I Heart Sushi — Restaurant in Oak Ridge

I hate to be negative and I'm always willing to give a restaurant an opportunity to fix a problem but this one is bad.

So... My girlfriend an I we're going to try the new crab bucket place on the turnpike but they had an hour long wait so we decided to try iheartsushi instead.

The sushi bar seating looks really nice with cool red recessed lighting and black stone surfaces. Then they have really awkward round high top tables for 2 which are wobbly with little surface area to eat. The chairs that accompanied the high tops were very uncomfortable. The rest of the tables looked fine but we didn't sit there so I can't comment on comfort.

So our first contact with the server, a very nice young lady, was the moment I realized the rollercoaster was climbing the big hill. We were in for a ride. The server asked us what we would like to drink and we ordered a hot sake, she looked at me like she didn't understand what I said so I repeated myself. Again I get a confused look. So I ask "do you guys have sake?". Well she hands me a beer menu and I'm forced to ask yet again... Do you have sake? She finally speaks up and tells me she has no idea what I'm talking about... Okay, fair enough. She is young and probably not old enough to drink or have reason to know what sake is. I order a soda and ask for a few minutes to look over their menu.

While we are studying the menu a Lady named Tia comes over (the owner/owners wife) and we solve the sake mystery. They haven't got their license to serve wine/sake back from Nashville yet. No big deal!

So they have some really interesting sushi rolls on the menu, we pick the cutie roll which has basil in it. Decent roll, the basil was a bit overwhelming but I like trying new concepts so I'm good with it. Spicy tuna roll was decent but again the spice was a bit overwhelming. Not sure how you bork a spicy tuna roll.

My GF wanted to try the sushi salad combo, seaweed, squid, cucumbers and a splash of ginger. It was the best thing we ate.

Now for the problem. We ordered a 4 piece order of salmon sashimi, when it came out there were ten small pieces. Bonus right? Not so fast... I put the first piece in my mouth and I'm instantly bombarded with a fishy not so fresh experience. Anyone who eats sashimi on the regular knows that salmon should taste clean and almost melt in your mouth. Their salmon was tough, fishy and anything but clean tasting. My GF experienced the same thing and was even brave enough to try a second piece. The fish was simply not fresh and now I'm wondering if the overwhelming flavoring of the sushi rolls was not intended to cover this up. You can't cheat on sashimi!

So Tia comes back over to ask us how everything was and my GF attempting to express that the sashimi was not fresh was basically talked over with "ohh okay awesome!" What Tia? Why is it awesome that your fish isn't fresh?

Anyways, one would think that a complaint about the sashimi would at the very least be acknowledged with an apology and at very least take the sashimi off the bill. Nope... She charges us for the uneaten and complained about sashimi anyways. Unbelievable.

Given that this is a new restaurant I wouldn't have left such a poor review if they had acknowledged the problem and not charged me for the bad item that wasn't eaten. New restaurant pains and all that. But Tia, I know what bad sashimi tastes like and you nailed it. You talked down to my GF as if she was just some TN hick that has never eaten sashimi before. We drop $100.00 on sashimi regularly at fulins by Kroger or kubuki in Turkey Creek and let me tell you... Their prices are better, their service is better and I've NEVER had bad fish at either establishment. Speaking of Kroger, their sushi is better as well.

Now apart from the sushi bar looking really nice, the rest of the restaurant was hauntingly bad. The lights were way too bright and the naked walls were bouncing sounds around like crazy making the atmosphere so abrasive that I wouldn't go back even if there hadn't...

This place was absolutely god awful. I was out with my mother and my aunt and we decided we would go and try the place since it was new and my mother and I enjoy sushi. We walked in and for such a small area, it was full. Waited about 5 minutes which was absolutely fine, I had no problem with that. We got sat and our server gave us our menus. After a quick glance, there was NO SUSHI ON THE MENU. I don't mind asking for something however the name of this establishment is "I Heart Sushi" so naturally you would expect Sushi to be on the main menu. Not so long after that, a young lady came to us to take our drink orders. My Aunt ordered a Diet Pepsi, Mom ordered a Tea, and I ordered a Pepsi. A few minutes later the lady came back to give us our drinks. I was on my phone so I had waited a few minutes before beginning to drink my beverage. When I took a sip of my drink I realized it was my aunt's diet Pepsi. I asked her if she had mine and we switched however, they had given us 2 diet Pepsi's. When we ordered, my mother and I decided on 4 sets of rolls. The Crunchy Crab, Crunchy Shrimp, Cupid and another one I can't remember, my mother also ordered a Tempura appetizer. My aunt got some sort of rice and steak combination with a salad. After a 25 minute wait (that is far to long for 4 rolls and a steak and rice dish) we finally got our food. My aunt didn't get her salad so she asked for it and after another 5 minutes they brought it out to her. The sushi was far from stellar and for the price (around 45 dollars) it was no where near worth it. When we were finished, we got our check. They had put the Tempura on the bill however we never revived the dish. After a 10 minute wait for them to take the tempura off our bill, we left. All in all a 1 star experience considering the drink debacle as well as the food and the price for the food being far to much for the quality of the food. If I wanted to go out to dinner with my mother and get some sushi, we would go to Fulin's Asian Cuisine down the street because for the same price that we payed for 4 bad sushi rolls at this establishment, we could get 2 bowls of soup, 2 egg rolls, and better sushi. Would...

My kids and I went on a Saturday afternoon around 1 in the afternoon. Place was about half empty, looked very clean and we were warmly greeted and seated immediately. We were seated at a table with two place settings given our menus and a few minutes to look it over.

We ordered our drinks which came out a few minutes later my five-year-old wanted Sprite. When our drinks came out her drink was in a regular adult cup which was obviously too big for her and also it was mellow yellow. After she tasted it she was fine with the mellow yellow okay so no big deal I asked for a styrofoam cup for her because I knew it would happen if she didn't get one. We ordered three rolls and my youngest also got a child's steak hibachi.

When the food came out I had to ask for more chopsticks and napkins because I was never given any, then I had to ask for silverware for my youngest daughter. After getting it, then I had to ask for soy sauce bowls because we didn't have any at the table. Despite the fact that my youngest was eating sushi and had some in front of her he only brought two bowls and then disappeared again after waiting for a minute or so and not seeing anyone walking around I just got up and grabbed another bowl off another table. Out portions was definitely fair but the meat in my daughter's hibachi steak was obviously low quality, extremely chewy and tough and not really a lot of flavor either. The three roles we got were amazing though. They tasted very fresh and were really, really big.

So despite the service being off a bit the rolls definitely helps to balance the scales.

Worth it if you're in the area and don't want to drive into Knoxville but definitely not worth a...