What the fish — Restaurant in New York

I would like everybody to read this in its entirety.

EDIT: I’m actually shocked people got more food based on other reviews, as my boyfriend and I only got one small plate and only one order.

The reason why it's getting a one star is because it's a scam. The all you could eat is not true.

Let me start off what all you could eat means. It means that you could eat as much as you want within a reasonable time between 1 to 2 hours. Most restaurants do 1.5 hours. Different restaurants have policies of how many hours you could eat, and how much they could charge you if food is wasted. That is what all you could eat means.

They advertised it on their Instagram that it's all you could eat for $20 on Thursdays between 2:00 and 8:00 p.m.

So we made reservations for 6:30. The nice host mentioned it will take 5 minutes to get a table. Which I was fine however it took almost 20 minutes. Which I did not mind since we skipped the whole line at the end (kinda)

Then they sat us at a 3-person table. They took our drink orders and then they asked us if we could move so two person table. That did not bother us because at the end we realized they were so busy which we were fine. However when we got to the two-person table, there were other two tables that were seated after us and got their food orders first. The first waitress at the first table already told us the food is going to take an hour. Which we were fine because she set the proper expectation that it would just take a long time because how busy it is. She also told us that we could get five rolls each from the specialty rolls and traditional rolls which we understood and the fusion rolls were extra. So with that being said my boyfriend and I picked five rolls that we wanted to eat. We wrote it down in our notes so when the waitress comes it will just be easier to give the order.

At this point we did not care that the other tables were served first. Since the drinks were awesome and the music was good. Although music was good, it was just super loud for no reason. Our food came an hour and a half later which is fine because the expectation was told. HOWEVER, I asked where is the rest of the food because everything came on one small plate. She said this is it. And I said this could not be it because it's supposed to be eight pieces per roll as the website said. The waitress said that's not the case because you're doing the All you could eat. Which means if it's an all you could eat we're expected to have the same amount of pieces that's on the original menu except the fusion rolls.

Clearly this place is a scam because when I had posted on their Instagram I was instantly blocked once I wrote it's a scam. I have proof and I will upload it on to the reviews. With that being said eat at your own risk. It is not all you could eat and the portions are cut in half. If that was the case it should have been told on the menu that the all you could eat is four pieces per roll and you could only have that amount at one time.

All you could eat restaurants have different menus at different times and what is included and what is not included. Clearly the sushi place does not know what needs to be done. I don't care if it's $20. However if it's advertised eight pieces per roll that is what I'm expected. If they're saying it's five rolls per person then I expect five full rolls and not a half a roll. And at the end I don't even believe it was four pieces, and actually was three pieces per roll.

So it's up to you whether or not to go there on a Thursday or even go there. Since it's false...

Worst dining experience of my entire life! And I work in service myself, so I am usually more empathetic to service workers.

However, this was awful. We came in at 6:30pm on a Thursday for the $20 AYCE special. Note that the special ends at 8pm. There were three of us, and we were initially seated in a cramped spot at the back of the restaurant at a table mostly meant for 2 people even though half of the restaurant was empty. A few moments later, the server asked if we would like to move to the empty section. We happily moved. It was 6:35pm by this time. We were reseated and left by ourselves until someone finally came to take our order at 6:55pm. Although we were seated at this section of the restaurant first, our orders were taken last.

The waitress who approached us did not welcome us. Instead, she said “English or Spanish?” We ordered and she left. Someone else brought our drinks out after about 5 minutes, so this was timely. No one checked in with us for refills for the entire duration of our stay. We waited SO LONG for our food to arrive, which came out to our table at 7:45pm. We did not even get what we ordered. We had sushi rolls missing. It was impossible to flag any staff down, they did not come to check in. You would have to get up and go to the podium to speak with the manager to get assistance. At 7:45pm, we asked if it was possible to get another order because we waited so long and felt it was unfair for the special to end in 15 minutes and we would not be able to get someone to refill it before it ended. The server obliged but noted it would take 1-1.5 hours for another order of sushi to come out. We were shocked! 1.5 hours for raw fish? We had already been there for 1.5 hours by this time so we figured “why not?” And put in the order. This order came out in about 35-40 minutes. This time we were missing 3 orders of sushi rolls but didn’t care to try to flag someone down because we were exhausted from being there. As the server came to collect our plates at the end, she noticed all of our drinks were empty and finally asked if we wanted refills. It was 9pm at this point and we had gotten our drinks over 2 hours prior and she was only NOW asking if we wanted a refill! We requested the manager who gave us complimentary dessert for the inconvenience but come on. She said she was aware of the situation when we were explaining it to her. 1. Why did we even have to request the manager to come speak to us if they were already aware? They should’ve been proactive to come to us first to explain or apologize. 2. Why didn’t anyone warn us of the wait when we were first seated? So many people walked out of the restaurant because they were waiting for hours with no food or service. Then they have an automatic mandatory gratuity of 18%!!!! Most of the servers were on their phones texting and walking around the restaurant not speaking to any customers. The food was also just okay. Not worth the price on a good day, much less this awful experience. I highly highly discourage you from visiting this establishment. There are so many better options.

It’s sad because they do have good ambiance and music but clearly they are focused on the...

TL;DR: Long wait, poor communication, lack of accountability and organization

Disappointing first experience! The establishment was extremely crowded and there didn’t seem to be a method to the madness—everything felt disarrayed. My brother and I made reservations for their $20 AYCE special which didn’t even seem to matter because we had to wait over an hour to be seated. Upon walking in and giving my reservation details the first thing we were told is that we’re late (it was only 10 minutes) and then directed to stand on a line for guests with reservations with no estimate on how long our wait would be. There was also another line for guests who were walk-in which was twice as long too! While on the line we looked around and noticed most guests that were seated had nothing on their tables other than a drink or hookah and those that did have food only had like a plate or two which is unlike other AYCE spots I’ve been to where the service is quick, and the tables are packed with food. After about 30 minutes of waiting, we asked how many others were ahead of us and were told that there was only 1 party and then we’d be next but even after that party was seated we were waiting another 20 minutes all while multiple parties of 2 from the walk-in line were being seated before us. Encroaching the 1 hour mark the host told us there still wasn’t a table for us but there was 1 seat available at the bar for one of us to sit in where we could start ordering and eventually get moved to a table. As we made our way to the bar, a table became available suddenly and we were seated there instead. Thinking we made it through the worst of it, we got settled in only to be told that the $20 AYCE special was ending soon, and we’d have to order all our items in one go otherwise we’d end up paying more. We reluctantly agreed and waited for someone to come take our order but after 15 minutes we had nothing on our table besides an empty plate and chopsticks. There were multiple employees walking past our table servicing other guests, but no one stopped by us once to even give a glass of water or provide the menu. At this point we had reached the limit of our patience and decided that if we stayed, we’d be doing ourselves a disservice and got up to leave. None of the employees tried to stop us and the host offered us a half-hearted apology on our way out. I was genuinely excited to eat there after seeing a promotional video online but unfortunately, they did not live up to any expectations. WHAT THE FISH!?

Despite the bad experience, the staff were polite, and the ambience of the environment seemed fun so I would be inclined to come back another time for a retry but I felt as though they were ill equipped for the magnitude of people that showed up for their $20 AYCE special. I’m unsure of how their service is during other times but they need to restructure their workflow to handle the busyness of...