of ramen, but the broth lacked the depth of the ramen we had had in Japan (also lacked much spice, despite supposedly having chili oil in there). Still, it beats the pants off of Umami's over-salted bowl (but not as good as Ramen Bar).
Another server/hostess comes by and tells us there is a large party coming in by the window, so could we please move to different chairs at our table to accommodate them. As weird as it was to have a TV in an izakaya, I was enjoying watching the tennis match, so this was pretty annoying. Now our chairs back right up to the bar chairs, and we repeatedly are bumped by other patrons (and servers trying to squeeze by).
We start on the yakitori, and notice that one skewer is of mushroom, which we hadn't ordered, and we're missing the chicken and green onion skewer that we had. I flag down our server, and she takes the mushroom skewer away. She comes back to apologize, tells us the new skewer will be right out, and offers to comp us some salads/soup/drinks. We had ordered the amount of food we wanted, so we decline. The chicken skewer comes eventually and it is AWESOME. We had a bunch of these in Japan and this totally rivals them. The shishito pepper skewer was also brilliantly seasoned, and the bacon quail egg was good (albeit hard to screw up). This place does yakitori well, as any izakaya should!
We ask for the check, and we were charged for every item. I know we declined the comped salads/drinks, but it seemed odd to offer to comp a $5 drink and not comp one measly $2 skewer. The food was excellent, but we were not treated well as patrons and this was extremely frustrating...we left the restaurant feeling very glum. It appears Tan does takeout, so if the next visit isn't a vast improvement, I'll stick to feeding my cravings that way. Bottom line: definitely get the yakitori, but don't expect to be valued. The "meh" tagline on the 2-star rating sums it up pretty well...food was outstanding, but the experience was downright draining.
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