Akira Sushi Clackamas — Restaurant in Gladstone

Well, we’re done with Akira Sushi on 82nd Drive.

I went to pick up an order placed via phone, and when the woman up front was asking which was mine, I said the one with “no ginger, no wasabi.” She looked like she had a sudden realization, and started digging through the bag. She opened the larger clamshell container, which contained ginger and wasabi alongside the sushi rolls we had ordered, and then stepped about two feet away and reached for a glove. So far, this is fine. It’s not an allergy, and mistakes happen.

But then she paused. With her back facing me, she sneezed twice. Her upper arms were tight against her body, and her forearms and hands were hidden from me by her back, so I couldn’t see whether she had covered her mouth and nose with her hand or not, but I knew she hadn’t used her elbow. Then she turned back with the glove in hand, donned the glove, and started to reach for the ginger and wasabi nestled in with our food.

“Uh, you sneezed?” I was feeling incredibly uncomfortable, but I couldn’t keep quiet about this.

“What?”

“You sneezed?”

“I sneezed over there!”

“Right, but…”

“I didn’t sneeze over here, I sneezed over there! I didn’t sneeze on the glove, I sneezed over there.”

“Okay! Okay! I couldn’t see.”

“You can do it!”

“It’s fine, sorry, I just didn’t see…”

(It wasn’t fine, she just sneezed without covering it in a crowded restaurant, but I don’t do confrontation with service workers very well.)

“No, you do it, I can’t do it, I sneezed, you do it!”

“Okay…”

I went to get a glove from the glove box while she rang up another customer. She still hadn’t washed her hands. After I removed the ginger and wasabi and threw them away along with the glove, I paid her and left.

Two things occurred to me later:

She knew that the ginger and wasabi were in there, which meant she was probably involved in prepping our order and had possibly already contaminated our food.

No one else working in that tiny restaurant turned to look when she sneezed or intervened during our little exchange, even thought there was another employee who walked around us multiple times and another within earshot.

I can only conclude that there is not a culture of sanitary practices at Akira Sushi.

I feel like a bit of a Karen posting this, but at the same time, in a post-COVID world with bird flu and measles both threatening public health, there’s no excuse for this. We’ve been frequenting Akira for years because it’s pretty good food at an affordable price, but this has...

Hopefully the owner sees my review . My family has been coming here from the very first day they opened. It has been our favorite sushi place and we have referred it to countless people online and in person. Unfortunately the last two times I have been there, today and a few weeks ago, there has been a server there who refuses to fulfill my order for fresh calamari. After all the years we've been there I learned to order from the waitress made to order, so we got it hot and fresh. Last time and this time when I asked for it they took some calamari off of the train. When they brought it to me I said it was cold and asked for it to be made fresh. Just one or two minutes later they came back and said here it is hot with the plate extra greasy. They must have put in the microwave or Flash Fried it again because there was Grease on the plate. All the years I've been there whenever we've asked for fresh calamari it would be made Fresh then brought to our table. The fact that these waitresses are lying saying that it is fresh when we know it is not is absolutely mind blowing. Today I saw the second waitress take the lid off and put the back of her hand to the calamari and told the other lady, yes it's hot. I couldn't believe they still brought it back to my table after she touched it with her on hand. I am so devastated because there's no other sushi restaurant our family enjoys going to. All it takes is a couple waitresses who almost go out of their way to not fulfill a simple request in order to save a few cents in profit. I hope the tall gentleman that we have known since they opened is there at some point so I can talk to him. I would hate for poor customer service to bring down such an outstanding establishment. I hope they discussed this with the two ladies who are there today. My son wanted fresh Sesame balls made to order and he didn't even want to ask for it because he didn't want to go through the same ordeal that we went through asking for the calamari. Please do something to fix this I don't want to lose an awesome restaurant due to poor customer service. It's always been outstanding with the other people who've been there for a long time and even recognizes every time we come in....

If I could give this place zero stars I would. The worst customer service. We made a reservation for my father's birthday. We arrived on time and they had forgotten the reservation so we got stuck in the middle so we couldnt reach the conveyor belt well, we ordered off the menu because the majority of the dishes on the belt looked old and multiple dishes didnt even have lids and the fish was drying and you could see it. Rolls that should have been hot were cold/luke warm or dripping with grease. Their dumplings clearly were not hand made, they must have come from some box of frozen because they were dripping grease and still frozen in the center. We attempted trying tempura of many sorts and was all either cold like it had been saved over or even refrigerated and then placed inside a roll or it was extremely undercooked and soaked in grease(not the kind on the outside from oil dripping but where it look ok on the outside but bit into it and got a puddle of cold grease go down your arm and pour into your mouth. Getting rolls off the menu or belt were failing so we ordered some yakasoba and we had to ask for it 3-4 times and when it finally got to the table(45-1 hour later) it looked like dried set out top ramen with literally 5 small pieces of unappetizing beef on it so we sent it back. Everyone that went was sick within the night to the next 2 days. I high reccomend not going here at all unless you go when they are not busy, have adequate staffing and you order straight off the menu. I would highly reccommend sushi village on 181st as an alternative because they have great food...