Sushi Jin Next Door — Restaurant in Alexandria

Bottom Line: There are a million Ramen places in the area, this doesn't need to be one.

Beverages: Good selection of beers and wines. Charging $12 for a Sapporo: 3x market price of a single can. Probably better to skip.

Atmosphere: Ok, decent music selection. Cold. Sticky Table.

Food: I ordered the Chashu Ramen. It's in the name, I want Ramen. This probably only comes with a fist-size of ramen. Very confusing.

Some Ramen places you get a tiny bit of pork, other places you get just enough. Here, you get 2-3 servings of pork. They are thick almost like the boneless cutlets you'd get at a grocery store. It would have been fine with just 2 pieces of pork, but it comes with 4. When it arrived at my table the pork was cold, like it had been refrigerated and was unceremoniously placed on top. So I quickly pushed them all into the broth in the hopes of heating them back up. After they had warmed up, and had marinated in the broth for a while they had a good flavor.

At most (if not all) Ramen places it's common to cook the ramen to order in unseasoned water, here is no different. However the broth was bland, they brag on their website that "the broth for Ramen is boiled [simmered] for 48 hours." Well that must have been a different broth because this broth lacked any semblance of substance, character, umami, saltiness, you name it: the broth didn't have it.

Staff: Not great, not bad. Food was delivered and no one checked on me 5 minutes in, for a slow evening. Maybe 5-7 other tables with 4 waitresses, and whom I assumed was the manager. Someone should have been walking by consistently making eye contact, seeing if I needed something. The only time they did was when they started closing shop, and removed the soy sauce from my table, but that was to see if I was planning on using the soy sauce.

Things that would need to change before I come back: Thinner slices of pork. It feels weird to say this, but LESS pork. You know the expression "Less is More." Conversely more Ramen. Figure out how to season a broth, more MSG, more salt, more stock, more flavor. It should be like I'm being slapped in the face with flavor, not like the idea of flavor is being...

I’ve been to this sushi place before several times and tried to go Sunday night; they have it listed on Google that they close at 9:30 PM. We arrived at 8:45 PM. The “Open” neon sign was lit up so we went inside.

We found three people at the front counter and a woman told us “I’m sorry, we are closing.” I told them that they have it listed online as closing at 9:30 PM. She said:

“We’re only doing carry out because it would take too long to order and be waited on and all of that.”

I said that I didn’t need time to order because I knew what I wanted, this sashimi entrée they have on the menu which is all salmon, maybe a large Sapporo can and that’s it. My friend wanted the same thing, because we’ve had it before.

The woman still said no and told us all they’re doing is carry out now and asked if we wanted to look at the menu. We asked to speak to the manager about this but she stated that she was the manager.

I worked in the service industry for a long time. For restaurants, or for retail, it almost never matters when the store closes. Sometimes people get in a couple minutes under the wire and get waited on and get to stay until they leave. I wasn’t even asking for that. We arrived 45 MINUTES BEFORE CLOSING and thought we could at least be seated. We weren’t trying to keep them there late, but even if we did, in the industry that happens all the time.

I told them that they should put online that they close at 9 PM if they want to treat customers like this.

We tried to make it easy for them even, by telling them what we wanted and we didn’t need special time to order or anything. I would expect more than the staff of a restaurant acting like a DMV call center employee saying “I’m sorry but there’s nothing we can do.”

I’m going to get a table, what am I expected to do? Come in two hours before closing???!!

Absolutely unacceptable.

Everybody needs to know that this place treats customers like...

I've been coming here regularly for a few years now. At the beginning, amazing! Dining in or out, nothing ever missed. After a while, the chicken karage started to be served reheated. Fried foods don't reheat well, and it was a bummer. This consistently happens if ordered right when the dinner hour opens, which means the lunch chicken karage is reheated. It's very obviously not fresh. That has been the case the last 4x we've ordered the chicken karage - despite specifically requesting a fresh batch. The sushi flavors are still unmatched. However, they are about 1/3 smaller than they used to be. I used to barely be able to fit the sushi rolls in my mouth, and after eating just one, I couldn't eat any more. They were that filling. Now, they're about grocery-store size. The size has increased significantly over the last few months. I understand inflation, but I struggle with price increase coupled with size reduction coupled with quality reduction. Such a bummer, because I have loved this place since day one. And for a few years, in or out, the sushi was always on point. Last time we ordered out, the (tempura) rolls were cold - not room temperature - cold. Made me suspect I'd been given an old roll, which was a real bummer. Again, flavors are not matched anywhere else. Prices are still decent, but it's just not anywhere near...