Jay H.
Yelp
Let me start by saying I've been a frequent customer of Samurai Sushi, for almost 20 years now. Sadly, this one experience trumps all of my past ones, and not in a good way.
Most times I visit, I'll order a full order of Toro sashimi, accompanied with 3-4 rolls of California roll (which, admittedly, is larger than most places), finished with matcha ice cream. Most times, everything is as expected; decent, fresh frozen toro, melting in the mouth.
This particular time, I came with my mother for Mother's day, and we ordered Toro sashimi with a plate of seafood tempura. The sashimi came first, and I instantly noticed something was off. The slices were not the usual long slices I ordered, and it wasn't very cold either. After trying one, I was surprised to notice it was not fresh at all. The sashimi did not part well between the teeth, instead, it was stringy and mushy. To top it off, as the fish approached the mouth, it had a weird smell to it, which is an obvious sign that it's not fresh.
I was quite turned off but wasn't particularly in the mood to bring it to the restaurant's attention. There should be no reason for stale sashimi to be presented to a customer, much less with smell, and there is no way there were not already aware they were serving this. My mother, however, decided to let the waiter know when he approached us asking "how's everything?".
He seemed pleasant at first, listened a bit and said he'd "check with the chef". After passing us again a couple times and not saying anything, he showed up 10 minutes later asking "is everything okay here?". Apparently a plate of stale sashimi was of no particular concern. My mother commented that we frequented their establishment many times, including the one by Oakridge which is run by the owner's brother, and we chose to avoid the Oakridge one and travel much longer to the one on Davie because they tend to serve fresh fish, and that this was disappointing. The server walked away and returned a couple minutes later, stating that she was wrong and that the Oakridge one was "Samurai House", a different name, and completely unrelated, and walked off again.
Shortly after, he brought the bill, and went into a whole spiel "Look, you cannot expect fish to be the same everytime you eat it. Some fish are big, some are small, some taste like this, some taste like another. I never expect fish to taste the same. I'm letting you know what I think is right." To which my mother politely responded "it's not about big fish or small, it's not fresh." The server continues to say "I'm just letting you know what's right." At this point I was quite irritated that he was framing it as if we were uneducated, and I told him "well clearly what you think is right is wrong, this is bad fish. And there's no point arguing, you're just going to say whatever."
He storms off with "the bill is right here, I already said sorry, I don't know what you want me to do." Worth noting at no point did he apologize or acknowledge that the sashimi was not fresh. All around really poor attitude in response to something that never should have happened.
Acknowledgement and a simple apology would have sufficed, that's not asking for the world. In case it's not obvious, as a restaurant, one of the worst things you could serve stale is sashimi. Especially if it smells also. If I wanted to eat risky, low grade, stale sashimi, I'd eat all you can eat in Richmond, not pay $12.95 for the same plus a side of attitude.
