Umai-Ya — Restaurant in Arvada

We were in Thursday night at 8pm. Since the place closes at 9:30, we assumed 1.5 hours would be enough time not to impede on their closing time. The waitress notified us that she would be right with us after a few closeouts of tables which was about 10 minutes. She came to place our order with her tablet but didn't have knowledge of some of the menu items and indicated that she was new and still learning the menu. As we were placing our order, she suggested that we stop there as she didn't want us ordering too much food to be charged. We really didn't order much at this point and we eat AYCE all the time so we know our limits. It was odd for her to stop us from ordering as much as we wanted especially since there was already a cap on the ordering limit for sashimi. We received a few items but received 3 orders of a roll where we only ordered one. Okay fine, we'll eat it anyway. After that first round of just a few items, our food took awhile to come as we waited for about 10-15 minutes before more food from our first order came which was two orders of nigiri really. After that we just waited for another 20 minutes and no food. Our waitress finally came over and I mentioned that service was a little slow as we would eat a little and then wait with no food when the restaurant was starting to empty out, so it didn't make sense that our food would be delayed like this. She apologized and said that the staff was backed up from the unusual rush that night. So we mentioned we were waiting on 3 more orders and turns out it was never even submitted into the queue. Explains why our first round was wrong. She said she was new so we gave her some grace but at that point we were pretty frustrated that almost half our order wasn't even entered in and we were just waiting for food that wasn't even going to come. The second round of ordering was correct but at that point we were starting to get full from waiting and restless from the previous issue. We were the last table in restaurant at that point because we had waited so long to even get a full amount of food for the 4 of us. We ordered the last round of dessert and sashimi knowing they were closing up. More waiting. My brother saw a plate of sashimi sitting on top of the bar but we were unsure if that was for us. The staff was cleaning and our waitress was just walking around back and forth, chit chatting with people here and there never once checking up on us. Our sashimi still just sat there and dessert still wasn't here after 15 minutes. When she finally came, she went back to check and said it was still being prepared not realizing that it was sitting there the entire time. We got our dessert (finally) but still no sashimi. Someone else finally brought that plate on top fo the bar over to us and I mentioned the ridiculous wait times and the fact that the dish just sat there. We understood that everyone was trying to get out of there and we were considerate of their closing time but the fact that we waited so long was not our fault. What made it worse was she tried making small talk about her choices in food which we really didn't care at that point and she blamed the staff for not doing their job because they wanted to close up. It was her responsibility to check up on us which she never did and her responsibility to make sure our order was in which she never did either. Not once did anyone else come to check up on us seeing us sitting there not eating for the most of the night. With that being said, the food was good for AYCE sushi. It was fresh and I thought the depths of flavors were there. But our service was absolutely horrible, by far one of the worst we've ever experienced. We gave our waitress some grace initially but she never made up for the mistake. Just kept blaming someone else and taking no accountability. We were even nice to give her a 15% tip which we felt she didn't deserve. We eat out a lot and eat AYCE and we certainly did not get our money's worth. It's too bad because we thought the food was great...

I almost feel bad giving this restaurant a poor rating, because everyone is super nice, and the place itself is clean and cozy. The problem is the food. And I know, this is a $35 all-you-can-eat sushi restaurant, so what did I expect? Well, I'll tell you what I didn't expect is every piece of raw sashimi to be stale! The pickled mackerel and smoked salmon were actually good, but those are not sushi fish, for a reason! Those flavors are too strong, they need to be balanced out. To add insult to injury, we ordered "crabmeat sashimi", and got crabstick, which is ground alaskan pollock with red dye, formed into tubes. We promptly returned it back to the kitchen, because we weren't about to eat that, and they do charge for anything you leave on the plate. We ordered scallop teriyaki, which was sliced very thin, but it was alright, except it had too much teriyaki sauce on it. So we ordered scallop hibachi, and it was THE EXACT SAME DISH. The takoyaki was actually pretty well made, but for some strange reason, they drizzled it with garlic mayo. It's like the chef wanted us to almost enjoy our food, but not really. The maki rolls were ok. That's how I feel about maki rolls in general; there's enough stuff in there to mask the stale fish. Next, we ordered some rock shrimp tempura, which was so thoroughly soaked in cooking oil, it would never pass for tempura, even visually. And lastly, we finished up with some ice cream and tempura banana. The ice cream was just standard tub vanilla ice cream. It was fine. The tempura banana was ok, and fried correctly (how come they couldn't do that with the shrimp??), but it was NOT BANANA. It was clearly plantain, which is a fine dish, but again, to make things worse, they drizzled it with caramel sauce. Those flavors absolutely do not go together! The tastiest things from our entire whole meal were the miso soup, seaweed salad, and pickled ginger. Nothing special, but those just tasted like they're supposed to, and that's a pretty sad description of a restaurant with dozens of items on the menu. Here are some suggestions for how to fix the food quality of the restaurant: Remove sashimi and nigiri from the menu. Just have rolls; the rolls are fine. De-duplicate your menu. There's no reason for scallops to be in two places if they're the same dish! Train/educate your chefs and cooks! Maybe have your head chef visit a few real Japanese restaurants, or even in Japan, so that they understand how Japanese food is supposed to taste. And not just Japanese food, but cuisine in general. Takoyaki does not go with garlic. Scallops should be cut thick and seared. Go light on the sauces. Caramel does not go with plantain. Tempura should be light and crispy, not soaked in oil. Crabmeat ≠ crabstick. Banana ≠ plantain. Plantain does not go with caramel. This place may never compete with quality sushi restaurants, but they can definitely put in some work to get their food above average. And again, the service was great, and everyone was super friendly and just the right amount...

Review for Umaiya Sushi - Arvada I had high hopes for Umaiya Sushi, a new all-you-can-eat sushi restaurant that just opened in Arvada, but my experience left much to be desired. Despite my excitement to try the offerings, I was thoroughly disappointed. We arrived on a Saturday at 1:45 PM, and since the restaurant wasn’t too busy, we were seated quickly. Our waitress was friendly and attentive at first, which added to our initial optimism. However, that’s where the positives ended. After placing our order, we waited an excruciating 90 minutes for our sushi rolls to arrive. Feeling frustrated, we asked to speak with the manager to express our concerns. Instead of providing assistance or understanding, she was dismissive and informed us that they were short-staffed. While I understand that staffing issues can arise, it does not excuse the poor management of our experience, especially since we had been there for almost two hours and were about to miss our next obligation. Her response felt condescending as she informed us she could offer a mere 10% discount and suggested we take our food to go. It came across as if she simply wanted to rush us out the door rather than take responsibility for the situation. When I proposed a discount of 25% as a more suitable form of compensation, she shrugged it off without consideration. This lack of willingness to make it right was incredibly frustrating. Eventually, when our food finally arrived, it was not even what we ordered. At this point, we felt we had waited long enough and didn't want to risk further delays by sending it back. Unfortunately, we didn't have the opportunity to order additional rolls either, as we were already over two hours into our visit. As for the food itself, it was mediocre at best. The rolls lacked the freshness and creativity one would expect from a sushi restaurant, and the overall dining experience did not justify the wait — or the prices. All of these factors combined have led me to the conclusion that Umaiya Sushi needs significant improvement, particularly in either its management or its staffing protocols. Unfortunately, I cannot recommend this restaurant based on my experience. I hope they can address these issues, as the concept has potential, but as it stands, I left disappointed and...