Umiya Sushi — Restaurant in Alexandria

Edit. We’ve come here now several times since their soft opening. While their sushi and some menu items are exquisite and very authentic, this quality is not the same across the board — now that we’ve had several other items.

Specifically the tempura and beef curry rice. The veggie tempura is ok; the shrimp tempura appears to be generic frozen shrimp. The battering is not the same. The beef curry seemed to be prepackaged curry. Compared to the sushi and wagyu dishes it was kind of surprising. The quality was not remotely comparable and I wouldn’t waste the money if you’re doing A la cart.

On A la cart, the prices are high (although somewhat understandable for the sushi quality). Expect $10 for ONE piece of Toro or wagyu nigiri. The value is clearly in AYCE.

Lastly, on the soft opening the service wasn’t great but kind of expected as they work out the kinks. It’s been months now and the service I would now describe as HORRIBLE. Long waits. Missing items. Waiters talking to their friends. Our last dining experience we waited nearly 20 minutes for the check. The waitress came by only once.

We will still come back for the excellent sushi and several other items. That’s how good it is. Definitely only AYCE even if we’re not starving.

My wife and I just moved from Japan and felt like we’ve been waiting forever for this to open.

We went to the soft opening. They definitely had some kinks with service and process but overall things that will buff out with time.

The food was incredible. I was very skeptical when I saw that it was all you can eat. But it was done in the way we were used to in Japan—Everything was made to order.

The wagyu nigiri was on par with high grade places we’ve been to in Japan. Phenomenal. The toro and the salmon were America good and maybe on par with chain type places in Japan. All were the right texture and buttery. So all in all very good.

We ordered a few other things off the menu and all was quite excellent. The menu was pretty large with some very Japanese items as well as usual Japanese American fare.

The staff missed a few items and you could tell they were figuring things out on the fly but it wasn’t egregious and they were very nice. All were things that will be addressed in time.

At $70 a person for the premium all you can eat I thought that was more than fair. This is certainly better than just about every Japanese place we’ve been to in the DC area as far as authenticity.

We will...

While the food is decently okay what was suppose to be a joyous occasion for friends birthday turned into a headache met with unorganized, rude, and disrespectful staff. Since the beginning of trying schedule a reservation in advance, we were met with incorrect information three separate occasions indicating that we did not need a reservation even for a larger party of 6. When arriving the day of the host was rude in remarking that we did in fact need a reservation. When we did try to call in advance to do exactly that, we should have expected the lack of coordination unfortunately turned out reflected the lack of organization within the restaurant. We had to wait a total of one hour and 30 minutes and were only seated after repeatedly asking for updates, while met with rude behavior from the hostess. Upon sitting, we unfortunately had to constantly ask for the basic necessities such as silverware, water, and follow up for additional orders. Many of our orders were “lost”, and the server purposely avoided our table after 40 minutes to not ask for any additional things. A table seated with mostly women had a server continuously mansplain how the orders were lost, which I wish was the only disrespectful thing but it got worse. The server after realizing we were upset still continue to show attitude when asking if we needed anything, and still forget to not bring us water. I think I could ferment my own sake, before being served a simple glass of water. To conclude, the server gave us the bill without asking if we needed anything. An order that was placed the moment we arrived was not given to us until past 2 hours later when we asked them to put in a to go box as they consistently kept loosing it. Specially the orders which we specified were crucial due to a allergy of one of our members, unfortunately she left not being able to eat any of her orders as nothing arrived. No apology or accommodation were met, I would urge those who like to try this place to consider whether it’s worth a 4 hour wait for food that is not worth this level of disrespect to be treated this way. Unfortunately commuting from DC I don’t think I will ever find myself coming back, id rather jump into the Potomac then come back to this place even if it were the only food place in a 200...

This place is massive, with both a 1st and 2nd floor. The interior is charming and clearly well thought out. The effort put into the design really shows.

We made a reservation about an hour before arriving, but I’d suggest calling further in advance.

Parking, however, was a hassle. They have two small lots, and both are separated, which makes things tricky when there are several cars or if you have a larger vehicle. We ended up parking at a nearby strip mall by the traffic light and walked over, which I’d recommend to avoid the headache.

When we got inside, they greeted us and were getting our table ready. We were seated downstairs with some other bigger groups, we were a party of 8. Service started off well enough, and the staff was polite. We could see they were busy, so we were patient at first with the slower pace.

Unfortunately, things got frustrating. Some of our orders never arrived, and we also received dishes we didn’t order. The timing was all over the place, our food came out slowly, with long gaps in between dishes, so by the time some plates arrived, most of us weren’t even hungry anymore. When you’re dining out and paying for a meal, it’s disappointing to have such inconsistent service.

The food was just okay. It wasn’t bad, but given that unlimited sushi is their main draw, I expected a bit more than average. The upstairs buffet didn’t look very appealing, to the point that most of us skipped it.

It seems like the staff is overwhelmed when the restaurant gets busy, and the kitchen can’t keep up. This was my second time at a Umiya location (the first was in Texas), and I had a similar experience there. I agreed dining here as maybe Umiya could redeem itself in Virginia, however, same thing happened, service and order flow just fell apart with a crowd. I’d suggest hiring more staff or limiting the number of customers seated at once so that the quality matches the demand.

All in all, everyone at the table felt the experience deserved a 1 out of 5, but I’m giving 2 stars since some of the food was good and the initial service was solid. None of us would come back unless we heard there were real improvements in both service and...