Asuka Japanese Steak House & Sushi — Restaurant in Danville

I love the Nicholasville location, Danville needs to step it up with communication. What started as a (quoting from the phone call) “15 maybe 20 minute” wait on a take out order for house soup, house salad, and one sushi roll, turned in to almost an hour. I politely asked for a refund as I was in a time crunch and literally could not wait, and was respectfully given my money back. The manager was very kind to offer the soup and salad which had been waiting but I kindly declined, my time was more valuable than some iceberg lettuce and broth at that point. I’m not sure what had happened, the Staff working pickup orders brought a sushi roll back and placed with what appeared to be my order and when I confirmed my order with the manager, I guess the sushi roll was the wrong kind and the manager took it back to the sushi bar. No update was given while I was standing there so I waited a little bit longer but I knew I was cutting time close as I had other plans.

No one is to blame for the food taking a while (everywhere is short staffed). However, whoever is taking pick up orders needs to be trained on realistic timeframes to give customers on the phone, and the communication between the Staff working pickup orders and customers coming in needs immediate attention. Had I not been keeping a close eye on what was going on (or not going on) at the front desk, I would have been waiting another ten minutes or longer (that is what the Staff member working pick up orders told the Manager working the register at that moment in time) because the Staff couldn’t even take two seconds to give me a quick update with a new time. Keeping your back to a customer is not the way to go about your lack of attention to detail. That evening in particular I didn’t have time to stay, the entire point being if it were communicated on the phone the actual time it was going to take, I wouldn’t have ordered in the first place due to the time crunch I was on. I would love to see this location to stay and to be able to edit my review to say otherwise.

Photos are from a previous trip when I dined in, the Staff then was very clearly thin, our waitress was upfront about the prolonged time for sushi due to being short staffed (and after we were served our food she noted they actually ran out of sushi) but the food was good and our waitress was kind and...

My experience at Asuka didn’t start out great. The front of house staff was unprofessional and didn’t seem to know what they were doing. First of all, we came in about 30 min before the dinner rush. I know empty tables don’t equal servers to serve them, but my party was quoted a 15 minute wait for dining even though the other tables already seated didn’t even have their food, or looked to have just gotten their food. The hostess didn’t take my name, and after sitting in the waiting area, we found out they were all also quoted 15 minutes, and their name was not taken ether. About 25 minutes go by and I go up and ask a group of girls behind the front desk station if they plan on seating anyone soon as I was quoted 15 minutes and that time has came and gone, and there were two parties before me that had waited much longer. I was told “I just got here” and she turned around. I went and sat back down. After about 5 minutes, someone came around and took our names in the order we were sitting-which was not the order we arrived. Almost everyone who came in before us was after people who just got there. Both parties that came before us ended up leaving frustrated as groups that came in 30 minutes after them were called to dine after 10 minutes of waiting. After about 45 minutes, we were eventually called for dining, AFTER everyone in the waiting area who came in after us was called. The parties were all 2-3 people, just like ours. It didn’t make sense.

Once we got to our table, our experience was easy going and our food was excellent.

The front staff had a group of 3-6 people at a time, sometimes talking about non work related things, having chaos go on. They didn’t know what they were doing and it was very apparent, and only one girl seemed like she wanted to actually fix it. Everyone just kind of watched her do damage control and put out the metaphorical fires they started, but it’s hard for one person to do the job of 6.

Plus there were two decomposing dead birds on the sidewalk and they looked to be there for more than a day. Sad how they were...

Hidden Gem tucked away in Danville, that's it. The service here was off the wall excellent, And I do mean excellent. I ate a late lunch here about the time the sushi bar was closing for a 2hr intermission, yes you heard me correct. They close down the sushi to catch up, clean up or what ever they do, seems like a good time to restock for the evening bombardment. Everything here was emaculent, clean tip top shape and if you have read any of my reviews you know I'm serious about tidy time where I eat. So, the waiter came straight out and asked me what I would like to drink, then asked if I had any questions.....duh, yes! Can you make me some shrimp fried rice?......yes sir right away sir. Slam bam thank you man I got salad, broth soup, and a JI NORMOUS bowl of shrimp fried rice in minutes. I knew right away I would need a take home bucket, a shovel and some dude to roll me out to the F-150, the shrimp were like on steroids, and the rice was perfect, slightly sticky as it should be but no salty brine to put a heart attack on for 8pm that evening. The salad was ice cold and the dressing was kinda awesome too. This was an excellent experience for me as I love Asian food but I hate the imitation of the others all around that throw you some fake crab meat and spaghetti noodles to make you think you got it going on. I will return to gorge myself on the sushi bar but not between 2&4 pm, remember this. I hope this was helpful as I only leave my very honest opinions, it does a person good to know that a business appreciates it's patrons and goes above the expectations to make a meal as great as you expect. Thank you Asuka, it...