Daimaru Steakhouse & Sushi Bar

A little bit pricey, and the menu is confusing, but we enjoyed the meal. My wife asked the server to choose what she thought was the best on the menu. The server was taken aback by the request, but her choice was excellent. We live in Minnesota, but grew up in Salina. This will be on our list of go to places when we visit here again.

Beautiful building with terrific interior design relative to cuisine.
Unfortunately poor or lacking thereof management. Customer driven market with busy traffic terribly generates the well known (previous reviews) of customer service which is absent. Has incredible potential. Franchise manager where art thou?
Brett 2÷26÷2016

I thought a basic lunch with no drinks for 3 people coming to $ 43 was very expensive. My wife and I both ordered a roll that had so much cream cheese in it that it was all you could taste. The waitress that took our order asked us what kind of soup we would like but never mentioned that it wasn’t part of the lunch special. I guess that was my fault for not knowing it but we will not be going back.
The menu was very confusing as well because we would have never ordered the cream cheese roll. In the list there was a California roll, California roll A, California roll B, California roll C…4 kinds? The crème cheese roll was called a Big John roll. Once you read the description for it, then you had to go back to another section of the menu to find out what another roll was. Sorry but I was clearly disappointed in my experience.
Our ticket:
3 rolls $ 14 (1 full of crème cheese)
2 rolls $ 10 (1 full of crème cheese)
chicken hibachi $ 12
2 miso soup $ 4
subtotal $ 40
— — — — — -
total $ 43.36

I love this place! I usually make it a habit of eating here on special occasions like my birthday, but honestly you can go anytime and always have a great meal. The grill chefs are colorful and entertaining with lots of utensil tricks and witty comments like «egg roll» while they spin an egg on the grill.
The food is amazing each and every time I go, with the best fried rice I’ve ever had. If you want a great hibachi style meal at an affordable. price, this is the place to go

Good good good good good good good good good good good good good good good good
good good good good. Good, good good good good good! Good good good good good.
Good good good, good good, good good good.
Good good good; good good good, good good good good, good good good good good.

Coming in from NY I have high expectations. Great job guys! Jason Zhongshan coo was a great host. The bartender very friendly and knowledgeable. He even sold me a 180 dollar bottle of Sake. It was a special occasion so I bought. Worth every sip. By the way the pricing on food and drinks was spectacularly low. I didn’t want you to think it was high priced. just the special bottle.

Let me start by saying that the food was good. Our party of two had the ribeye and it was cooked to perfection. Our dinners came with soup, salad, noodles, rice and vegetables. The ginger dressing is delicous but unfortunately the lettuce was drowning in it. There was about 2 tablespoons of dressing at the bottom of thr bowl. Our waitress and chef were extremely personable and we had no complaints. We were throughly entertained as we watched our meal being prepared. I would go as far as to say that the food and service of our server and chef earns 4 stars.
My problem and reason for the low rating has to do with the rest of our experience. The hostess who seated us was not friendly or hospitable, in fact she seemed a bit anmoyed by our prescence. We arrived at approximatley 8 pm, and there were plenty of customers. The posted hours on the door states they are open until 10 pm. At approximately 8:30 pm, the large room to our right was cleaned and the lights turned off. I can understand closing a section but turning the lights off was very off putting. Next the hostess entered our section of the restaurant and closed all of the blinds. Still not deal breakers, but mild annoyances.
The final straw was the sweeping that took place. While we were still enjoying our dinner, they closed the two grills to our right and began the cleaning process. I would like to add that there was a table behind us who had just been seated and were starting their dinner. The chairs were pushed into the middle of the room, away from the grill, the floors swept and mopped. This did not seem like routine clean up but rather closing for the night. I say that because the floor around where we were eating had not been swept prior to our arrival as there was a huge piece of zuchinni on the floor. While we finished our dinner, sweeping continued to happen around our feet. I’m not a fan of seeing trash while I eat. Finally, they mopped the floors, creating a slick walk way for us when we were ready to leave. One of us in our party was on crutches and it created a dangerous situation by having wet floors. We did not have a choice to avoid the wet area since we were boxed in by the mopping.
I am usualky a very understanding customer, however the cleaning while we were eating and the mopping of the floors left us with a bad last impression. I understand that there are things that need to be done before clsoing, but perhaps they should focus on areas that don’t have paying customers.
Sadly, while I enjiyed the food, I don’t think I will be back to this establishment when I am in Salina.

This is one of my favourite ‘To go’ places in Salina. Being a vegetarian I have limited options in town, but daimaru has many options. If I am not wrong, they recently even added a red Thai curry which is just phenomenal!

Just left… sat down at the bar for beer and sushi. Waited 10 minutes no one came. Put my coat on and walked by the hostess on way out and she did not say a word. Great service tonight… NOT.

Got what I expected– the typical Japanese Steakhouse and I would go again. The manager stopped by to check in– I always like that! Server did the job but wasn’t overly friendly…

Hibachi meals and Sushi rolls are great. Recommend to anyone!
I have ate at Daimaru many times over the years. Service and food have never disappointed.

The meal was delicious. The hibachi cook had new performance material I hadn’t seen in a sushi bar before.
We orders sushi rolls and they were very good. The beef broth had a better flavor than I have experienced before. I ordered the Hibachi chicken with fried rice. It was delicious. The cook also gave samples of shrimp which were yummy, and cooked noodle samples. I’ve never had Asian noodles and these were delicious. There was plenty of food to experience.
I enjoyed my dining experience and plan to visit again.

Previous visits inspired me to write a 4 star rating.
Although we still enjoy this friendly family eatery, I feel that during our last visit things were not quite as good. Our hibachi chef used two or three times more butter than on previous visits and he did not pass out any dipping sauces. I felt a little rushed.
I plan to go back next week and hope to have another 4 star experience and rewrite this review.

Best food in Salina by a mile. Sushi is as fresh as setting seaside. If you like to «experience» really good food, not just eat it, you MUST check this place out. Absolutely, the best quality steaks around. Great atmosphere and well trained staff. You can tell the owner insists, his staff provides fantastic service.

I came in for dinner and have to say it’s a very nice building. I’m not from the area and I have been in some old and outdated Japanese Steakhouses, but that doesn’t always mean the food will be bad.
In this case I have to say I was underwhelmed. I ordered the Top Sirloin combo with shrimp. The Soup and salad that came first were standard Japanese Steakhouse style and were good. The steak and shrimp with vegetable and rice same out soon after, but not too soon.
First, the noodles that came with the meal threw me off. Noodles? Really? I’ve never seen that before but they weren’t bad. My steak was ordered medium and was a bit over-​cooked but still good. Shrimp was very small but they gave me quite a few of them. Vegetables were about what you’d expect. The rice was really lacking that Japanese steakhouse flavor, didn’t have any egg in it that I could see, and was a bit too crunchy.
The meal was NOT bad, but it wasn’t close to great. My first letdown was that they didn’t have egg yolk sauce. I know that it’s pure cholesterol and isn’t served at many Japanese steakhouse anymore but I like it.
Second, and this is huge… NO YUM YUM SAUCE! Seriously. This is a huge letdown. After probing my waitress about sauces they serve with the meal she finally said, «Umm, we have some ginger stuff.» I told her to just bring it out. I’ve eaten at these steakhouses across the country and this is the first one that doesn’t have some type or style of a creamy sauce for the meal. I was very disappointed.
Lastly, and this is more of an annoyance than a food issue, is about the staff. I came in just before 8:15pm when the restaurant was closing at 10pm. I left the restaurant at 9:45pm. At 8:40 they were vacuuming one of the sections with a loud vacuum interrupting the conversation between myself and the person I was dining with. By 9pm there was a vacuum and a sweeper in my section as if a sign to diners that it’s time to leave. I find this extremely rude. I know what time the restaurant closes and will not stay past that time, but please don’t try to push me out the door.
Overall this place isn’t bad, but it isn’t great.

Saturday evening stop here with the family. We really liked it, portions were appropriate and the food was great. The kids and I had veggie/​Cali sushi, edamame, miso and small salad. Hubby had chicken teriyaki which came with soup and salad and he ate it all, a good sign. Was it remarkable? No, it was above average for KS though and we’d go back for sure.

We love high quality Asian restaurants, so were excited to try out Daimaru. Unfortunately, we were sorely disappointed. This review is not about the sushi, I was going to order a roll to go for later, but the rest of the experience led me to skip the sushi.
The website lists a shrimp appetizer as part of the hibachi dinner, but when we arrived someone had scratched that out with a sharpie on the menu. The cost was not any lower even though the shrimp appetizer is no longer included. The waiter asked if we wanted steamed or fried rice. We wanted steamed, but were never served any rice at all.
The steak had fairly good flavor. We both ordered our steaks cooked medium, my husbands was medium, but mine was well, no pink at all. The veggies were good, I wished the onions were cooked a little more and the broccoli cooked a little less. I did not like the chicken broth, miso would have been a nice substitute. The salad with ginger dressing and the noodles were ok, just nothing special. I cook Asian a lot at home and just kept thinking that I could cook a much better meal at home.
I mostly liked the atmosphere and décor, although the tables were pretty scratched up for a nice restaurant.
The service was strange. Our appetizer came out shortly after our main course. I was initially pretty excited because it looked like a lot of softshell crab for the price, but several of the pieces were actually tempura veggies instead of softshell crab, so it was not such a good value after all.
The cost was almost $ 80 for one glass of wine, softshell crab appetizer, two steak hibachi dinners, tax and tip. It is a fair bit of food, but the quality is just not there. I would have rather gone to the restaurant in Assaria or somewhere in Wichita to get a much better meal for that price.

SUPER overpriced for run of the mill Midwestern Asian food. I had the hibachi. The soup was good, like a good bowl of chicken broth should be. The salad was lame, just bagged iceberg lettuce mix with a ginger dessing. I like veggies or other things in my salad, snow peas, sprouts, and cucumbers, would have been good. The noodles were over cooked, and over seasoned. WAY to salty! Service was lame, I couldn’t flag anyone down for a drink refill, and I was sitting right next to the bar! The bartender came and went several times, looked right at me, and just kept on going. I sat forever with no drinks, and no checks. Finally someone else (not my waitress, nor the bartender) waited on me. I complained & left no tip. I will not be back.

*disclaimer: This review is only for the hibachi. None of us sampled the sushi.
My group of 8 was extremely excited about hibachi… but unfortunately, we were sorely disappointed.
The plus side of Daimaru is that prices are reasonable, especially for portion sizes.
However, they don’t offer white sauce + ginger like most Japanese steakhouses, instead subbing one mustard-​based sauce which no one in our party cared for. Also, while the rice, veggies, and meat were great, noodles were extremely salty. Lastly, the service was just meh. Not particularly friendly or helpful with recommendations.
We may come back to sample the sushi, but the whole experience just left a bad taste…

I am not sure I have another restaurant that holds as many beautiful memories as this one does for me.
Not only is the food at Daimaru superb quality, the presentation and attention to detail and professionalism can only be matched in a much larger city — and even there rarely done to this level of excellence.
I presented seminars in Salina, KS for several years and often brought large parties to enjoy the hospitality at Daimaru. On a minimum of a weekly basis, I would make the trek of a 1.5 hour drive (each way) to get my sushi fix :).Growing up in CA means having lots of opportunities for good sushi, in the middle of Kansas it is a gem.
Thank you Jason and staff for so many wonderful times and for your excellent menu and commitment to quality.