Japan Inn — Restaurant in Greenville

We have a favorite sushi restaurant in town, but we had gone there 2 days ago, but my daughter had a Japanese friend spending the night (a 9 year old) so we decided to try Japan Inn since it was close to Painted Peacock. Anyway, this will be the last time we go. In summary, the food was not as good as any of the other decent sushi restaurants in Greenville and it took over an hour to get our food. We arrived at 12:10, and put in a drink order as soon as the waitress came. It wasn’t busy but there were some people sitting down. She was back soon with the drinks, and we each put in our orders, we got a calamari appetizer, the girls both got kids hibachi, I had 2 rolls and my wife had a Poke bowl. It took over 30 minutes for the calamari to arrive. It was reasonably soft but the panko it was fried in was not what we are used to, it retained much more oil and had a mild onion flavor. It came with a dipping sauce, basically the cheesy sweet sauce that Chinese restaurants give you with your spring rolls. Not great, not bad. The girls’ salads came first, then their hibachi. I tried my daughters steak, it was firm and rubbery (she didn’t notice). My wife started getting hangary. I looked at my clock at 1:05, she hadn’t refiled my tea yet (server #20 according to the receipt). The kids had already finished eating, and we had determined that if we see the waitress and she doesn’t have food, we are just going to ask for boxes and a check for their meals / appetizer and leave (my wife and I will just eat at home). By this point it was quite busy indeed, and things were not looking good. Around 1:15 she did show up with the food, so I asked at that point for boxes and the check as the food was delivered. I did get a tea refill, but the boxes and check came after my wife and I had both finished our food. The time on the receipt says 1:25:57.

My sushi was pretty typical, I had a dynamite, but the topping seems to have all coagulated together, I had break off each piece. The Tuna roll I had was very simplistic and just had a drop of spicy mayo on each piece. It wasn’t bad, but not as good as either Shogun, Wasabi 88 or the one on memorial near the laser dome (the name escapes me). There just was not very much complexity or care put into the preparation.

My wife was the most disappointed. She had the Poke bowl. We love Poke in Hawaii, it’s served deli style, fish soaked in a variety of sauces, usually soy or vinegar derived but unique, flavorful and refreshing. At Japan Inn, it was just a bowl of rice with some vegetables and raw fish, not prepared in Poke sauce (there was a sauce on the side, which was clearly not the same thing). So overall: The didn’t care, my food was ok but underwhelming, and my wife’s food was downright disappointing.

So needless to say, we’ll never go back. I suggest that you...

SO disappointed. I've been going to Japan Inn for well over 10 years. The quality has severely gone down. Tonight's experience was just all-around terrible.

The quality of the food was poor. The firecracker shrimp appetizer was overcooked and the breading was caked on. The appetizer also came out after the entree. The All-You-Can-Eat food was also disappointing. The Crab Rangoon was burnt. And it took an inordinately long time for the sushi to come out. I'm not sure if that was due to the sushi chefs or our server.

My husband had already finished his meal and my sushi hadn't even come out yet. Our server came by and said "Can I get you all anything else?" indicating she hadn't even checked on my food. I told her we were still waiting on my sushi. A few minutes later, the sushi was brought to the table. One of the rolls is served with avocado on top of it, and when it was brought to the table, the avocado had already begun to brown, which tells me that it sat for more than a few minutes after it was ready.

The sushi was also very sloppily assembled. Our server never checked on us after she brought my plate of sushi. Never came to refill our drinks. We had to ask for the check. As I said, I've been coming to this restaurant for over 10 years. It was my favorite place to get all-you-can-eat sushi. But the past few times I've been, I've just found more reasons to go elsewhere. Tonight was the straw that broke the camel's back. We will not be returning.

TL;DR: Overall disappointing experience. We'll be going to Wasabi 88 exclusively...

I would give a 3.5 rating. I ordered. Shrimp Ramen Ocean roll sushi + tempura roll sushi Miso soup I will start with the ramen which wasn’t that bad and has decent flavor. Overall a 6.5 for ramen. Ocean roll was packed with flavor and spice I will give it a 7.5 I feel it could’ve been packed tighter in order to allow the consumer to have the ability to dip in soup or sauce without risk of sushi falling apart. Points lost for that one. Now we have the tempura roll which is a basic sushi was tasty however again packed very loosely not allowing me to pick it up without risk of falling apart so dipping is certainly out of the question. Lastly I have the Miso soup which is one of my favorites. The broth coloring was light to appearance which isn’t to alarming but brings questions as to the flavor. After tasting the flavoring is dull and I had to add salt to bring out the hidden flavor of the broth. Even after that I would only give the soup a 5.0 even. Simply because it had the taste of miso soup but not bold enough, very lightly seasoned but people want flavor flavor this makes us come back. So over all 3.5 out of 5 stars. Won’t be my preferred place to go for the price. Also pricing is a tad more than usual for type of food and restaurant. With pricing I expected a taste to remember and price taste ratio...