Bamboo Steak House & Sushi ( Fremont, OH ) — Restaurant in Fremont

I have had sushi everywhere from grocery stores to add on sections of Chinese restaurants to single seating chef's tasting menus costing $200 in larger cities. This is pretty much what you would expect; a hibachi sushi combination that tries to do too much and fall short on all of it. I would call the quality very much similar to what you get at the local grocery store counter with the exception of the fried items which all taste as if the oil is very much in need of changing. The rolls contain what they say they do but you can find similar rolls cheaper five blocks away at the Kroger grocery store. I assume that most of the positive reviews are from people who enjoy sushi slathered in mayonnaise i.e. yum yum sauce or other mayonnaise based flavors. Any sushi product that is not heavily flavored with sauce ends up tasting vaguely fishy and otherwise bland, whereas the heavily sauced rolls taste like spiced mayonnaise as you would expect. Mayonnaise based assessments aside, any roll that contains fried items tastes like old oil, any raw roll is so heavily "wasabi" flavored that you can't tell if the fish is any good. Even the individual pieces have been combined with so much "wasabi" that if they were good you wouldn't know. Sides are lackluster in the sense that you can make miso soup from a mix or steam some edamame in the microwave and come up with the same thing. I think it's a requirement that every small town sushi restaurant have a salad that is a pile of iceberg lettuce with a vaguely citrus dressing. I cannot give an accurate review on the hibachi because the member of my group that thought they were ordering hibachi chicken and ended up getting tempura battered chicken that tasted like old oil.

There are five sushi restaurants in Toledo that you can drive to in less than half an hour that cost the same or less and are significantly better. While I am glad to see someone taking a stab at a non-chain restaurant in Fremont, I really think the mistake of many small town restaurants has been repeated; making the menu too big before perfecting any...

The food is delicious and the service was pretty good as well. Be careful though, if you pay with a credit card/debit card, they will add whatever amount of tip they decide they want! Then they bring you the slip and it shows the amount they billed you for your food, but do not tell you they added the tip. For instance, they brought us our bill and it was 40 dollars and some change, I gave them our debit card and they ran it and brought the slip to our table and it showed it as the 40 dollars and some change. I found it odd, because there was no place to write in a tip and could not sign the slip because it had already been ran through their credit card processor. So when I got home, I decided to go online to our bank and check the transaction and it was almost $49.00. Here they decided on their own to charge my credit a 20% tip without informing me beforehand. I have nothing against tipping, we always tip our waitress/waiter, but I always tip 15% unless it is a large party and it was just the three of us. They need to let the customer decide how much to tip for two reasons: (1) The waitress then receives a double tip because you leave a tip at the table as well. (2) If they bring you a slip and it says they ran your card as 40 dollars and some change and actually bill your card 48 dollars and some change, then you record that in your check register, then it could potentially cause your checking account to run afoul. We will go back, but they need to let the customer decide the tip and not...

This place is fantastic. The sushi is legit and the hibachi is some of the best around (super big portions too). I go during the lunch hour atleast once a week since I can get 2 rolls and a salad for 8 bucks (you can't get out of Jimmy Johns for that). The chef knows what he is doing and the waitress is super diligent. I've brought a bunch of people who are scared of sushi because they don't understand you can get it with cooked shrimp or no seafood at all, but they get the hibachi and love it. They also have saki and a decent beer selection for the after work crowd. I know it's a big cultural undertaking to get Fremont to accept a hibachi/sushi place, but I really hope this place sticks around...