Kristi W.
Yelp
Saw this place in passing and stopped in right after opening time around 430 pm. on a Saturday. They have seating downstairs and upstairs but not a lot. It's old town Alexandria. That's kind of expected for some of the establishments. No problem, though. I was seated immediately upstairs as a solo diner at the sushi bar. I had a direct view of watching them prepare the menu items that involved sushi, sashimi, etc. That was pretty dope!
I was quickly served and ended up trying the Yami Yami Jumbo Roll and the Fire Crunch Roll as well as shumai for my appetizer. The shumai was pretty good. It's definitely not big enough to share with two people. The Fire Crunch Roll was awesome! I could have gotten two of them, but it was pretty large! On to my Yami Yami Jumbo Roll, which was good. It is a deep fried Roll that normally comes with avocado. Disclaimer: My order did NOT come with it because I have an epipen level allergy to avocado. It sucks because I used to love avocado before discovering my allergy. However, that doesn't stop me from enjoying foods that normally come with it. I just let the staff know of my allergies, and they make adjustments from there. No problems.
Now, I eat sushi quite often, and this was the first time that I was met with rejection when I asked if the avocado could be switched with cucumbers or even asparagus vs no green at all. Most estaishments are understanding of my allergy and make sure that I'm safe and satisfied with the alternative options. They will even offer recommendations to the roll that I want. However, this experience definitely left a sour taste in my mouth, with being told that they can only remove items but not replace them. On top of that, when I initially mentioned my allergy, my server pointed out the very few items w/o avocado for me to try instead. Maybe she thought she was being helpful, but I had already asked about the Yami Yami roll, which led to the no response on replacing the avocado. I was too tired and hungry to go back and forth and had already walked a bit to get there. So, I just settled for the roll I wanted but without any substitutions. I simply said ok, that's fine. Noted.
It does disappoint me because the food was really good, but I probably will go elsewhere for sushi rolls that won't penalize me for having an allergy. Oh, well.