X-Fish Izakaya — Restaurant in Buena Park

Not the kind of dining experience you would expect at a high-end Japanese restaurant. First of all, this is not an Izakaya; it's an AYCE sushi joint. There are tons of families with little kids screaming and crying, eating in the restaurant. My mom wanted to try this place really bad so my parents and I came here for the first time. We ordered a $55 per person AYCE. Btw my mom cannot eat cilantro. Neither can my father. The carpaccio dishes, limited one order per person, were tossed in minced cilantro. It was our bad (I guess) as we would not have dreamed that raw fish to be covered in cilantro; this was not some Latino place after all. I told the waiter that I reckon it was too late for the dishes that already came out, but I asked that they not put any more cilantro in any other dishes that we ordered. He said I had to write that in on every order I placed as he would not know which ones would have cilantro in them. Hm, okay, it was a bit of work but I respectfully followed his instruction. It then became extremely cold because the A/C air was laser-hitting our table (and only our table). The freezing air was actually blowing right in my face (you probably don't want to sit at Table 8 unless you're in meno/andropause and going through hot flashes) making all of us shiver in cold. My father felt sick and had to run to the bathroom. My fingers were numb. I asked the waiter if we could move to the neighboring table, which was available (at that time) -- the air was not blowing into that direction. The waiter flatly refused, and the reason was because he had already put down our table number on the order sheet. Apparently at this place once you're seated, your table number becomes like your social security number and cannot be changed under any circumstance. I still begged for my life as I was getting sick too. I showed the staff how the napkins on our table were fluttering like flags on beachfront, but to no avail. My mother got all zipped up in her jacket as she was determined to start the second round of orders which had yet to come. But my father and I were not as nearly as equipped to withstand the Himalayan winter climate and felt like we would puke if we had to continue to eat in that environment. I pleaded to the staff once again, to at least turn down the A/C. Another staff member responded that it could not be helped as "this is a place that handles fish." I answered, well, I ain't no fish and they shouldn't be blowing icy air into my human face. He said he would see if he could turn up the temperature. I asked him if they could turn down the fan at a minimum. No avail. I asked for a blanket, and was given an "are you kidding me" look. I eventually went back to my car and grabbed a window shade cover and wrapped myself with it. Humiliation overwhelmed my struggle to maintain dignity. I did not want to ruin my mom's once-in-a-blue-moon Friday night dinner but did not want to get sick while eating my favorite food, sushi, either. And then, a fly landed on our table. I tried to shoo it away but this little guy with some beautiful irradiating coloration seemed to be feeling heavy. He stayed with us for a while. We finally placed our third round of orders. Just as my mom started indulging herself in her bowl of Nagasaki udon, a waitress swung by and shoved a check on her face without uttering a single word. What a powerful way to end the night! Although this did not make her lose her appetite, this was it for my father. He soon composed himself, but I was not a happy...

There are not alot of sushi places thats great in OC. ( food taste wise ). Yes their yelp page might have 4 stars but its based on alot of factors. This place is the perfect example.

There is hyped out there for this place and the wAit sometimes can be long because people would come and try it. Why? Because there aren't alot of AYCE places in OC and this is already the tops in the area so majority of the people would come to this place. Especially for Americans ( people that never been to japan or dont have other omakase experiences in the WEST ), they would rate their food a little higher which it makes sense but if you been to other places, its not difficult to tell this place doesn't live up to its hype.

Now let me explain.

1. This place is clean - 4.5 star

2. The setting and size of this restaurant is bigger than other sushi places and there are more rooms to sit and walk - 4.5 star

3. Service and wait time for food - service is alright, server is friendly but couldnt always get a hold of them ( or maybe they are just busy ) so sometimes we need to wait a little longer to get their attention. We ordered omakase ( 9 pieces and AYCE ) the ayce food would come first but omakase would come 15-20 mins later. Doesn't make sense because of course you want your customer to have their omakase food first. The server did mentioned before we ordered that the omakese would not take that long and will come before AYCE pieces come so it wasn't like that. - 3 - 3.5 star

4. Food part 1 AYCE - the size of the rice on the sushi is small so thats a good thing, Size of the sushi piece is decent to big though. HOWEVER, the taste and quality of the sushi is just regular. Many AYCE places have better taste and quality than this place. I dont expect their AYCE sushi pieces to be great because you can never get GREAT QUALITY AND TASTE for ayce. Yea some AYCE places are good but im talking about great as in it WOWs you. Their quality of their tuna isnt that great either. - 3 - 3.5 star

5. Food part 2 omakase 9 pieces - their 9 pieces omakase is below average. When you call your sushi pieces omakase, it means it is special made AND i expect better taste and quality than your regular AYCE sushi. NO, their omakase pieces taste similar to their AYCE pieces and the chef added too much sauce or other stuff to cover the fish taste. Thats a big no. - 2.5 star

6. Food part 3 - their carpaccio are one of the worst I ate from all the restaurants i have tried world wide. Big thick pieces ( thats not how a carpaccio should be ) and there is little to no taste. Carpaccio should be thin and with more sauces than an OMAKASE pieces but argh. - 2 star

7. Food part 4 - their bake mussels are decent and miso soup are decent. Their imitation crab is good. 3.5 - 4 star

8. Wait time to be seated - the wait time can be from half and hour to 2 hours. with their "alright" food, the wait time is definitely not worth it. My friends and I went there around 4ish and it was fairly early too but we waited 45 minutes? 2.5 star

OC right now lacks quality AYCE and or OMAKASE places. Does this place worth the hype? Heck no, definitely not but it it still a decent place to come and enjoy some japanese food but consider the wait time also.

Will I come again? Maybe if I have a friend in OC and wanting both AYCE & OMAKASE experiences together but if I have other choices, this is not a place i...

Edit after business response: The incentivized reviews are clearly an inside job. I know you guys had to respond like that because of PR but cmon. There’s no way the servers were doing that without management’s knowledge. You guys get MANY new yelp reviews EVERY DAY. You guys opened in March of 2024 and your yelp page has 2.6k reviews. This is an abnormal amount of reviews, an abnormal amount of short & nonspecific 5 star reviews!! This is ridiculous.

Copied and pasted from my Yelp review.

April 28th 2025 7pm: All of the 5 star reviews are PAID/INCENTIVIZED reviews!! I witnessed it firsthand with the table next to ours. They had a different server (Daesik) who was telling them if they wrote 5 star reviews on Yelp they would get a discount on their bill. This is against yelp's rules by the way. They wrote the reviews and Daesik took pictures of their phones showing the review. All the short, nondetailed reviews are INCENTIVIZED and Daesik you should be ashamed of yourself for doing this.

Ok I really wanted to keep liking this place because I love their food but today's visit is my last straw. I wrote a review for their downtown brea location a few months ago and Nathan responded to me saying that they were going to work on improving their service at that location. Shocking to find that the service at this location has gotten even worse than the very first time I came here? Our server was a tall young Asian guy who spoke zero words to us and didn't even refill our waters. His face was giving "I hate my job I hate my life." I asked him to give us waters and his face was like "are you serious??" It honestly felt like I was bothering him for paying to eat at the restaurant. The first time I came, the service was good and our server was very kind and explained everything. Nathan, you should stop responding to bad reviews with empty promises that the staff will be trained better because clearly no training is happening. Not even bothering to refill our waters is actually ridiculous. Not to mention that the sushi turnaround time is STILL ridiculously long. Takes forever for our food to come out! I mentioned this in my review for downtown Brea and Nathan made sure to address that with the staff. Doesn't seem like that was translated over to this location. I suspect that rumor has already spread within the OC Korean community about the bad service here because this place used to be crawling with Koreans but not anymore. Nathan, if you truly care about your customers, please actually retrain the tall Asian male server at the Buena Park location at stated time and date. Our party sat right in front of the sushi chefs close to the front door. Either retrain him or let him go because no one deserves to be treated like they are a bother at a restaurant. I have not experienced such bad service at a restaurant in a very long time. I will not be coming back and will do everything in my power to tell everyone around me to not come here.

Yelp used to be a place for honest reviews but food influencers and restaurants have ruined it by popularizing paid reviews or reviews in exchange for free meals. Yelp AND Google reviews are not to be...