Fuji Sushi & Steak House — Restaurant in Eau Claire

After all the wonderful reviews, i was really excited to try this place. I wanted to be in love, but instead I left feeling really disappointed.

It was husbands birthday weekend, so I called in advance to make a reservation, as it says online they take them. I was told they didn’t. Ok, no big deal, I asked what time we should come in to avoid possible waits... and so it starts. She was almost rude to me, and said just show up to be seated. I was trying to be proactive and plan the rest of our night around dinner, but oh well let’s give it a try.

I started feeling the let down as soon as we walked in. It felt cold, aesthetically and temp wise (more on that later), and we had to seek out the hostess stand. We were led to the back hibachi room, and immediately I was turned off. It was freezing, weirdly lit, kids everywhere, and we sat for a long time by ourselves before even seeing our waitress. I’m a seasoned diner, and I’m sad to say our server left a lot to be desired. Not personable at all, dropped off items and ran, I felt very left out of the experience those around me were having.

We ordered an octopus sashimi appetizer and it didn’t come out until our chef was already at the grill. And it was terrible. I adore octopus, this was so tough, my teeth couldn’t even tear it. I’ve never experienced something so inedible, I had to send it back. I really wanted to turn my husband on to sashimi, and it backfired. Eventually it was replaced by another fish, but I won’t order it again if I go back. Not the quality I am used to, meaning it was not fresh. At all.

Our hibachi chef was fun. He had personality, cooked great food, and was a delight. My husband liked his food, the rice was amazing as well as the veggies. The add on salmon was maybe 3 ounces if I was lucky. We both said outside of the rice, we could have cooked this at home.

What really saddened me, however, was I told two separate people it was my husbands birthday. Including our chef who asked. And our server did not get the memo - mostly because she never came to us for more than a second so I couldn’t be sure she got the message. Someone did bring th birthday stuff out, but never made it to us as a bacholerette party hijacked it. They got sang to, all while my husband already had the check paid (the only thing she was quick about) and his coat on.

Like I said, I really wanted to like this place. Eau Claire has limited dining options, but I didn’t enjoy my experience. The only reason I gave it three stars was for the grill chef. I will continue to look for a special dining...

Now that the wife and I are back to eating a "whole foods plant based" diet, we have to be a bit more careful with our menu choices. We've found that Fuji has the most on-menu items that fit our diet (pretty closely) among the sushi joints in town.

My wife ordered two shiitake rolls, a cucumber roll, an avocado roll, and inari sushi. I took two jade rolls, shiitake roll, and a Fuji onion soup. We split an order of edamame. Everything was prepared very well, and presentation was fine, but didn't have flair really. Not a deal breaker of course, because the taste was super fresh.

We ordered a decent variety, but we only touched on about half of their whole foods plant based stuff. Oshinko roll is also pretty good, miso soup is great, seaweed salad is pretty darn outstanding, but can be a bit of a calorie/sodium hit. I'm not a superfan of their ginger dressing on house salads, but it's decent too. Haven't tried the avocado salad, among a couple others. They, of course, do hibachi meals and other Japanese dishes from a standard kitchen, but none of those really qualify, due to oil content usually... vegans that don't mind oil and sugar in things have like 2 or 3 options.

Overall there's a lot to like here. I wish that more sit down places had these kind of things on the menu: just simple, good food, fresh ingredients, low calorie,...

I have been to lots of hibachi restaurants in many different places. Each experience is different but has common threads.

This one was all its own and not in the best way.

I like to start with what I love. The drinks. The cocktails were really good. The appetizers. We had the crab rangoons and fried scallops. Both were delicious and freshly prepared.

We started at the bar while we waited for the rest of our party. That was great. The lady at the bar was amazing!

Once we headed to the table, it went down.

First the guy splashed water in one of the ladies face as a joke. Not cool! You don’t get a black womans hair wet like that.

Food preparation. I had to ask him to use more butter. I normally have to ask that hibachi places go light on the butter. I asked for more and he literally said “is this okay?” It was like a pat of butter. Small slice. It was not ok.

The rice was hard and the shrimp was slathered in like three sauces.

The veggies were a medley of stuff I didn’t want. Pepper. Onions. Broccoli. Mushrooms. Tew much!

The worst part was it was not much food at all. I have never left a ho achieve place without enough food to eat one (maybe two) more times.

I ate a few fork fulls and my to go package was literally a snack.

While I probably won’t be back to visit the area, if I did I would not return...