Hokkaido Sushi Bar — Restaurant in Norfolk

First off I am not a sushi snob but I really like sushi so I eat it pretty regularly. Second I'm not one of those people that goes out and reviews all the places I go to. However for the price of the food and the quality and service we received I felt it was paramount that I say something. It was my wife and I's anniversary and she chose this place hearing good things. When we walked in the first thing we noticed, after the high ceilings, was how empty it was. We chalked it up to being a Sunday night at about 6 pm, honestly we thought they probably closed at 7 and we were there late.

So they sit us at a booth and the seats were wrong, I don't know what it was, it's like the were just a smidge too low and you sank in funny. Next we ordered our drinks and some appetizers. I ordered basically the crab salad and the spicy tataki. Lemme tell you the spicy tataki was amazing and the drinks were a real sized glass and weren't cheap buffet glasses or something along those lines. So I was hopeful. The crab salad was kinda empty on flavor and had excessive use of cucumber. I tasted my wife's seaweed salad and it was bad. Not like spoiled, it was unlike any other seaweed salad I had before. The taste and texture were just bad. I was hopeful though.

We ordered our food and started conversing. I ordered 4 rolls, the Boston and Philly rolls and the Chesapeake bay and Granby rolls. At this time we were the only patrons in the restaurant but we were in no rush because it was our anniversary and we wanted to spend time together. My wife also ordered some kind of girlie adult beverage and that shot out and it was awesome, good flavor and not too strong.

Our food took about 45 minutes to come to us. Seeing as how other patrons arrived and being familiar with this style of sushi place, we immediately put in our next round of sushi. The waiter told us, and this no lie, with the other people and one sushi chef it'll be awhile, were we sure we wanted to put it in and he told us stuff from the kitchen would be quicker. First off, I thought to myself, "this place is $24 a person of course I want more sushi" and secondly I looked at the closing time and it was 10 pm.

So we ordered more sushi and said we would just wait and converse. Lemme tell you, I started eating and immediately it was bad. There was an excessive amount of rice and the rice was wrong. I don't know if it was undercooked or what was wrong with it but it was wrong. Then the smoked salmon for a little off tasting. The Boston roll was excessively bad, just ingredient and how it was rolled wise. And every Boston roll I've had had mayonnaise and this one didn't, but after talking to my wife not all of them do. The other two rolls were basically the same. Nothing special and bad.

My wife had a similar complaint. After waiting another hour for the last of our food it was the same. Our volcano roll was cold, not cool but cold, and it all tasted mediocre and bad. On top of that my wife received 2 of her 3 rolls wrong, like they weren't even rolls that she ordered. We tried them to see if they were good at least and they were not.

My biggest pet peeve when I go to a restaurant is having an empty glass. It's no exaggeration when I say that my glass was empty as much as it was full and the waiter seemed really bothered that we showed up at all and had the audacity to order.

I mean this could all be because it was a Sunday evening and the new sushi chef was there and training and our waiter could've been looking forward to an easy, early night, but for $65 for 2 people and 1 adult beverage I'm not going to risk it. I will never put myself through this again and go to Hokkaido sushi restaurant. Do yourself a favor and skip this one, head to either the Irish bar down the street, Granby street pizza next door, or sushi king one...

I had the lunch buffet. It was worth it.

Pork katsu was delicious, definitely order this. It was crispy outside and juicy and tender inside.

Seaweed salad was good. I liked the sesames seed oil flavor and the light sweetness of the salad.

Salmon avocado roll, the combo of creamy avocado and salmon were good.

Platter of escolar sushi, tuna sushi, red snapper sushi, salmon sushi, shrimp sushi, and smoked salmon sushi. They were all good.

Miso soup was good. I like soup and had tree bowls through out to help me wash down my meal.

Salmon Skin Salad was crispy and sweet. It was yummy. I appreciate the fact they put the salmon skin to use instead of wasting them.

Dragon roll: tuna, cucumber, crab. Top with eel, avocado, served with eel sauce. It was yummy and I will order this again.

Rainbow roll: crab, avocado, and cucumber. Top with tuna, salmon, red snapper, white tuna and avocado. It was delicious and I will order again.

Chicken tempura was ok, not my favorite because the chicken was bit dry.

Age Tofu was ok, not a fan of its texture.

My 2nd platter of sushi: masago sushi, salmon sushi, smoked salmon sushi, and escolar sushi. They were good.

Avocado salad was good with ginger dressing.

It was a sushi buffet, so I wasn’t expecting the rice to be on par with that of a sushi restaurant from Japan. For the price I paid, the quality was definitely better than most other places.

The server was kind. I will come back again and...

As soon as you walk in your greeted by an absolute wonderful staff that are super friendly and welcoming! The atmosphere is super cool and beautiful just to have a fine meal in ! The waitress gave us suggestions for menu options that were her favorite / freshly gotten that day - and after taking her advice - it was the right choice! - all of her suggestions were amazing and stuff we wouldn't have considered otherwise without the nudge in the right direction! The entire meal was absolutely delightful in every element possible ! *Whenever I dine out I often make a lil family or origami cranes for the restaurant to keep and this was also no exception! And I just kept making more and more solely cause I wanted to make sure the entire staff had options of their favorite colors - before long the staff would pass our table and keep getting surprised to see how many more cranes popped up and were absolutely delighted and surprised to hear I was gonna give them all of those cranes today! Next thing I know they showed us a spot to place the lil cranes to display them! And the rest is history ! So definitely stop by here for all you first time sushi lovers and expert sushi lovers ! The prices are so friendly and the staff are super...