Hajime — Restaurant in Blaine

Started with Miso, warm sake, and hot tea. For appetizers the grilled squid is delicious and cooked to a delightful consistency, chewy but not rubbery. We then ordered some takoyaki, be careful as these come out piping hot every time. Give them a few minutes to cool down.

After the appetizers sashimi was ordered. My favorite is the eel followed by the red snapper. Their tuna is genuine tuna, not escolar. The fatty tuna in particular is very popular. My friend tends to enjoy the scallops I think they are good but not a top 5 pick. The restaurant trues to keep uni in stock as well.

As far as sushi goes there are a few recommendations I can make.

Ask for the salmon Roe with quail egg on top. Quail eggs add an extremely creamy and buttery taste on top of what the salmon Roe offers. If you are not a fan of buttery tastes or creamy textures just the normal salmon Roe is worth it.

The chef special rolls are expensive but worth trying at least one of. The Pikachu roll was the best of the specials I've tried, it's unique in that it's wrapped in a special rice pepper instead of seaweed and has a crabmeat salad on top. The cheaper rolls such as volcano roll and crunchy roll are consistently delicious.

The severs are happy to explain what each item is and refilled out tea for us multiple times without us asking. It was 5 star service even on a busy day.

Afterwards was tempura cheesecake which is a frozen cheese cake which gets fried with a crispy bread. It's like deep-fried ice cream but better.

The presentation was beautiful especially the sashimi, they made roses out of the sashimi and lemon slices in little petal cups of cucumber.

All in all it was three appetizers, about 16 pieces of sashimi, sake, tea, a pint of beer , 2 rolls of special sushi and a desert for 130$

This was plenty for two people. If you want a better deal visit during happy hour or Sunday. They have a good selection of sushi rolls that are much cheaper but equally impressive.

I go here all time and have never been...

My husband and I decided to try Hajime out for lunch and we were very pleased with the experience.

I ordered the 3 roll meal (~$13.50) and got a Boston roll, eel cucumber roll, and spicy crab roll. Very heavy on the cucumber for the Boston and eel roll, but it was very fresh and honestly a great balance with the meatiness of the spicy crab roll. In the future I’d order an eel avocado roll instead to balance out the flavors a bit better.

My husband got a meal that had 5 pieces of sushi as well as a California roll. He enjoyed it, said they were light on the rice so you could really taste the fish, and enjoyed that rolls were filled up with extra veggies rather than extra rice. I don’t remember what his meal was called but it was $15 or less.

Both of us also got a complimentary bowl of miso with our meals, which was great, as miso is my favorite. The miso was flavorful, lots of seaweed and a good amount of tofu, and the tofu was very soft.

Both of our meals, along with a Diet Pepsi (and multiple free refills) was only $32 after tax. Great deal for a TON of food- would definitely recommend eating here for lunch.

As for the service, it was great. We were able to find parking easily, got seated within 2 minutes of entering the restaurant, and had a really nice female waiter who refilled our drinks and took away our dishes when we were finished.

The only negative is that the restaurant itself is very very dark. I love low lighting, but as we were sat near the bar and away from the windows, it was genuinely difficult to read the menu or see anything very well.

Other than that, this is a great restaurant and I really enjoyed my experience here. Would surely come again for...

My husband and I LOVE eating here. We mainly go during happy hour and late night happy hour. I love the salmon nigiri and the salmon roe nigiri. The fluke and eel nigiri are also good. During happy hour they offer single piece nigiri for $2-4. During normal hours the nigiri comes in pairs. The pork gyoza appetizer is delicious, and a beef appetizer that is tasty. The spicy crab sushi rolls are perfect. They have just enough tempura to give them a crunch but not overpowering, slightly spicy. We usually like spicy salmon roll at other places but their spicy crab roll is our favorite. $4 during happy hour. I also love the spicy crab nigiri. I can usually only eat one or two because it's like being slapped in the mouth with awesome flavor, it's fantastic. They have many specialty rolls that are fantastic, we try a new one every time. My husband ordered the chicken fried rice and thought it was delicious, had quite a garlic flavor. Terry is a GREAT server. We dine here about once a week and usually our bill for the two of us is between $20 - $40 (when we are really hungry). They have $3 happy hour beers also.They have karaoke one night a week too, I think on Wednesday's (I'm not sure).Late night (after 9:30pm) when we have been there they have dance/techno music playing, which I like because they are songs that are similar to my iPod! They also have sampler platters for groups of people that start at $35 which are a STEAL! More information on the platters are in...