Sushi Iwa Clayton INC — Restaurant in Clayton

Not bad. Not perfect but not bad. Has a lot of potential. A little more pricey than our favorite similar place in NY (where usually things have been less expensive in NC). The only issues we had, and these are meant to be constructive were: everything was about $1-$2 over priced in our opinion. We started with a spicy tuna roll and a California roll. The spicy tuna roll was just the tuna strips in a roll. It wasnt the typical ground tuna with spices in it. It was just tuna (very fresh) in rice with some decorative caviar. They advertise buy one get one free which is true but ounce per ounce you're really not getting anything free, but that's beside the point. Hey, it gets you in the door, whatever works for them.

I got the Garlic Thai something or other where the ingredients are all listed on the description. First two ingredients listed were two types of mushrooms. I had a total of three mushroom SLICES in my whole dish. The rest was nearly all raw and crunchy red and green bell pepper. It was more like a pepper steak dinner but with chicken.

My wife got the drunken noodle. Tasty but same thing with the onions, nearly raw and crunchy. Kind of left you with a feeling of onion breath after dinner. She got the shrimp though and it did come with ten good sized shrimp.

They give you very non-absorbent cloth napkins. A touch of class but very impractical and quite useless. We did ask for paper napkins though so we could clean the mess of condensation that was accumulating on our table.

Lettuce in the salad was in huge chunks that would not fit in anyone's mouth ... and we weren't given any knives. Ginger dressing for salad was excellent and salad was very fresh.

Hot and sour soup was very hearty and had a lot of substance however it needed a lot of seasoning. After about a 1/4 bottle of just soy sauce it was ok.

We asked for lunch portion of both our meals. Waiter came back in a few minutes to tell us one meal only came in dinner portion..not a big deal. The second entree came out in a full portion but they realized (and obviously forgot at some point) that we ordered the lunch portion so they honored that.

They do have photographs of every entree and menu item, including the sushi which is a real good thing, but they are in the back of the menu making the menu like 10 pages and very difficult to look at the menu item and description and then associate it with the picture. The pictures are a great addition but if you're going to use them, personally I'd put them next to the menu item in the menu.

All in all it was pretty good but there was room for improvement in at least all of the above. However considering what we did experience and taste, there is a lot of potential for this place but they're going to need to value the input of...

We've been coming to this restaurant since before the pandemic. We've started visiting it more frequently, and unfortunately the last few times have been very bad experiences. While the restaurant is beautiful and well kept, the food will initially taste amazing but then you'll be running to the bathroom. The only offense it had in our minds is that the gyoza is pretty 50/50, sometimes you get perfect gyoza, other times it's incredibly greasy and hard to eat. Here are me and my partners last 3 experiences:

1. Bones in the hand rolls. I've had hand rolls from other restaurants and these were by far the messiest we have seen. It really looked like they just tossed the scrapes into them. Additionally, there were several fish bones in each hand roll. An Immediately bad time, frankly. We ordered these to go so there was no easy way to tell staff of what had happened.
2. Food Poisoning. The last two times we have come to this restaurant has ended in very uncomfortable nights on the toilet. I have ibs, I have enough of these nights on my own, but sending my partner to the bathroom, with their iron stomach, is honestly very impressive. This happens when we dine in and when we order to go. The feeling I had last time was immediately rough and I was on the toilet as soon as we made our way home.
3. Missing objects. Ordering online is always a big 50/50 on whether or not you're going to get all of what you ordered. Dumplings will be wrong, rolls omitted, etc. I am only posting this because I really LIKE this restaurant, but after the bones and multiple food poisonings, I cannot return without fear! These have taken place within the last six months, otherwise everything else before then has been virtually perfect, save for some missing food. I write this now because as we consider where to eat tonight, we realize this is no longer a solid...

Have been coming here for years for takeout. Typically 2-4x a month. My husband gets sushi, and I get the same thing every time - chicken tempura. They usually forget to put tempura sauce in with my chicken tempura, so I check to be sure it’s there - and sure enough they forgot tonight. They brought me some and it was soy sauce. I told them it was soy sauce and the kid said that is tempura sauce (it’s not) but he would get me a new one. The new one was also soy sauce. I said it was still wrong and they argued it’s always been soy sauce (my bank account and the number of times we have gotten this would differ as I do not like soy sauce, nor does it go with tempura. Tempura sauce has a slightly sweeter taste - The manager came over and told me tempura sauce is always soy sauce; and it’s not sweet (google says different - as does the hundreds of times we’ve gotten sushi iwa in the past). So I asked to leave the chicken tempura (which I hadn’t even touched yet) for a refund and was told “you don’t get your money back just because you don’t like something”. While I would agree if I don’t like it that’s on me…. when you have a customer who frequents your (pricy) restaurant saying it’s not right, you do better, and don’t gaslight them into the sauce being the same as it’s been the last 7-8 years they’ve been coming there. I didn’t want to take it home. It went in the trash. I’d rather drive to Cary to pick up sushi for my husband, with better customer service than give this place...