Blogger Sued By Restaurant For Bad Review 166
Voulnet writes "A recently opened Benihana branch in Kuwait sued 248am.com, a well known Kuwaiti blog, for posting a bad restaurant review about its food, asking for the blog to be shut and more than $17,500 in damages (5000 KD). Kuwaiti bloggers everywhere have announced their support for the reviewing blogger; even though it is highly unlikely the restaurant will get anything from the court, since journalists are almost always favored in libel cases in Kuwaiti courts. It seems Benihana hasn't heard of Cooks source magazine."
Re:Eh, it was probably right (Score:4, Informative)
Cached report on lawsuit from blog & review (Score:5, Informative)
Bloggers article on being sued:
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:DeHc7_jwEEQJ:www.248am.com/mark/kuwait/im-being-sued-by-benihana/+http://www.248am.com/mark/kuwait/im-being-sued-by-benihana/&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us&client=firefox-a&source=www.google.com [googleusercontent.com]
Blogger's original review:
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:Q4qRyLrkfa4J:www.248am.com/mark/kuwait/my-benihana-experience/+http://www.248am.com/mark/kuwait/im-being-sued-by-benihana/&cd=2&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us&client=firefox-a&source=www.google.com [googleusercontent.com]
My Benihana Experience
A few days back I posted about Benihana opening up at the Avenues and yesterday night I decided to pass by with Nat and try it out. The service wasn’t too bad for a restaurant that’s just been open for a few days and the staff were really friendly. The restaurant itself is made up of islands and bars with a grill in the middle of each one. You sit around the grill and the chef will come to your table and prepare the food right in front of you which makes things entertaining. It’s actually why I prefer sitting at the bar in Japanese restaurants in general, since you can talk to the chef and watch them put your dish together. The problem with my experience last night though was with the food, it was disappointing to say the least.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wllrtj-3rV4 [youtube.com]
We ordered beef negimayaki for starters followed by an Orange Blossom maki and a Hibachi Chicken. The negimaki arrived looking good and was probably the best thing we had there even though I prefer Maki’s negimaki which has a richer teriyaki sauce. The Orange Blossom was very ordinary, wouldn’t order it again. Now the Hibachi chicken which is basically grilled chicken, that was the worst. The chicken was very chewy (I could swear it was undercooked if not raw) and tasted terrible. Even after I had the chef add some more teriyaki sauce in hopes of improving the taste it didn’t work. I tried to dip it into the sauces that came with the chicken but it was hard to figure out if they were actually making things worse or not. Nat only ate one piece of chicken and left the rest while I needed my protein since I’m on a strict diet and forced myself to eat my whole plate (I can do that) but the after taste was really bad. Even the rice and the veggies that came with it tasted bad AND were under cooked. Once we left I considered picking up a frozen yogurt from Pinkberry even though I hate frozen yogurts but I just needed something to get rid of the aftertaste. A few moments later we ended up at Chocolate Bar ordering the gooey chocolate cake (bye bye diet).
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iAyPBFxNQlw [youtube.com]
I shot the two videos above of the chef preparing our meal. Benihana are known for the live shows they perform when preparing your dish so I was expecting to see [This] but ended up with the above . Would I go back to Benihana? No I wouldn’t. Their sashimi and maki’s are pretty cheap (KD1.5 for 5 pieces of Salmon sashimi for example) but there are two other Japanese restaurants at the Avenues, Wasabi and Maki, and I would prefer either one of those to Benihana.
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Re:Eh, it was probably right (Score:4, Informative)
They used to do a lot more.
I remember when they'd do the flame-flash with the meat. (Cam'ron, Can't Hurt My Style, "Flame it like Benihana's...")
The juggling with various ingredients to make the fried rice.
A lot of it is skilled knife-work, no question. Then again, ever time I've gone with friends to Benihana, the food's been wonderful.
YMMV by location and by chef, of course. And that pretty much holds for any Teppanyaki place.
Benihana Contact Information (Score:4, Informative)
Contact information for Benihana in case you want to call and complain:
http://www.benihana.com/about/franchise/contact [benihana.com]
Phone: (305) 593-0770
Corporate Youtube account:
http://www.youtube.com/benihana [youtube.com]
Corporate Facebook account
http://www.facebook.com/Benihana.Official.Page [facebook.com]
Corporate Twitter account
http://twitter.com/Benihana__ [twitter.com]
Website contact page
http://www.benihana.com/contact-us [benihana.com]