Dwight S.
Yelp
2.5 stars.
So here's the deal, folks - the fish is pre-cut. The rice happens to be excellent, so it's a step up from your supermarket-bought sushi, but the fish is not great at all. This is disappointing, as the itame clearly has stellar knife skills and is able to work quite quickly. Given the low to moderate volume of sushi orders and the skill & speed of the chef, there's really no excuse for pre-slicing fish. If you're craving fresh sashimi and need anything other than a quick fix, look elsewhere. Some of the rolls looked appetizing, but I'm really a sashimi & nigiri type of guy, and always stick with these when trying out a sushi place for the first time.
I feel bad giving only 2.5 stars because the itame was so nice. He offered us a free appetizer consisting of a roll of hollowed out cucumber filled with crab stick; unfortunately, what could have been a refreshing opener was ruined by the oily, cloying sauce that he proceeded to drown the roll in. Upon seeing that my lady friend was vegetarian, he was nice enough to give her some free seaweed salad as well. At the end of our meal, he served us an orange, the peel of which he used to cleverly carve out a very cute mouse.
The kitchen didn't fare much better, unfortunately. Our miso soup was standard and thus delicious (pretty hard to screw up, although Akai Hana manages to), but my lady friend's vegetable yaki udon, although a huge portion, consisted of mostly cabbage, with the occasional piece of zucchini, broccoli, and shredded carrot thrown in. The noodles were cooked well, and the sauce was nice (not overly gloopy) but too sweet for my tastes. I saw some nice (and huge) looking entrees emerge from the kitchen, including some large noodle bowls and a ginormous serving of chicken katsu, but my impression leads me to believe that the focus is quantity rather than quality.
Aside from the sushi chef, service was scattered and fairly disorganized, although not for lack of trying. Our waitress had the unfortunate skill of showing up exactly when we didn't need her, and disappearing when we did (after giving her our credit card, we waited for ten minutes to have it returned - by another server who noticed we were ready to leave).
Probably won't be back.