Michael T.
Yelp
A little slow, but the food is delicious.
We saw there was a new sushi place opening up and we figured we would go try it out. As an Asian American it gives me no greater joy than seeing more Asian cuisine pop up in random areas of suburban America.
Unfortunately the area and the location is a ways away from popular shopping centers as well as Main Street so it does not get much traffic.
The inside is smaller, but it looks clean and nice. There is some decoration on the walls, but there isn't much to look at. They play a Western pop music radio channel while playing K-pop music videos on the television, so there's an odd contrast there. I wouldn't mind hearing the music from the actual TV as it's probably better than anything on American radio stations.
They have printed, laminated menus but then their menu has supposedly changed recently, and we didn't find out until we asked questions, at which point the waitress brought out a new menu.
I ordered a sashimi plate. At first I was excited when I saw her bringing out my platter, but then I was a little concerned when I saw that they hadn't even started my coworkers' dishes yet. They brought out plates one by one, rather than together, so even though I received my food first, I ended up sitting there and waiting another 20 minutes anyway so that we could all start eatting together.
The food was delicious. The fish was very fresh, the sashimi and sushi rolls were all larger than what you get at other restaurants, so it really feels like you get your money's worth. The quality of the fish was much higher than other sushi establishments I'd eaten at in Longmont. See photos for reference.
My recommendation to other diners / Yelpers is that you should come here if you are not in a rush for time. They had only one sushi chef working despite it being lunch time, and even though our table was the only table there, it was still extremely slow.
So that's why, despite how good the food was, I can't give 5 stars. In order for this place to be really, really good, there needs to be a few changes. The following is primarily advice for the establishment's owner:
- If the restaurant is new and experimenting with the menu, don't waste time and money with laminating them or getting fancy. Just print out sheets of paper. That way there's just one menu, and if you need to make changes, you're not concerned about throwing laminated, decorated menus out and wasting money. At least don't get fancy with it until you have a set menu that will not change. It's a detail that just doesn't matter.
- Have more than one sushi chef working, or tone down the fancy dish decorations. I think the dish presentation was very, very pretty, but no amount of pretty decoration makes up for having to wait over 40 minutes to get food. This is especially true for lunch time, because most of us have to keep our lunch breaks reasonably short and go back to work. You can try something other sushi restaurants do, which is get pretty plates with good decoration and just lay out the sashimi with small embellishments like radish, mint leaves, etc. It still looks pretty, but takes maybe only 5 minutes to put together. We were the only table there and it still took 40 mins until everyone got their food. If the entire restaurant was filled, we would have gotten up and left.
- I think another reason the food took a long time to get out to my coworkers was because at one point the waitress explained that "the fire was still warming up" or something. I sort of understand when you're starting out that you want to conserve money, but you will lose customers when the service is this slow. I think the issue is that you're in a bad location, so you aren't getting a lot of traffic despite your food being very good. You may want to consider moving to a better location.
My co-workers and I will most certainly come back here to eat again, but we hope they figure things out and the service is faster next time. The food is VERY good.
