Jim B.
Yelp
We walked past here during the lunch seating and thought it looked inviting enough to give it a try for the dinner seating later that day. Checked the reviews, saw that wait times and service could be iffy but that the food itself got pretty good marks, so we decided to take a chance and made a reservation.
Showed up a few minutes early to find a line of 12 or so people out the door. Asked if any of them had reservations, they did not, so had to pretty much just awkwardly cut in front of everyone as the line didn't seem to be moving. Had to then wait several minutes as a local simply could not take no for an answer when he wanted 3 seats for his party at the bar with no res. We were then promptly seated, outside, as we requested, all good.
Waiter comes, we order a 750 ml bottle of sake, and, since they were so obviously busy, ordered our dinner, which consisted simply of 5 different maki rolls.
When I opted for the larger bottle of sake, my wife initially thought it would be too much. Well. We were lucky I did, as we had absolutely nothing else to put in our mouths other than the water for at least 50 minutes. I did see several other patrons seated, served, and billed out in the time we were there, but they didn't have exclusively maki (although it appeared they had some rolls with their other selections.)
After 40 minutes or so, our waiter came by and asked if we needed anything. We expressed earnest and serious interest in our dinner. He came back a bit later with a plate. One plate. One empty plate. And then told us it was the only plate he could find, but that he'd look for more. A bit later still, he finally brought our maki (after mistakenly almost giving it to another table - I'm thankful they didn't just keep it and eat it given we weren't the only table waiting for, apparently, rolls.)
At this point, we had maybe a 6th or so of the bottle of sake left. But, we were very happy to have our meal. Unfortunately, the food was pretty unimpressive. Bland, with no real flavors that popped. Didn't seem too fresh, either. The crab roll was decidedly fishy, the lobster in the special roll was rubbery and bland, the mushroom roll was just salty and bland, and so on.
Almost forgot, we never did get another plate. We mixed our wasabi and soy on the lone dinner plate we did have and shared it accordingly, but literally used the one extra napkin we had and one of the chopstick wrappers as impromptu place mats over the open mesh outdoor tabletop so as not to drip through onto our clothes, as the server did not venture back to us until we were very nearly finished.
Look, we know it's hard to run any service business these days, and they were definitely busy. But, this was also on a heckin' Monday night. And, it was just maki. But, we've had way better rolls in places ranging from casual and cheap to fancy and expensive. We were hoping that the fish and ingredients would be impressive given the location and proximity to the obvious sources nearby, but it was not. And why oh why should it take nearly an hour for 5 rolls?? Hate to leave negative reviews when establishments are struggling in these tough times, but gotta go with 2 stars, and those are only for the sake and nice outdoor seating. The food, awkwardness, and long wait rate a solid pass.