Christopher D.
Yelp
I really want to like 888, since the idea is so original: a speakeasy style sushi restaurant that has a vinyl-playing DJ. However, my biggest thought after the meal was "would I give this one or two stars?"
Starting with ambiance, 888 sits behind an unmarked door with a red light, attached--but not directly--to the JW Marriott. Behind the doors is a modern, vibrant, and upscale-but-approachable sushi restaurant. Notably, along one of the walls is a collection of vinyl records and a DJ playing songs that set the mood. In this category, 888 does a great job.
Hereafter, things get more grim. Starting with service, I initially was impressed that the restaurant reached out to me in advance of my reservation to ask a bit more about my party. Specifically, they learned that I had a small child that would be eating with us, and they offered a highchair in advance of me even entering the restaurant. However, the positives turned to negatives as we began to dine. The amount of time we waited between courses was rather absurd, lasting well upwards of 30 minutes between appetizers and mains. At one point, I flagged down our waiter, who was hard to find, to ask if we could just get a bowl of rice for my son (who was having trouble waiting to eat as he's only two) and a Diet Coke for my mom who had been waiting since we got there for one. Despite being a really simple request, and the fact that the rice cooker was within eye shot of me, it took an additional 10 minutes to fulfill both requests. Compounding this, was the relative lack of check-in that the waiter did throughout the meal, not noticing that my mom finished hardly any of her food and not really caring to ask why.
Moving onto drinks, I thought the beverages were OK at best. The alcohol content was quite low in the mixed drinks and the wine selection for the price point of the restaurant was just OK.
However, the real offender, was the food. Living in Southern California and often traveling to coastal cities I understand wholeheartedly that it's harder to source fresh fish in a landlocked city than it is in coastal areas. However, I have been to many a landlocked city and experienced both fresher and better quality than I experienced here. The complementary seaweed chips that they brought out reeked of THA, the substance that makes fish smell fishy when they're left out too long. The chicken Karaage was pretty lame as well, and they clearly knew that as they tried to cover it with a very mayo heavy sauce on the side. Similar to the chicken karaage, the chicken in the chicken fried rice was filled with fat and gristle, and some pieces looked undercooked. Overall, the fried rice itself was the best dish. As I mentioned about the seaweed, the sushi we ordered, was chewy and slightly smelled of THA, again, indicating that their ingredients just weren't fresh.
Adding insult to injury, the price point here wasn't cheap, I would say most of the better dishes costed $40-$50, and there were some quite over-the-top dishes as well, including those that featured caviar and gold flakes . As I've said in my reviews of some other restaurants, I have trouble justifying why one would spend a high price on luxury ingredients, when a restaurant can't even get the basics done correct correctly.
All in I was highly disappointed by 888 , between stale fish, long service and wait times, higher prices for what one would get, and mediocre drink drinks, it is exceedingly hard to recommend this to anybody who visits Nashville or in the Nashville area. I have to assume, although I'm not a local, but there's much better sushi available.