A-RU Japanese Restaurant — Restaurant in Buellton

Pretty sure this is a Chinese-owned Japanese restaurant, which is already a no. The giveaway was the Chinese music blasting throughout the restaurant. The food was really expensive and unfortunately subpar but it's also in the middle of a White town devoid of good Asian food, so... Shrug It is what it is. This restaurant was not my choice. It was picked by someone else in our group.

It was small but still easily accommodated our party of 16 without a reservation because it was pretty empty. A lady apologized to us (the owner?) when we were leaving and thanked us for our patience because our order took ridiculously long to come out. The kids were so hungry and kept asking about their ramen. She said it was because there were so many orders at once (the restaurant is small and other than us, there are only two other small parties-- what on Earth were you talking about?). However, we never bugged them or asked them once about when our food was coming out, so they were appreciative of that.

We didn't expect the ramen to be so big but it sucked, so it didn't really matter how big the portion was. The pork was really dry and the broth lacked that rich, fatty aspect that makes ramen so delicious. You could tell it was instant noodles and not fresh house made, which was just awful.

Our server was this young guy. I liked him a lot. He was quick (even though the food aspect was super slow), polite and just sweet. He was trying really hard, so I gave him an extra tip on top of what the rest of our party left him. The restroom was also pretty clean, an aspect I like to note.

I feel bad about leaving such a lousy review for a small business but if one is looking for authentic Japanese food at a fair price point, this place...

My family and I went on Mother's Day this year. It was PACKED, which was expected because it genuinely is a really good place to eat. They appear to be very understaffed, as I've been there two times prior and seen the same two waitresses twice (a middle age asian lady and a young college-age girl who was serving us that night). My dad ordered a roll and it was brought out almost immediately. I ordered ramen and my mom ordered the bulgogi. I kid you not, we sat there for almost an hour and a half waiting on those two dishes. It did end up coming out (extremely late) and it was pretty good, but that's not the point. The waitress we had was very sweet and was waiting on every single table in the extremely full restaurant. We could tell she was trying her best and seemed very stressed. An older asian lady who seems to be the owner or manager was not helping her situation at all. We couldn't hear exactly what the conversation was about, but the older lady was yelling at the waitress in front of everyone and blaming her for something she had not even done. I understand that both of them were under the pressure of Mother's Day, but that is no excuse to yell at your worker, especially in front of customers. We felt so bad for the waitress that we called her over and told her we had heard everything and that she was doing a lovely job. Unfortunately, her and the older lady split tips, but we made sure to leave a hefty tip for her nonetheless. If that waitress is reading this, I'm sure you remember us and my family and I hope you get treated better in...

I came back here to experience A-Ru under the new ownership after all of these years. What I discovered is this is EASILY one of the biggest scam rip-off restaurants in the SY Valley. Check out my receipt image for reference and proof.

Lets start with $15.95 for a standard order of Yellowtail nigiri sushi. I know what you're thinking and no, there's nothing special here. It's your classic two pieces of mediocre fish on rice. The Jalama Beach Roll is $16.95 and that consists of spicy tuna inside with Yellowtail on top. Here's the mind-blowing part: the roll consists of WAY more fish than the nigiri and it's only $1.00 more? What?!

I know what you're going to say, "well Louie, if you didn't want to spend that money then you shouldn't have ordered the nigiri." Ya, you're right and if I had seen the prices ahead of time I definitely wouldn't have. In fact, I probably would have walked out. But here's the rub, they don't publish the nigiri prices in the menu!

Adding insult to injury, the service here continues to be horrendous. I don't know what happens to the staff -- they just disappear. You get seated and it takes them 10-minutes to come grab your order. If you need anything after that, it's a real challenge.

The gall you have to have to charge these prices for average fish + terrible service. You clearly know you're the only game in town and so you've chosen to gouge your neighbors.

Look, take the extra 15-minutes and hit up Sush Teri in Lompoc. It's totally worth the drive and you'll get much better sushi served at...