Lantern Sushi — Restaurant in Frederick

My wife and I decided to give this place a try today and, while we weren’t exactly disappointed, we probably won’t be back.

Pros: -Service was pleasant and fast for a Saturday! -Inside is very inviting and they have done a great job with design choice. -The crab rangoons were actually very good- nice and thin with a flavorful center. My wife liked her Sakura roll and says her miso soup was general, good miso soup. I noticed when we were walking out that all the sushi chefs were wearing gloves- thank you! -I like that they have options OTHER than sushi on their menu. All-you-can-eat sushi can get a bit much, so it’s nice to have other options as well.

Cons: -Make SURE you pre-sand your chopsticks- they are cheaply made and I wouldn’t want you getting a splinter. -Most of my sushi rice fell apart as it wasn’t very sticky. -The sweet potato sushi, while the flavor was good, had WAY too much sweet potato for my liking. Be mindful of the dessert option “cheese cake.” This may have been MY mistake, but it is not “cheesecake,” it’s “cheese cake.” That or they spelled it wrong and their version of cheesecake is vastly different. -Prepare to smell when you leave- not a great place to “start” your night out. -Not necessarily the “worst” thing, but when we were brought the wrong food, the waitress switched it with the table next to us instead of bringing each party a fresh plate of their correct order. It’s apparent they are big on keeping food waste down, which is great, but it’s just an issue of safety and sanitation.

Overall, if you want fresh and “good” sushi, this isn’t your place. We knew this going in, so didn’t have the highest of hopes, but just want to give that disclaimer if anyone thinks that this place is going to have high end sushi you’d get at other places in Frederick.

I wish this business nothing but the best and having an all-you-can-eat local sushi place is pretty cool! They have much time to grow and hopefully be even better in a couple years with more business...

I’m a sushi addict. Like, problematic levels of sushi addict. I make sushi for friends. For family. I’ve even been paid for it—though the IRS doesn’t need to know that part.

So trust me when I say: I wanted to give Panda Sushi a 5-star rating. I tried to give Panda Sushi a 5-star rating. Twice. Once for dinner. Once for lunch. Both times? I left feeling like someone handed me a birthday present, and inside was socks. Beige ones.

Here’s the thing: Panda Sushi is… fine. Not awful. Not great. Think “slightly better than the sushi tray at your local Chinese buffet” and you’re in the ballpark. Tiny rolls. Fish slices so thin you can read a newspaper through them. Enough sauce to drown a small child. And flavor? Missing. Witness Protection levels of missing.

Lunch pricing? Reasonable at $15. Dinner? Not worth the extra ten bucks unless you enjoy paying more for the same roll wearing a fancier hat. And whoever designed the menu has a real thing for imitation crab. Nearly every roll has it. Here’s the problem: imitation crab has the flavor profile of wet cardboard. So when the star of the roll is imitation crab with a single postage-stamp piece of tuna on top, your taste buds clock out early.

To be fair, the service is good. The ambiance is fine. But if we’re stacking the deck: Sushi Bomb in Hagerstown? Slightly better. Yuraku in Germantown? Way better. Fewer options, higher quality, pricier, but worth it. If I had to pick among the three, Yuraku walks away with the crown.

And look—I’m not saying don’t eat here. The sushi isn’t bad. It’s just… not going to haunt your dreams...

Eh… so, like everyone else we have been waiting for this place to open. We usually travel to Hagerstown for the all you can eat sushi and was PUMPED that this place is closer. I understand being new and working out the kinks but overall I was very underwhelmed.

I got a spicy crabmeat roll and it was awful. I struggled to chew and swallow it down it was that bad. That’s such a basic roll and for the flavor of the spicy crab to be that off it was a let down. I did like the shrimp tempura roll but it did take forever to bring them out after I ordered. My husband got a few different rolls, that he said were fine but nothing was great. Definitely a bummer

They were very busy so we struggled to get our servers attention when we wanted to order or needed drink refills. Dessert was pretty funny, the moose is chocolate flavored cool whip and the cheese cake had the smallest top layer of what would be considered cheesecake filling on top of regular yellow cake.

Prices were fine, on par with other AYCE sushi places so no worries there. It’s very nice inside but a tad loud when it’s packed.

Guess we will be making the voyage back to...