RA Sushi - Austin — Restaurant in Austin

I stopped by here for a date night and the food made up for the other downsides at this restaurant, if you can tolerate them.

Cleanliness: 2/5 The restaurant is not on the first floor, you have to either go up some stairs or take the elevator up. My date and I went up the stairs. Some people have mentioned this in the reviews, others like my date couldn’t sense it, but there’s a horrible smell throughout the stairwell and it lingers in the restaurant. It smells unclean and sticky and later reflected in the table we were seated at. There was sticky sauce on the table, like they didn’t bother wiping the table down before we were sat there. And the stench made it hard to work up an appetite.

Service: 3/5 The host was great. We called ahead to be added to the waitlist and she told us we can only be added once inside. Fair enough. We went inside, we were greeted, and ended up waiting less than her predicted wait time over the phone. Our server was a white man with tatted sleeves; I have nothing against tattoos I just don’t remember his name. Honestly, it felt like he didn’t want to be there and he couldn’t muster the energy to pretend to want to be there. That’s fine with me, though. I can understand it’s late night and I mean who wants to be working at 10PM? Anyways, it was his blank and almost sarcastic responses that disappointed me. For example, my date was interested in the happy hour drinks. On the menu it says something along the line of “Monday-Friday 2PM-5PM | Monday-Friday 10PM-11PM”. I guessed there was a break for happy hour between those two timelines, but just to be sure my date asked him if happy hour was still available. The waiter stared at us for a good second before going blandly, “What time is it?” No curiosity in his voice. Just a sarcastic tone. Another example is when my date wanted to know the difference between “Ichiban and Light” since it could’ve been two different beer brands. Again, the waiter stared before replying, “Are you asking me?” I know my date didn’t directly word for work ask him to explain the difference, but come on. Have some hospitality. At the end of the day, the waiter told us about how the dynamite scallop roll dish burnt his thumbprint off so he gained some sympathy from me and I tipped him 22%.

Food: 4/5 Our appetizer was garlic edamame. It was so good I had to stop myself from licking the spicy sauce off my plate. Highly recommend if you like spicy food and edamame.

For drinks, we had sake bombs. It was a good deal during happy hour, we got two servings of sake and two 22oz. beers: one Ichiban and one Ichiban light. I preferred the Ichiban light but nonetheless delicious drinks that got us feeling good.

Our first entree was the Viva Las Vegas roll. Seriously good and crispy, but had to tone down the rating because the lotus chip on top was really stale. Second best.

Our second roll was the crazy monkey roll. Also good but my least favorite of the three rolls.

What you absolutely HAVE to order is the dynamite scallop roll. I’m going back to this chain just for this dish. You have to try it yourself but beware it comes...

What would you expect of a downtown Austin sushi spot?

Great service? Think again. Had we received our drinks before we got two of our appetizers... Yes, it took that long, for water and alcoholic beverages on an over 100° day. ...from our primary server that was vaping every time they walked out of the kitchen, and a very obscure, drab-punk, bangs cut straight off and dyed terribly, wow the aesthetic, not that any of that should matter... but perhaps some eye contact would have been nice, or maybe waiting long enough to allow a question, such as, ' May we have some chopsticks?' before darting off. We had to ask, and wait for, our soy sauce trays after the rolls came, you'd think that would come standard. Also, we asked if any of the fish was wild caught, response was, 'I don't know, this is a chain, so, probably not??' I wasn't going to judge the place based on 'wild caught' but with all the above in consideration and that type of attention to detail ... kind of makes you wonder, what was our server vaping? We did have another server person that came and checked on us and they were quite courteous, unfortunately that's not who we were assigned. Primary severe guy was obviously annoyed to be there, inattentive, distracted, not rude, just terrible.

Parking: Not notable to speak of, you'll have to park downtown just like you always will anywhere you go downtown, aka no parking included, no validation, no nothing. Aslo, No big deal here as it's par for the course downtown. They might provide valet if you want to pay for it? Not certain on that.

Food: Five stars on that front. All of the food was delicious. I'd love to give this place more stars if the service were better. Seriously, everything we ate was good. Had several apps, sashimi, sushi, ... They bring the food out in the order it is made in the kitchen which I actually liked in this scenario.

Drinks: Good.

Happy hour: Check the hours for this, they have some pretty good deals on the happy hour menu. And happy hour varies greatly. I think one day it's all day, but certain hours, and a good variety of beverages, appetizers, and a few rolls.

Prices: You can spend a lot or a little depending on what you choose to order. Has a wide variety and I appreciate that in a menu. That way people can go and spend a lot or little depending on their means, and still have social interaction and commune together.

Atmosphere: Very hip dark-chic design. It looks nice in there. Most of the tables are chair only and not booth. Would be better if there were more booths. That would make it feel more private, intimate, classy. It also appears you cannot sit at the sushi bar, though there are tables kind of sitting next to it. Sometimes it's nice to be able to sit at the sushi bar at sushi venues and fraternize with...

I haven’t been here in a few years and a friend was in town so I decided to take them here. It was very good last time I had gone here so I suggested we go. Big mistake and very disappointing. We went on a Thursday evening around 9. We had reservations but the place was nearly empty. The stairway leading up was dark and we couldn’t even see some of the steps. The red globes were missing on a few lamps which resulted in a blinging white light as you walked up. We were seated promptly but had to wait just a tad while a table was cleaned on the outside area. The decor inside was good and was like I had remembered it from before. We had to wait for a while before our server made contact with our table. He was very friendly and personable and very cute with a great smile. Food wise we first tried the filet mignon skewers. For about $18 I expected a great dish. It took a while for it to come out. When it finally did however, the pieces were extremely small and basically cooked to being inedible. The pieces were about the size of a thumbnail and cooked very well done. Too well. They lacked flavor. The plating lacked garnish which made it unappealing when the runner brought it out. When our server did come by he immediately stated that it looked too brown and could tell it was overcooked. We also ordered the pictured items and also the spicy chicken fried rice. There’s spicy and then there’s spicy. OMG it was so hot with a ton of the chili sauce that made it unenjoyable. There needs to be a warning if it’s that hot. My friend loves spicy food but could not eat that. Our server removed the skewers and offered some replacements instead. The shrimp tempura and the Ra Ra shrimp. They were decent but the shrimp tempura lacked plating appeal. The Ra Ra shrimp was ok and was the best looking plating of the night. For the prices that Ra is charging I expecting the quality and presentation to be extremely high which was not the case. The views are great and parking is wherever you can find it as it is located downtown. Ra needs to seriously address the kitchen issues and step up their game if they want to stay open. The staff was very cute, professional and very friendly which was a...