Sushi On — Restaurant in Fairfax

Located inside Fair Oaks Mall, this place is HUGE for a typical sushi buffet... And I was a bit shocked at how fresh the food was and how much of a variety it had.

For the price point, I’d say $ because for a buffet of this size, it was decent. We had our child who proved 1/2 off the price off an adult - they don’t price children by age but by height.

This place has something - for even the pickiest palette:

They have sushi They have Korean They have Chinese They have a salad bar They have a hot noodle bar They have a crepe station They have soft serve - vanilla and green tea They have a noodle salad bar They have delicate, scrumptious desserts They have a coffee station

So one would think that with all the variety, food can’t be that good...Well...food was decent.

First off...the sushi. It was good. The fish was fresh, and at the majority of buffets, the sushi is 90% rice and 10% thinly sliced fish. Here, they didn’t go too overboard on the rice and it was a nice ratio.

Secondly - the variety of dishes were impressive. We went Saturday around 11:45, and they had baby clams. Normally, I would skip it because the clams are chewy from sitting, but the clams were soft and delicate. The sauce was a little sweet but had good flavor.

The other dishes that stood out: The buckwheat green tea noodle (a tossed cold noodle salad with lettuce, in a slightly sweet sesame dressing) The fried calamari strips (thought they were mozzarella sticks at first) Fresh kimchi - the cabbage was sweet and the kimchi paste was delicious! If fresh oysters were added - perfection!!!! The desserts - specifically the green tea cake (cut into delicate perfect tiny bites) amazing the spicy pork - sweet but spicy, and flavorful

The only “miss” from the meal were the vegetable mandu (vegetable dumpling)— Didn’t like the texture and was incredibly bland.

I think our highlight was our server Esther- she was a doll and very kind, conversing with patrons. She smiled the whole time and made the dining experience very pleasant.

So, if you are ever near Fair Oaks Mall- try Sushi On...it might just surprise you. But go there early...while the place is big, the place...

TLDR: Great selection of various Asian foods but subpar sushi. Come for the soba noodles and Korean food.

Vibe: 4/5. Sushi On is located at one of the entrances of Fair Oaks Mall. The dining room is massive, easily accommodating both large and small groups. The buffet is located in the center of the restaurant and is broken out into several different sections based on the type of food. You have a sushi area, a Japanese food, Chinese food, Korean food and dessert bar.

Service: 4/5. We arrived on a Saturday at 2pm for lunch but upon walking up to the hostess stand, we were told they close at 2:30pm in order to reset the buffet for the 5:30pm dinner service. We had the option to sit and have lunch, however they would not be replenishing the buffet. After taking a quick look at what was out, we decided that there was enough selection on the buffet to make it worth our wild to dine. After scrambling to load up 4-5 plates with what was left, our server mentioned that promptly at 2:30pm they would be cleaning up the buffet so he encouraged us to take anything we wanted before then. I definitely appreciated the heads up, and they allowed us to stay well past 2:30pm to finish our plates. Service also did a great job keeping our drinks filled.

Food: 2/5. The sushi was more or less disappointing. Understanding that buffet sushi is on a different level in terms of quality vs. a la carte sushi, Sushi On was below par to other sushi buffets I have visited. The sushi was extremely bland, with little to no vinegar in the rice. There were times I could not taste the difference between various pieces using different types of fish/shellfish. The selection was nice, as they had an array of nigiri, maki and specialty rolls but again you really couldn't differentiate the taste between the sushi. The various hot foods such as the Korean kalbi, Japanese soba noodles, Korean fish pajeon and bite sized dessert cakes were the highlights of the lunch, but certainly weren't enough to save the meal. I really wanted to love Sushi On, however the less than stellar sushi execution will probably make this a one and done dining...

For $32/person for sushi&seafood buffet, it’s not worth to go dining at this sushi/seafood buffet restaurant. In the past this place was called Todai and it was average to good sushi/buffet restaurant around the Metropolitan area. For the past 7 years I have not been back to this place. So tonight my wife and I with our daughter decided to stop by this place to revisit and showed my wife how good of this place is. Unfortunately, I was very disappointed with the quality & quantity of the food and service. The were NOT many sushi/seafood selections. The snow crab legs & oysters are their main feature of seafoods. However, the snow crab was too salty, tasted like old crab legs that traditional chinese buffet offers. I was very disappointed. The oysters were not fresh. They looked rotten. Therefore I did not bother to try it. Sushi was not cut/presented professionally. The salmon sashimi was cut like it came from left over piece of salmon, uneven cut, the salmon piece was cut unbalance. It also looked horrible and like it came from chinese buffer of $15/person. There were not many selections of sashimi. They mainly had salmon & tuna. For cooked food, the tempura was more vegetable than shrimp. When the shrimp tempura ran out, the chefs were not bothered to replace or add more shrimp. They just pointed to the sign that stated we cannot request for more shrimp tempura and had to suck it up and eat the remainder of vegetable tempura which is, ridiculous, we paid $32 and you mean I cannot request for what I want to eat? The food was taken forever to be replaced by the chefs. The chefs also had rude attitude when I asked for something. My waiter was not very interactive with the service. He didn’t care to come and check unless I asked to be serviced. Please it’s not worth to spend $32 at this place. Take my advice and not to go here. You will be regret. The restaurant was not that busy.

Management, you need to improve your restaurant if you want to exist longer. Both in quantity & quality...