Blue Sushi Sake Grill — Restaurant in Austin

My teenager wanted sushi to celebrate his birthday today so after a day at the Museum of Ice Cream I took him to the Blue Sushi and Saki Grill. It took about 10 minutes before our order was taken but we did not complain, hopeful we'd have a great experience.

Once we ordered, I asked our waiter about how long the food would be ready. He said about 25 minutes so I stepped out to make a phone call. When I came back, the food was already there, which was about 15 minutes.

We ordered the Tidal Wave, Cloud Nine 2.0, a miso soup, and the Little Bento Box for my two year old. I chose the salmon, and noodles, and it came with orange wedges and raspberries, and edamame. Our drinks were the Hibiscus Squeeze and the Dragon Fruit Lemonade. The server gave us a complimentary seared salmon on the house. We thought it was very nice.

I'm writing this review which by my profile I never do, this is rare, due to my complete disgust for our experience altogether. Looking at the food, I begin to open the chopsticks to feed my toddler and I found it was odd that the noodle was dangling from the chopstick. Looking closely I can see a blond brownish stand of hair connecting the hair to the chopstick. With the waiter at the table across from us I called for him. I didn't want to misplace the hair and I wanted him to see it was not our hair texture or color.

It took a couple calls to get his attention but he said they could remake my son's food. It is not my first choice to do this so I said that I was a bit irritated about the suggestion so he said he'd get his manager. At this point I don't have anything to eat with to finish my sushi and continued to entertain my toddler determined to have a good afternoon. Our waiter came back and said the manager decided to just remake it. He never came out to apologize, and I really just wanted a refund for that item. It was evident I had no choice in the matter so I just asked him if it could be made to go.

When the food came back out I had to package it. I thought something was strange with the salmon by the way it moved when I put it in the tray. Sure enough upon coming home to heat it up for my toddler, it is raw in the middle. My question is why, clearly the server knew it was for a child. Clearly, they know as we were sitting in direct view of the kitchen and the restaurant was not busy at all.

I'm not personally attacking this business but from my complete experience, I felt avoided and the service was exceptionally bad. To the point I had to stand up to get noticed to ask for a togo cup as we did not even finish our drinks.

The three of us were never rude and didn't do anything that could be taken offensive. I'm just baffled as to why others with the same waiter were literally entertained and attended to with higher regard compared to ours. Have higher standards of service to all and be careful when preparing food for children. I know accidents happen but food safety should be a priority. Fortunately for us I was able to wrap my son's birthday on a...

I ate dinner here for the first time in April 2025 and would not return, but this restaurant is an okay choice in a convenient location.

Ambience: the inside of this restaurant looks super cool, tons of bright lights and decorations with a full sushi bar you can sit at or tons of wide and comfy booths. Unfortunately we had a lot of gnats/flies buzzing all around our table that wouldn't go away no matter how many we killed. This really grossed me out and killed the ambience for me.

Service: the service was excellent, hosts promptly found our reservation and the waitress was really friendly and gave us her recommendations. No complaints her.

Food: We ordered two appetizers and several rolls for dinner. The tempura appetizer left a puddle of oil in the bottom of the dish. The quality of the sushi was low, this is a national chain restaurant inside of a mall so my expectations were not sky high but I was still disappointed. They have a ton of maki rolls on the menu, but it felt like more than half of the rolls were either deep fried or slathered in "crispies" and sauce. They also have a "cooked sushi" section on the menu which I always take as a suspicious sign. If you are a sushi connossieur, you probably won't enjoy your meal here. The sushi rice in my rolls felt very dense and mushy like it wasn't cooked properly. If you are trying sushi for the first time or not a fan of raw fish, you may still enjoy the maki roll options but they really felt like american fusion sushi or "fast food" sushi.

Location & Parking: The location inside The Domain is really convenient if you're already here for a shopping day and there are tons of free parking garages near the restaurant. However, if you are visiting friends who live in the suburbs north of Austin or specifically craving sushi there are plenty of other good sushi restaurants in north west Austin that you should...

I know I was taking a gamble having sushi in Austin, but this place just wasn’t it. The sushi was flavorless, it seems like they drown everything in sauce(s) so people are fooled into thinking it’s good. Even the wasabi had almost no kick. But the service was great and it is a super cute place. They just need better sushi.

Edited and took away a star for the response from the restaurant because I don't like when businesses deflect and blame the customer instead of listening to criticism. They say in the reply that only 1% of the menu is rolls drowned in sauce. I'm petty so I went through and did the math, because I didn't miss any of the menu, the menu is full of flavorless fish. So, for anyone interested:

The menu contains sashimi, nigiri, and maki. Number of maki on menu: 56 38 items made with one sauce (68%) 8 items made with more than one sauce (14%)

Now, maybe they were considering their entire menu, including sashimi and nigiri. But they also offer specialty sashimi and nigiri that are covered in sauce, so even the ones that are supposed to be fish forward are offered in a sauce forward way.

Number of specialty sashimi on menu: 5 4 items made with one sauce (80%)

Number of specialty nigiri on menu: 5 5 items made with one sauce (100%) 1 item made with more than one sauce (20%)

Without plain sashimi and nigiri, there are 66 sushi items on the menu. 47 are made with one sauce (71%) 9 are made with more than one sauce (14%)

Including sashimi and nigiri, which is what I'm assuming they're doing to bring their total of sauce smothered rolls down, there are 96 items on the menu 47 are made with one sauce (49%) 9 are made with more than one sauce (9%).

Sustainable sourcing doesn't mean you source good fish....