Koibito One Sushi & Teriyaki — Restaurant in Lacey

We have been coming here for at least 15 years. Before kids it was 1-2 times a month and now 2-3 times a year. Calm and nice dining area. Usually, extremely nice & attentive staff. My husband eats pretty much anything and I am a picky eater. Up until today, we have loved everything we've ordered. We have always got a coconut shrimp roll & smoked squid salad and then 2 other rolls depending on what we thought looked good. Our daughter always gets chicken teriyaki. The teriyaki has always been great, but tonight it was amazing!!! Nice sear and not too salty sauce. The miso was yummy as usual. My daughter said it was the best hot cocoa ever and the tea was yummy, however the hot sake was not hot, lukewarm, maybe... Our daughter & us were happy with her meal, but ours was not the good quality and taste that we know from the many years we've been eating here. Even though it wasn't as expected, we will still return and try again. Maybe it was just a bad day for them...??? The smoked squid salad was very fishy, cut in fat slices (usually thin & small) and not really smoked at all (very different from previous times), the coconut shrimp roll was about half the size of previously & the coconut was over toasted. The Tumwater roll used to be delicious, but now it tasted of old mayo, fishy & mushy texture. I hate saying the "bad" stuff because everything has always been great, but with the smaller portions, the higher prices (almost double) and the fact the lady up front, that has been there since the first time we came in, didn't seem to care about the lack of quality and got angry when we asked to have the 2 worst items (also, least expensive) removed from the bill. Usually she is the sweetest lady and the reason we keep going back and our daughter keeps...

Second time here since January 2019. Huge difference in EVERYTHING.

First time: great variety of tea, hot and delicious miso soup, very delightful sushi. Service was lackluster but the food made up for it.

Second time: only two teas, I had the ginseng and it was delicious but cup was only filled halfway and no refill was offered (cost of refill, if any, wouldn't have been important);

gyoza was bland but well cooked, all flavor came from dipping sauce;

miso soup was hot and delicious;

sushi was too much rice and the Philadelphia roll was overpowered by cream cheese (I had this roll last time and it was a perfect balance of salmon, cream cheese & cucumber; this time it was a mouthful of rice and cream cheese, completely overpowering the smoked salmon).

Our waitress did not check on us after any of our food deliveries. I had to politely flag down another staff member to discuss the inedible sushi roll and was argued with and told that everyone loves the amount of cream cheese in their rolls. I wish I had taken pictures.

*I highly recommend checking out the Thurston County food safety inspection page, easily accessible on mobile, for up to date information on ALL food establishments in the area. I found it...

Love this place. We're regulars, and the service and food is always good.

The only time I've had slow service was when I ate there about a week ago at lunch on a Tuesday -- normally a slow day, so they had one waitress, the owner, and the chefs. The waitress was handling things fine, and then a group of about 10 people showed up for a business lunch.

It was quickly apparent from their (loud) conversation and complaints that they had not called ahead to reserve a table or warn the small, family-owned restaurant they would be dining there.

They became impatient with the waitress not jumping to their snapped fingers and raised hands, and complained to the owner. I almost cheered when the owner politely informed those rude diners that as they had not notified the restaurant ahead of time, they were short-staffed -- however, another waitress would be arriving soon, and in the meantime they had other patrons who were waiting.

Then, as my husband and I were standing in line to pay after a lovely meal, the business group began trickling up and walking past the others patrons to slap their receipts down and pay.

The restaurant is great. I wish I knew what business those jerk diners represented so I could avoid...