Watami Sushi All You Can Eat — Restaurant in Lawrence

Very much wanted to like this place, and my partner and I both kept trying to make things work, as neither of us like leaving negative reviews if we can help it, but we didn't even finish our food. My biggest issue is the sauces they used, the Sriracha was already low quality and tasted like tomato paste with a little Sriracha mixed in, on theme for the super watery soy sauce, and a white sauce that I assumed to be some kind of yumyum, but I'm confident was actually garlic parmesan.

The walls were covered in drippings from foodstuff, and the bathroom I went into was not clean at all. I'm really not one to criticize bathrooms in general, they're bathrooms (especially at an ayce), they're gonna be gross, but walking in before my meal was a huge mistake already with a wastebin very full of very obviously used toilet paper. I'm not even getting into the walls, the sink, or the stalls.

It also took well over 20 minutes for anyone to see us, which I usually also try to be very understanding as there are other customers obviously, but even after being handed a menu and filling that it, waiting the rest of the 15 just for our server to hand us a filthy (and I do mean filthy, sacrificed the singleply napkin i had to wipe off a pretty noticeable droplet of sauce, but the screen was still pretty sticky) tablet to redo our order, not being able to find 3 of the 7 items we had originally planned on with the laminated menu. (Potentially on us, but we both have a good amount of experience with cash registers from previous jobs)

I've never had a miso soup that I thought needed as much help as the one we ordered, it was pretty tasteless, so I added soy sauce, and then tasted it, added a little more, until I get to the point where this miso is a good 33% soy sauce (I'm someone who likes their soy sauce too, don't get me wrong, some of this probably is because of my tastes) before I just set it aside.

I ordered the shrimp tempura, which was cooked okay, but a little chewey and bland, even with its sauce.

The sushi itself was fairly good; if I had pushed some of the sauce off a littler earlier in the meal, I may have eaten more of it, but the 2 and 3 pieces, respectively, both came with the aforementioned garlic parmesan tasting sauce that honestly made both my partner and I a little nauseous and just not want to order a second round, much less dessert, much less the sweet potato rolls that didn't come with the sauce.

This may be a little unfair to include in my own review, so please forgive me if so, but we also overheard the booth behind us with their own issues related to the octopus, which we opted out of after.

Overall, trying this place out was kind of a low note to end a day out on, I wish the business and staff better luck in the future, but I don't think we'll be coming...

This restaurant is all-you-can eat, for all their food menu items. You're seated at a booth and the waiter gives you a laminated menu and a dry erase marker. Next to each item on the menu is a line for you to put a number, and that is the number of servings you want of that item. The waiter will then take your menu and when all items have been served, they will provide a clean menu for you to order more as needed.

If you order too much, you may be charged extra, but otherwise it's about $25 per person.

My partner and I tried several sushi rolls, edamame, crab Rangoon, teriyaki chicken, teriyaki beef, unagi fried rice, and chicken fried rice.

Most of the sushi rolls were amazing, but I specifically ordered rolls that did not contain tuna, and some of my rolls were contaminated with tuna flavor. My favorites were the Gozilla Roll (I think it was a typo in their menu, I think it is supposed to be "Godzilla"), and the Volcano Roll.

The edamame was fresh and delicious too.

The Crab Rangoon was equally as delicious.

However, that's where the good ended. The teriyaki chicken and beef was chewy, and dry. The beef had hard gristle in it, beware. The teriyaki, once it cooled, tasted more like pancake syrup than teriyaki sauce. I do not recommend it.

The fried rice was also horrible. It didn't taste right, it was wet, and the meat was served on top of the dish rather than added to the dish. You get a single, small sliver of eel or a 5-6 small pieces of chicken. As far as I could tell, they took some rice, warmed it up in some oil and sauce and then topped it with some meat. I don't even recall there being any veggies. I do not recommend this at all.

The tea, of all things, was also very bad. My partner immediately thought it smelled "off", and we both tasted and confirmed: It tasted like burnt popcorn. We have no idea what kind of tea it was, or anything, but we also weren't provided any sugar or sweeteners and it was served "as/is". I kindly asked the waiter to comp us for it, and he did once he saw that the glass was still full.

The service was also slow and inattentive. The waiter was so soft spoken and I could barely understand him that I gave up trying to ask about their drink options. Their drinks options are not listed on their menu, but they should be. My partner wasn't even comfortable trying to ask for a new drink, so I gave her some of my water.

I did not enjoy the taste of the water, but your mileage could vary.

Overall though, I will come back for more sushi and crab rangoon. I know better than to waste time on some of the other menu items. If I were to give a word of advice to the owner, I'd say reduce the number of items on the menu and put more effort into increasing the quality of items...

If I had to pick one word to describe this place, disappointed is the best I could do. I have been to the Broad Ripple location several times. It is always top-notch and great service. The Lawrence location is a far cry from the Broad Ripple location.

It took a few minutes for us to even be noticed when we came in, despite there only being one occupied table in the whole restaurant. We were led to a table that was very sticky. It took an amount of effort to get the soy sauce off of the table. We asked the server to please wipe it down again for us and she did, but it made no difference whatsoever. I think when you use the same dirty rag to wipe down dirty tables, it’s hard for them to get clean.

We placed our order and most of the food was pretty good. The sushi was pretty good. The fried items, crab rangoon, spring rolls, tempura mushrooms, and the dumplings were all very, very greasy. I don’t think that they were put on a draining rack for any length of time.

The fish tank, right by the front door, is so filthy you could hardly see the fish. It’s not very appetizing to see scum and algae when you’re ready to eat a seafood dinner.

The patio was closed but filled with trash and completely unappealing. I don’t know about the kitchen, but the entire dining room was in need of a deep clean. My shoes stuck to the floor, which is never what you want in a restaurant. The bathroom was filthy. The trash was overflowing and every square inch of the floor was sticky.

The final piece of fun for the evening was the fly on our table. So I came back to the table after the bathroom trip, there was a fly dancing around on the table. I guess he figured out how to not get stuck to it.

An all you can eat sushi restaurant is a big win. But the problems with this place outweigh the benefits of inexpensive sushi. I’ll go back to the Broadripple location. I’m not coming back to the Lawrence...