Ichiban — Restaurant in Conway

Lost a loyal customer over greed. Not child friendly. Do not recommend if you have children.

Me, and my son (who is a toddler) go to Ichiban religiously. Sometimes 2-3 times a week but, no less than once a week. It’s been my favorite restaurant for a year and a half. I’ve almost stopped going a few different times because of the inconsistent pricing. Every other week they try to charge me for something extra in addition to all you can eat. 2 and under is supposed to be free (my son is two). First it was avocado, then eggs, then his chicken nuggets. They charge a leftover price of $13.99 per pound (picture attached)- which I completely understand WITHIN REASON. If I order an excessive amount of food, I completely understand & will happily pay to be able to take it to go.. but not for a small toddler who was served well over a toddler sized portion of food. You have no control over portions, I’ll often ask for a 1/2 portion when I get noodles, fries, etc for him and even then he is still given a lot.

While I’m on the leftover food topic, their kid friendly menu options are fairly limited. Chicken nuggets, and fries are really the only option for smaller children. But, my son also likes to eat a small order of avocado, or a scrambled egg. Both of these ingredients they serve, but if my sons wants them.. I have to pay $2-5 EXTRA for it. And keep in mind, this is in addition to an all you can eat price + kids 2 and under free. There has been times where for my son to get avocado and egg I had to order an entire entree that has it, and then pick it out and force myself to eat the rest to avoid being charged the leftover price. See how ridiculous and greedy that is? I can either just get the egg, and pay 3 bucks for it… or order MORE food that I don’t even want to eat for it to be included..

It’s really a shame. As a business owner myself, I understand that there is a cost of doing business and your prices should be set accordingly. You’re charging $26.99 per person for all you can eat + drinks.. if you can’t afford your cost of doing business, and have to knit pick ways to charge mothers extra & unwilling to accommodate children.. I will no longer be supporting. Disappointing to...

We went here over the weekend and had a great experience! It's an all you can eat buffet, but it's the kind of place where you sit down and they make your food to order of a menu, bringing it to your table. You can order as much as you want, whenever you want, but this makes the buffet a bit pricey ($26.99 / person). However, it's very much worth it, in my opinion — especially, post pandemic where I'm icky about food sitting out and touching anything other people also constantly touch.

Do keep in mind that they charge a $13.99 leftover charge if there's a lot of food you don't eat, so it would be best to order a little at a time instead of everything at once.

The food itself was great. Between my husband and myself, we ordered most things on the menu — soup, salad, hibachi, gyoza, crab rangoons, chicken tempura, shrimp tempura and a variety of rolls: salmon & cucumber, rainbow, monster roll and crazy tuna roll. I should mention that the crazy tuna roll was a mix-up — we didn't order that and didn't really like it.

That being said, I'd recommend everything except the sushi. To be frank, it wasn't very good. The fish tasted like nothing (mushy ice) and had it not been for the ginger and soy sauce, it would have been inedible. So, don't go here for that.

HOWEVER, everything else was absolutely the best food we'd ever had. The gyoza, crab rangoons, and shrimp tempura were crispy and delicious. They come in small amounts, so we ordered a few rounds of them. My husband had the hibachi and he said it was the best hibachi he'd ever had, hands down. And had we not ordered the sushi, he probably would've ordered another plate of it. So, highly recommend that!

We finished the meal off with ice cream and, overall, I'd recommend trying this restaurant.

I'm pretty sure kids under 2 eat free, and there were several families with young children there. So, it's more of a friend and family vibe rather than a date night vibe. There were a few loud kids inside. It didn't really bother us, but just something to be mindful of and expect when deciding if you want to eat here or not.

We didn't take any food pics, but we'll be back again...

The quality of food has gone downhill. I used to always look forward to coming here to eat. I saved it as a special treat just for that reason. Now, because of how disappointed I was the last time I went, I don't know if I'd eat here anymore. For any reason.

The food was supbar. The salmon was not worth tasting at all. It had 0 flavor. And it was raw salmon, too, so it makes 0 sense to me why it tasted like biting into a mushy, room-temperature ice cube. It was my first time trying salmon raw, so I assumed it was how it was supposed to taste until the person I was with pointed out that the salmon was not good. Ruined my experience with salmon. The chicken and shrimp tempuras were both odd tasting, like whoever was in charge of them decided to only really season the breading and to make sure that the meat inside wasn't seasoned at all. The only good thing I wound up eating was the crab rangoon. Which is the only food that will receive photo recognition from me. The sauce that went with it (a sweet chili sauce, I'm sure) is good as well. But you can get a good crab rangoon just about anywhere.

Our waitress might as well have clocked out right after bringing our food out. I did not see our waitress for the rest of our meal. Not for a refill or to ask if our food was good or anything. All of the other waitresses were coming over to their tables and attending to their customers. But she must have decided to go on vacation to Japan to see if she could get better food. Can't blame her for that if that is the truth, considering you can get much better food (and better sushi) from a buffet than you can here. If it were the 1st time I had come here, I would have rated 1 star and not bothered to...