Ahi Sushi Bar & Grill — Restaurant in Lake Elsinore

Wanted to try this place since we have seen the Facebook reviews so here goes! Hope this helps. I used to eat at The Kabob Joint before it was The new Sushi spot. It all looks the same now just with a Japanese style. Me and my wife had the pleasure to have My parents babysit my 3 boys so we could go out for the night. We arrived, we're told we could sit anywhere we liked. 1 hostess and 1 server. 1 person behind sushi bar from the Facebook posts I'm assuming is the owner. Busy Saturday night for sure. Place is pretty packed. We sit down. Server comes after handling the rest and you can tell they are overwhelmed. Let him know our drink order. Super nice guy. Service was slow but I told my wife it's OK they just started. I watched a group sit and up and leave. Their prices are not cheap but I get it, Mr kabob before them was expensive and I'm assuming that's because of the overhead and most likely the lease at that place is a pretty penny not sure why on that strip of shops. We ordered appetizers finally got them after about 20 minutes. Again I know the owner is running the show and it's extremely hard owning a business and running it. As a few couples where leaving the hostess had a few issues with the cash register. The Server who I was assuming was on break. The hostess asked the Owner to come help her. You can see the owners frustration because of all the people seated. My wife was ready to go and I'm like be patient Owning a business is a struggle. So we wait. Finally we put our orders in for our mains. We sit and wait ask for more drinks. I ordered sushi and my wife ordered some kind of noodle and chicken dinner. I finally get my meal in maybe 30 minutes later. I'm sitting there eating a few pieces of sushi because I'm starving and then stop to wait for my wife's food....Nothing happens as we wait. We call the server over asking for more drinks and to see where my wife's food is. She goes and looks. Eventually the server comes back and we are informed they don't have the noodles for my wife's dish. I ask for a box to take my sushi home as my wife has not eaten anything. I felt so bad I took my wife there because she could not get to eat. That being said. I'm not here to give this place a 1 star because the food is honestly good. My personal opinion is for the owner to adjust the prices accordingly because I noticed the prices on the menu as if someone just randomly decided to make them up. Also on your menu for your sake remove "Chefs Choice." If someone wants to pay $30 for some sushi and they dont know what it is they are getting, its not a good idea. Calamari rings vs baked mussels for instance. You get 5 mussels for like 10 bucks which is amazing because most places will only give you 3. Then calamari is more then the mussels but you get like 10 small little pieces. So backwards. Next your menu make it into a book with photos. Noone know what they are about to get without seeing a photo. Spend the money and make the dishes and photo them into a booklet. Hire more help even if you need it in the kitchen. Doing it alone with a full house is very difficult. If you need to get a loan to cover the costs do it. Because if your customers run out like we saw them you won't have a business at all. Your food is great I think you can make it happen. I felt so bad for the server he was trying so hard and it was just him serving and bussing the tables. I hope he gets all the tips because he deserves it. I gave you 4 stars because your food is by far the best authentic sushi I have had in a 10 mile radius. I try to be constructive, and I wish you the...

Let start off by saying I had high hopes for this place. A new Sushi place in Lake Elsinore is a welcome sight. I’m a long time customer of Nekko and wanted to give this place a shot. I was sadly disappointed and quite frankly embarrassed. I ate here today with five of my customers. From the moment we walked in I could tell we are off to a bad start. The restaurant was hot inside, like uncomfortable to sit and eat hot. They opened at 11:00am. I walked in at 11:25am with one of my customers to secure a table. The woman behind the counter which I assumed was the owner quickly decided since customers walked in now was a good time to turn on the AC. The restaurant is fairly large and I know wouldn’t cool down quickly.

There was no server to be found anywhere. The woman took our drinks and quickly went back to finish prepping the sushi counter. The rest of my party arrived shortly after. Unfortunately it was all down hill from there. Several members of my party ordered drinks, iced tea and sodas. The ice tea quickly “ran out” as they only had one pitcher of tea. They don’t have a fountain dispenser for soda. All of the sodas are in can form, and are hot so when you pour them over the ice it melts it almost instantly.

The service was terrible. Instead of bringing a couple of rolls out at a time they waited till all the rolls were done to bring anything out. Which meant we waited almost 40 minutes for food to come. We did order some appetizers that came out fairly quickly. I could understand if they were busy, but literally it was our table and one other couple in the restaurant. Part way through a server did show up. Which honestly wasn’t any improvement. He would ask us if we wanted refills, then quickly forget what we ordered and have to come back to ask again. He seemed to get easily flustered and couldn’t multitask, which is something you should possess as a server.

Once we did get the food it was pretty good. The rolls were flavorful and were decent size. Overall it was a disappointing experience. I spent $340 for a lackluster meal. We walked in at 11:25am and walked out at 1:00pm. Maybe it was due to the fact that it was lunch and not dinner, but I would be scared to think what the service would be like if they were...

I went there with a friend today for lunch. It was completely dead but we wanted to try this place since it opened and saw the reviews. It was a complete disappointment! We wished we hadn't gone. We ordered 2 bento boxes so we can try a variety of items. It started with a salad with 2 small pieces of lettuce, literally. Then a bowl of miso soup that was tasteless and cold. 1st bento box was ponzu salmon, which was overcooked and dried. 2nd bento box was pork katsu. That was even more sad! It looked and tasted bad. It was pork jerky deep fried. I have never had pork katsu fried as a whole, then refried after it is cut up. Each piece was super dried and crusty (not the good kind). It was maybe frozen or they just don't know how to cook. It was so bad, it was not edible. We told the waiter, they were kind enough to replace it with another piece, but that was only a bit better and barely edible. On top of that, there was no sauce whatsoever, so it was just disgusting no matter how you put it. In addition, the meals came with either Cali rolls or spicy tuna rolls. Those were dry and not fresh. Grocery store sushi rolls were better than those. The last item was tempura veggies. I think that was the most edible thing we've tried. I don't usually give terrible reviews but it was such a disappointment all around we needed to make it real. We hope this place will improve if it wants return business. As we were leaving, another table was also complaining. The service was good and they really tried to make it right. It is just not up to par. It is the worst Japanese food we've ever had....