IchiUmi Sushi (Haru Sushi) — Restaurant in Austin

Most bizarre experience I think I’ve ever had dining. Clearly they need a manager. Sat down to a sticky table. Even dirtier plastic sign placard on the table. Okay. Things happen. Forgivable.

Friendly server greets us immediately and takes our order. I order the house Cabernet and was told it’s “absolutely horrible” and she suggested I upgrade, so I upgraded. They may want to repick then. But the medium pick was good.

Waitress had some nice input on food. Helpful. There were 4 of us. No appetizers ordered.

My brother in law was served his sushi roll first. At 7:30.

Ten minutes later none of us were served so we told him to go ahead and eat.

At 7:45, 15 minutes later, our son was served. We still had no food. So my brother in law who was trying desperately to eat slowly ordered another roll. Just so he could eat with us. So our son did the same thing after he finished his till and we still had no food. After they ate record slowly to try to eat with us.

At 8pm my husband and I still had no food even though we had ordered the exact same roll as our son had that he had already finished and we were told that was the holdup. (??) Our son was served his second roll. He finished it and we still had no food.

At 8:13, exactly one hour after my brother-in-law had been served his dish,and 45 minutes after our son was served the same roll we ordered, and after he already ate his second roll, my husband and I were finally served.

My brother waited for 15 more minutes for the second roll he had ordered in order to eat with us but by the time we had finished our rolls it had never arrived. So he cancelled it after he had them check on it. And it still wasn’t done.

Two of the rolls were served on epoxy wood. Which cannot be put in a dishwasher or sanitized.

Then we realized why the table was sticky when we arrived. The sauces just drip right off the wood.

When they remove the dishes, they don’t wipe down the table. Ever. Or pick up chopstick wrappers etc. you just get to braise in the goo.

Sushi wasn’t bad but the only one I loved was the land and sea. With Wagyu. We didn’t ask for any comps due to everyone at our table having to dine 15 minutes to one hour apart, but we were not offered any either. Seemed to be the norm there.

Do be aware, at minimum, that raw fish is being served on epoxy wood planks that cannot go in a dishwasher and there isn’t another plate so diners do eat directly from them. And the sauces also drip onto the table directly.

You’ll feel that when you sit down at a new table.

As for getting to eat, may luck be forever...

We came here per recommendation from a friend while on a trip to Austin. When we got here, we were stunned by the atmosphere. The atmosphere is sophisticated and dimmly lit. The staff are dressed well. However this is considered more of a causal restaurant. We ordered the ahi tower, hamachi sashimi, chicken terriyaki, a beer, and spicy seafood udon soup.

Out of everything that we ordered, the ahi tower was the best. The sauce that is drizzled on top has the just right amount of wasabi zing to it to give it a wonderfully complete dimension. The toppings on the tower besides the fish and rice was delicious and gave it definition. What was unique about this was that we had seaweed paper given to us to eat with the tower. We rolled ours up into a taco just because we could load so much onto the wrap. 10/10. Would order again and recommend. They also give you so much that this one entrée would be enough to satisfy you. Good bang for your buck. Also pretty presentation.

Hamachi sashimi is an acquired taste. The meat itself is smooth, melts in your mouth, and the slices are nice and thick. We saw that a lot of people on Yelp liked this dish and decided to order it ourselves. The sashimi quality is good but personally, I liked the ahi tower better. Beautiful presentation.

The spicy seafood udon soup was a nice palate cleanser to all the other dishes we had. Portion size is good. Definitely fills you up. The seafood comes with all sorts such as octopus, clams, shrimp, soft boiled egg, fish patty, and imitation crab I believe is what it was.

The terriyaki chicken was disappointing. The chicken itself was butterflied into two so you get two pieces of chicken, but both were slightly overcooked and dry and did not have enough terriyaki sauce covering it. It came with a side of white rice for free. Overall was disappointing to us. We could have gone without it.

Overall, the portion sizes are great. Great taste. Great flavor. Good customer service. We didn't have to wait too long to get our food. The restaurant is clean. The ambiance is nice. We decided on...

TERRIBLE SERVICE NOT COMING BACK AGAIN! Ordered our NYE dinner at 2:22 pm from their website so it would be ready by 6:30 pm and received an email saying that the order had gone through, and my bank posted the payment. Show up at 6:30 pm to pick it up and I’m told that their system had been failing and the order hadn’t been processed in their local system, even though I had already been charged for it. They told me that they could give me a refund, or I could wait 20-30 min and they would give me what I had ordered. That it would likely be less time because they were going to rush the order. After driving across town to get my NYE dinner and promising my family Sushi, it didn’t sound like a terrible idea to wait a little bit, after all it was a busy day and errors like this can happen sometimes. Attempted to burn time by going to other stores but everything was closed so I came back 20 min later and my order wasn’t ready yet. Stood there in the entrance asking for updates and they would always say, it’s practically ready, you’ll have it pretty soon. People came and left, they handed to-go orders to other people that got there much later but I had to wait there for more than 1 FULL HOUR for an order consisting of 2 items, even though they had “rushed” the order and they were truly sorry for what had happened. Was very late to dinner, everyone was starving, and I was in a bad mood for the next couple of hours because of this truly distasteful experience on such a special day. Posting...