Sushimania Reading — Restaurant in Reading

Summary: Food quality disappointing, promise of freshly made all-you-can-eat failed to be delivered by a slow, unenthusiastic service with a time limit.

Back when this was Thai 9, it used to be my favourite restaurant in the area with frequency of custom at around once a week.

As a sushi lover and having had copious quanties and variety both in the UK and in Hong Kong, the option to have Thai food was great, but I really went there for the sushi.

So it didn't seem like a big loss when it changed to Sushimania - same price for the promise of all you can eat, freshly made sushi still sounded great; I thought by reducing variety and without the Thai menu getting in the way, the quality of what's left could only improve.

Unfortunately, I couldn't be more wrong.

I have been back several times hoping that it's just bad luck of being there at the wrong times, or that they happened to be short-staffed, or some other excuse I have made to myself on their behalf. But the latest visit was just agonising.

We arrived on a Saturday evening, just after 6pm with the restaurant populated by a few other tables. Started off with a round of orders for drinks and a light order for sushi and noodles. The drinks came first in a quite timely fashion, then most of the food order. We scoffed down what we had in between light conversation, then proceeded with our second order for more food.

We waited for 20 minutes, in an almost empty restaurant, but still no food in sight. So we got the attention of one of the waiters and politely chased up the order, after which they served up 3 small dishes with 5 minutes between each.

Undeterred by the lack of enthusiasm and encouraged by starvation, we placed another round of food orders on top of the yet to be delivered dishes.

40 minutes passed - Nothing.

So, again, we politely queried our orders to whom we thought was the manager, only to be served up within 5 minutes and to be told that the entire order was actually ready but was sitting on the side.

This was in an almost empty restaurant, at prime dining out time.

One may speculate that they were waiting out the time limit, or that they were banking on people eating less when they ate slowly, or that people would get thirsty while waiting extensively for food, or that customers would just get bored and ask for the bill. Not being a psychic mind reader, one may only speculate on their business model and practices.

So when we finally got bored (and still hungry), we asked for the bill. As veterans to Thai 9 and now repeat customers to this place, the 10% 'discretionary' Service Charge was no surprise, except that we were happy to accommodate this during the time of Thai 9, but just had to exercise our discretion on this occasion. Although to be fair, we had wanted to exercise this discretion ever since it became Sushimania, a total of no less than 4 times if memory serves (with similar experiences), but just couldn't let ourselves believe how terrible it had become.

The waiter who we thought was the manager brought us the bill, to whom we explained (which I thought was in a polite way) that we wouldn't be awarding the Service Charge due to the incredibly slow service. He then responded in a defensive manner that we couldn't have expected good service because they had been short-staffed, gave us the receipt print out and turned around. No apology in sight either.

I guess if they were genuinely short-staffed (so short that they didn't have enough to serve people, on which case they shouldn't have opened their doors for business in the first place), it may have excused the slow service, sparse delivery of orders to a small party, needing to be reminded of what the orders were, forget to serve orders even if they were (allegedly) ready and left on the side, poor quality of food (still better than Yo Sushi, but that's not saying much).

Or in this case, the almost empty restaurant would suggest not. Again, one can only speculate their business model.

In our minds: no Service, no Service...

I am giving this one star not for the sushi itself, but for an actual customer services. I am going to this place for lunch for 5 years already and God knows how much money I have spent there. Over that time I have seen many managers and employees changing at that place. I am going there only because I like sushi and it is fresh, quick and delicious over there. However, if I won’t love sushi that much, I won’t return to this place after the first visit ever! The Staff is extremely rude here (especially the guy with the glasses). They might not notice you, can throw plates on the table and in most cases you will need to serve you yourself or remind them to bring some things to you. And usually they communicate in the way: “who are you (to the client) and why do I have to serve you?!” Although, when manager is in, he is nice to me, as know me as a regular customer. But when he is not - it’s terrible. I work with customers every day and have my own company. Something I experienced today is completely inappropriate. And this is not first time I have experienced that. I have arrived there 2:28pm straight to the reception with question - “Can I still order?”. The waiter looked at me with the angry face an shouted “NO!”, few times. I have then asked - what time they shut orders - he said - at 2:30pm. Well, I told, that there is some time left till 2:30pm. He started upbraid. He knew, that I am a regular customer and eating here usually in 10-15min (they closing at 3pm), as I am always in a rush. I always order at the reception and pay straight away to save my time and their efforts. I felt terrible in this situation. I still decided to claim my food this time, because once (last year) I was turned away even at 2:20pm by the same guy. I was gutted about the disrespect to me as a regular customer. I also had a strange experience here during the Christmas two years ago when I brought here my team for Christmas dinner in mid December and spend couple of hundreds pounds. The same waiter were acting extremely unprofessional and after spending money there, I left with terrible feeling, that I owe him something, instead of delightful time spent with my girls. I was holding this for many years, as I am not the type of person, who leaves bad reviews or review at all. But this was actually the last drop in the sea. I fully understand that this is not 5 star restaurant, but only a canteen, to where people come for quick lunch. However neither places should treat their customers, especially the ones they know for many years in that way. People come and spend money in this place and you have no right to treat them like a...

First of all, whoever had, and implemented the idea - Maximum order per page, 6, clearly wasn't of sane intellect, but one that desired rules with no meaning or parameters.

If I were to eat at Sushi Mania on my own, the maximum number of orders would be 6 at a time, which is reasonable, and understandable to some extent.

If I were to eat at Sushi Mania with 6 other individuals, the maximum number of orders would be 6 at a time. Now, considering each portion of one order is absurdly small, it is plausible to conclude that this limit should be a variable, rather than fixed limit - meaning, rather than 6 max, having 3 max per person, per time.

My experience was with the latter scenario. We had to keep requesting another sheet of paper (which is where you select your desired items) imminently after ordering, which apparently led to more problems, or is to which I feel my upcoming complaints were sourced from.

Having this order restriction is logically incompatible with the other rule - you pay what you waste. Surely if you want to make money, you remove the restriction and allow food to waste in order to charge money? But that's just my idea (which is the correct idea).

Secondly, food was horrendous, full stop. As a sushi enthusiast myself, I have quite an experience as to what sushi typically tastes like in the spectrum of quality and price, and this quite frankly, was the worst sushi I've ever had - I can eat better sushi from Costco. If your priority is to taste good sushi, don't go here. If your priority is getting full, and not getting your money worth, even to the slightest degree, still don't go here.

Thirdly, there's a sit-in time limit of 1hr 30-45mins. This would be fine if the food wouldn't take an absurd amount of time to be served, not only did the food take ages to be served, only half of the food ordered came! It's like we giving orders to a brick wall. A couple items received were never even ordered!

Because of the slow service, small portions and order restriction, it inevitably makes one to become full up from hardly eating anything! We are fed baby portions every 20 minutes, which is an obvious technique to fill up customers without having to make as much food, which is rather frustrating, since its so blatant.

In conclusion, we all got fairly impatient and insatiably full, that we just asked for the bill, so we can leave.

Servers are also clearly not trained and do not even hold a standard of social etiquettecy let alone a fluency in the English language.

Environment is utter garbage. Do not come here if you want to sleep, satisfied.

Also, there are hardly any food...