Bayridge Sushi — Restaurant in Longwood

Update 7/17/2021 We went back with friends for a lunch time. Had the 3 roll sushi lunch. Miso is still and salad are still great. The rolls are 6 pieces for each. I had the tempura Krab, eel and salmon skin. Tempura Krab had a lot more cream cheese than I expected and drowned out most of the other flavors.

For dessert I had the tempura cheese cake. It wasn't a 3 layer like shown in the menu, just three single layer slices. It was okay. The flavor kinda got bland half way through the dish.

Server was okay. Very attentive to getting the order but only did one drink and food check.

Original review Dec 2020: After shopping at the Altamonte Mall, we were looking for a Katsu Don type meal. This place was rated at a 4.7 on Google and the menu showed exactly what we wanted.

For a Tuesday night, this place was busy. Despite FL allowing restaurants to have 100% capacity, this is the first one that actually took it serious. No staggering of tables, literal can be sitting next to an occupied booth on all four sides. We crammed on one side of the booth to distance ourselves as much as possible. If you're immo-compromised or just trying to limit your exposure, don't come here. We weren't offered AYCE sushi even though website has it.

We ordered the following things and critique of it

Takoyaki: Exceptional. Hot, fresh, the sauce with it was amazing.

Tuna Tataki: Done well. You can definitely taste the pepper and can be caught off guard by it. Fattier tuna would have mellowed out spice and salt.

Miso Soup: Just as good as everyone else.

Salad: it was okay, tomatoes were definitely sitting for awhile. Mushy to chew. Ginger dressing was more liquid than previously experienced. The tang was ill balanced by a cream in the dressing. Lost the freshness of the salad.

Salmon Nigiri: Ratio is 4 times as much salmon than to rice. Great if it was sashimi but horrible in following traditional style Nigiri.

Pork Katsu: Disappointed. Server Thomas said there it would seem like there's new person and giving out larger portions, which I though was a plus in our book. Unfortunately, it wasn't. The pork was either cut thin, or tenderize to be thin. It looks like they were breaded with tempura, cooked, sliced and cooked again. They were cooked too through making them dry, just like if you left pork in the oven 2 or 3 minutes than you actually wanted to. The sauce was good, not too tart or tangy but a good tempura fry wouldn't need it. Rice was dry and set on the plate instead of being served in a bowl. This dish has way too much western influence because it was quantity over quality. Twice as many chops, huge serving of rice and lemon...why lemon... this is the first Japanese restaurant that served lemon with a Katsu don.

As for the staff, Thomas seemed a little rushed. It was busy but wasn't exactly attentive and kinda had that walking away and speaking at times. I don't know what server was berating the hostess, but keep it on the DL or say it away from the crowd. Not fair nor professional for a waitress complaining about seating, being condescending and talking while walking down the aisle. Unprofessional.

Speaking of presentation, sharpie to mark out the old part of the business name looks cheap and tacky. Stained comment cards don't make a great impression when it's distracting me from giving a review. It wasn't even Bayridge for the name....just sushi.

Not coming back, nice try but...

Their food was good. Service was good. Atmosphere was clean. The only thing that turned me down was their birthday club card. Upon paying, they will give all these cards to fill out like for the bday club and no one can explain it fully how it works. That time the person at the reception desk, a Caucasian young lady. She was there at the time we were dining in at 1130am, Tuesday, nov 12. Me and my friend asked her how the bday club works since my bday is nov 15. She told us that after filling out the bday club card with all our info they will send an email within a few days coz I told her specifically that my bday is coming up on Friday nov 15 and that she told us that I can come back for my free bday meal within that week. We asked if this is only good for dine in or take out. And because she's not sure about the answer, she has to go to the back and ask the manager about the specifics of the club card. She came back a few minutes and she said it's also good for take out and that the bday celebrant can come and eat for free worth $25. But it cannot be combined food orders, it has to be one order of food only whether it is $15 or $10 you cannot combine two together to make it $25. So the most expensive in their lunch menu is $18.95 so $19 is the most you can get out of that $25 that they are giving u free. Today, nov 19, I called to see if I can claim my free bday club reward, it's a different ball game now. The lady in the front desk asked me who did I talk to last Tuesday. Well I didn't get her name but for sure she works there. They don't have many receptionist at the front desk for them not to know who that is. Now this lady is saying that they don't put in the computer the info until the end of the month and because of that I will not get an email until December and my bday already passed and I'm not gonna get my free bday lunch or dinner until next year. That's ridiculous. Then I asked to speak to thr manager, she put me on hold and came back saying the manager is too busy right now and cannot speak to me and she was told that I have to order $50 worth of food before I can get my free bday meal. Are they out of their mind. The manager or the owner of this bayridge sushi is trying to make false advertising and trying to get our information which they can share to others for identity theft. Good thing didn't share my phone. This is really bad. And to say this is my first I've sign up for some stupid bday club reward. Lesson learned don't ever sign up for anything like this because these are bogus, fake advertising, identity...

There’s a lot to unpack here. Overall this is a low tier sushi place but you get what you pay for. The nice appearance of the restaurant does not mitigate the amount of fundamental errors made. The sushi/sashimi came floating atop a bowl of water with some ice in it (this is an indication that it was sitting out for too long). Does anyone check on the plates before sending them to customers? The bowl was completely overflowed and soaked all the nigiri and roll on the plate underneath. The sashimi itself was far too thick, sloppily cut, and not sliced through entirely. Another bad sign that could mean one of two things.. the chefs need training on their knife work or the knives aren’t sharp enough.

The service was somehow just as bad as the food. Jevin was definitely struggling since the restaurant was busy (Saturday night) but there’s only so much slack I can cut the man. To start, we ordered an additional roll which was completely different than the one we received . Instead of apologizing the waiter blamed me for the miscommunication even though I pointed at the correct item on the menu and he responded “YES YES, dancing dragon”. Giving even more excuses over taking accountability for your mistake is not acceptable but I will give him credit for removing the unwanted roll from our bill (absolute bare minimum). To end off, it should never take over 45 minutes to leave a restaurant after the meal is over. If you’re busy, the goal should be to get people in/out as soon as possible. He gave us our checks and didn’t come back to grab it after half an hour. I had to go to the front desk and ask to pay. “Coincidentally” the waiter appeared out of thin air and took my check as soon as I started talking to the people at the front. It took an additional 15 minutes with him having my card in his hands because coincidentally the systems were down during that time. TLDR: low quality sushi + bad service = don’t come to this...