Sushi House — Restaurant in Olympia

3rd and LAST Update (12/31/24): We are done!!!! Management is completely to blame for why a place with a reputation like this one had is falling apart. Hub and I just left. When we arrived there was only 6 tables and 2 waitresses, very manageable. As we were seated another customer was very upset about how long his food was taking to come out and threatening to leave. Originally I thought he was just being impatient, but he was NOT! We are use to the inconsistency this place has had since ownership changed but today was the last "try" we will be giving this place. No music playing, every employee seems pissed off, and the food and drinks took entirely too long to come out. There is one sweet waitress there who is very hardworking and an exception to the rest (also needs to find a place worthy of her work ethic). The woman who seemed to be the manager (because she wasn't taking tables) is horrible! It seemed like we were blessed with her lackluster effort to help her team. Our waitress seemed like she was new or untrained. Most everyone (besides that one waitress) seems untrained and highly inefficient. The cuts on our Nigiri were all wrong making fish that should melt like butter very chewy. The tempura we ordered was burnt and cold. And the last straw, we ordered Blue fin Nigiri and I am 95% sure we got just regular tuna because there was 0 fat in the cuts. The rice was over cooked and the roll cuts were uneven. Done, done, done!!!! Would give 0 stars if I could.

2nd UPDATE (12/01/2022): My husband and I have tried several places in town, and while this place isn't as good as it use to be, it is still the best. We have revisited several times now and the error with the blue fin niguri has been corrected. I have increased to 4 stars from 3 because some visits are perfect and just what we expected. However, there has still been 2-3 times were the rolls or dishes fell short of the previous owners standard. That being said, the past is the past and we won't get it back. The new owner(s) have respected the recipes of the old enough for this to still be our 1st choice for sushi in town. I do like to see that the staff has remained the same since the change over as they are all very kind and efficient.

Update: My husband and I use to come here at least once a month. We noticed on the last visit that our normal order of blue fin was not at all what we would typically receive. Usually the blue fin is fatty and this seemed to be the liver or something else that was very metallic and disgusting (to be honest). Then the unagi was cold and tasted a little funky. If the place was packed I would understand, but it wasn't. That is when we got a little suspicious. We received our normal roll, the Puget sound, and it had a new sauce on it that didn't pair well with the roll as well as being an over abundance of sauce so you could barely taste the fish. That always makes me nervous about the quality of the fish because if it's high quality you don't cover it in sauce. On our way out I asked if there was new owners and the waiter confirmed it. Personally, if your going to take over a place and keep it's name, keep it's menu items as is. Charge more for quality fish if you need to, but don't downgrade. Also, if you want to put your own spin on things, go ahead, but give it a new name. For us, this is a new sushi restaurant and we will be trying other options in the area before we come back to compare. That being said, the staff was very friendly. I will update if I don't find something better in town.

Love this place and missed it so much while it was closed. But, they are back for take out and I couldn't be happier!!! Finally, my sushi needs are filled. Hope I never have to live...

Feb 2024 update: A friend convinced us to give Sushi House one last try. Once again, I've had grocery store Sushi that was better than all 8 rolls I have tried. All of the negatives are the same, the food even worse than the other visit. This time, about a 30min wait to be sat on a Tuesday evening. Our waiter was great though. Once again, tried another 4 rolls,(2 for me, 2 for my partner ). They ranged from lackluster to inedible . How do you make a basic California roll gross!? Just like the prior visit, the rolls and pieces were WAAAAY too thick to eat without biting your piece in half, leaving uneven bites and falling apart pieces. Not just 1 roll, all of the rolls.

Original review:

Negatives first, because they were enough for me to choose not to revisit.

NEGATIVES: -Sushi was 3/5 flavor. Quite bland even though we chose 2 specialty rolls with exotic ingredients. I'd put it on par with grocery store sushi. -The rolls were quite large (I don't mean that in a good way. If the price was good and the rolls were huge, I'd appreciate it. But at $15-20 per roll, it wasn't a thing of generosity. Perhaps trying to compensate for mediocre flavor or ingredients?) which resulted in huge pieces, larger than a comfortable mouthful. You can't bite half of a piece of sushi, you know!? So to handle and shove a whole piece, it often crumbled as you dip in soy sauce and stuff it in your mouth, losing some of the elements, then proceed to awkwardly chew a huge mouthful. I'm a full sized man who has eaten sushi at dozens of places. This was abnormal. I did not try anything deep fried, only cold rolls. -The rolls/pieces were stuck to the plate an abnormal amount more than anything I've ever experienced. Therefore the pieces fell apart as you tried to dislodge them to pick them up. Then, they'd fall apart more as you go for a dip in soy sauce. The rice didn't seem particularly sticky, perhaps it's a poor choice of plates? -The tables were MICRO!!! Literally 2ft x 2ft square and you were fumbling around knocking things over. My partner dipped her sleeves in sauce and sushi 3 times trying to reach in and around things. Being crammed as just a party of 2, this is perhaps my biggest negative. -The acoustics were rough. It was so noisy I had to yell to talk and then cup my ears to try and hear my partner speaking. We were in the upper area which has about a 7ft ceiling. I'm 5'11" and had to duck around the light fixtures. The low ceiling felt heavy and didn't help the acoustics. -The gyozas were pretty forgettable. The casing was bland, basic fried dough. The sauce was basic soy sauce. The inside/filling was good but nothing special enough to redeem it. -The lighting was bright and harsh.

POSITIVES: -Service was quick. I went on a Saturday evening and we only waited 5-10min to be sat. Waiter was quick with water and the back & forth about drinks and ordering. The food arrived fairly quickly. -The location is good. Like a quarter mile off of the 101. -The sake was piping hot. I really appreciated that it was almost scalding hot because it helped the 2nd and 3rd cup be hot later. -The sake dishes were nice, perhaps handmade, and had some character. -The Spicy teriyaki chicken dish was good. Generous portion, quality ingredients, generous amount or chicken. The flavor was okay, nothing profound, but the spice level was perfect. Enough to get a runny nose but not enough to burn your taste buds. -The floor, tables, and decor was nice enough. Aside from the tables being stupid small, they were nice. -All of the staff was very nice.

As I said, the plusses aren't enough to outweigh the serious negatives. I won't revisit...

This place is amazing!!!!

My SO and I decided to experience some of the gems in our own backyard (we are from Aberdeen, WA). We have a favorite sushi place that's outstanding in town, but we like to purposely go to new sushi joints and compare similar dishes and see differences since we have a base-line expectation.

First of all; this place's safety precautions put into place for COVID were fair and comendable! And they made an effort to enforce them! They don't take reservations for dine-in, but they had a waiting list for folks who wanted to dine-in and when there was availability, they came out to your car when it was your turn. We waited, maybe, 20 minutes max. They kept folk inside the restaurant distanced.

We had tuna tataki and goyza for appetizers; the tune tataki was thick and, similarly as our other place, served on a bed of shaved potatoes. The amount of meat was a nice surprise and the fish was delectable! Service was kind and prompt. We followed with the yellow-tail sashimi (it has a garlic flavored seared crust): the garlic was prominent and delicious!!!!! And the Albacore house roll (note that our favorite sushi-thing is albacore lol): also really good, but the composition of the roll was not my SO's favorite (the cucumber was very small and the amount of crab was a lot so the overall texture was more mushy with little crunch (something that I enjoyed however)) and same with the house ponzu sauce (it was just different than our favorite places' BUT we also know that composition of a sushi-joint's house ponzu sauce could be different due to taste, what's used to make it, etc.)

Note though that neither of those were, to me, a justified reason to deduct stars - they boiled down to a difference of taste and are not a reflection of the quality of the food or service we received, which were both amazing. The prices were fair too! If you want/expect quality sushi, be prepared to spend a little more than what you would for...