MAI Japanese Restaurant — Restaurant in Charlotte

I hate to put a small business down, but I am so disappointed. I'm gonna start with the positives, the place was quiet, and the dragon roll had some flavor to it. Unfortunately, the dragon roll, out of the six things I tried, was the only thing to have any kind of flavor. I tried the ramen, the gyozas, the soft shell crab, the dragon roll, the spider roll and the "steak entree." The steak had no salt or pepper on it, or if it did at some point none of us could taste it. The gyozas and soft shell crab were saved only by the sauces they were served with, and everything else just didn't have any distinct flavor. You ever see one of those movies set in some dystopian future where they have like "food balls" or "nourishment paste" or some brutalist, form over function kind of edibles? That, that pretty much sums up the dining experience. Unless everything is cooked from frozen these guys don't have a spice rack in their kitchen. Now I sat with a party of 5 and on the menu with the entrees and stuff at the bottom it says "parties of 6 or more will be charged an 18% gratuity," and we each got one of these menus. They gave us one menu for the sushi between the 5 of us and that one said "parties of 5 or more will be change a 20% gratuity," so of course when we get the check im confused and they conveniently point at the sushi menu and say "oh those ones are old these have the new policy." Look I get that money is tough all over, but you can't cut a corner and have your customers guess at which policy is the most relevant. You need to change that, it's misleading. To anyone reading this, if you want to have a very quiet night, have the plum wine and a dragon roll, pass on everything else and don't bring more than...

Horrible experience today! I frequent Mai 6-7 times a month but as of today I will not recommend, not eat there or order out again. I called an order of chicken, that's it, chicken, I was charged full price that includes rice and veggies. I would be fine with that had it been disclosed. I called to talk to the manager and I was told I had not called in today, I was asked a time I honestly could not remember, food was picked up at 11:25am so I said just after 11, the women on the phone said you didn't call we didn't open till 11:06. I said I did call and I know I spoke to her, suddenly she remembered, I explained if I was going to be charged full price I should have been told I would have taken the rice and veggies and given them to someone at work. She started arguing with me so I walked over, takes about 30 seconds from work and asked for the manager , there wasn't one, I asked if she had been the one I spoke to just now on the phone and she avoided eye contact and stopped talking to me. I knew it wasn't going anywhere and I asked for the rice and veggies to go. She then decided with a packed restaurant to start to argue again saying I hadn't called in, she remembered, then saying I did call in but she told me I had to pay full price. At this point I was done! I waited for my rice and veggies and left. It's a pity that I was treated like this after not just myself but many many of us eat from there ALL the time!. I am disgusted at the service and by the way the chicken was DRY like cardboard today! I would avoid like...

First of all, they DO NOT serve "real" Japanese food. So if that is what you are looking for, this is NOT the place for you.

The sushi was fine, not bad... typical americanized rolls with nice quality.

The other dishes however, as an individual raised in Japan, I thought were pretty bad.If it wasn't for the sushi, I would have rated "poor-fair" for all categories.

The tempura they serve was not properly fried, their Japanese steak is pretty much just beef cubes stir-fried with soy sauce and vegetables... Reminded me of those cheap fried meat dishes from a cheap take-out.Definitely not the quality I expected from a non-fast food restaurant.

What I really hated is that they gave me that "pinkish sauce" with the steak... No real japanese restaurant will ever serve that sauce for any Japanese dish.

Plus, the waiter there was extremely rude. When we were deciding our dish, the waiter just came up to our table and just stood there in silence with a dull expression... uuh...okay... how about a nice "Hi" or offering assistance?

Overall, it is not bad as a sushi restaurant, but I don't recommend the "non-sushi" dishes. And I hope whoever goes there in the future will not have that guy as the waiter. I am certain that I will not return to this restaurant again. The sushi isn't bad, but there are places with better sushi with similar prices, so I would go...