Umiya Raleigh — Restaurant in Raleigh

starting off with the positives: our server Metty was super nice. She was busy, definitely running around, but when we made eye contact, she came over. When she saw my partner or I raise a hand, she came over.

The restaurant is beautiful, plenty of parking, the serving team was great. Bussers stay circling to grab trash, clear plates, etc. The staff did their ish.

That said, I feel like the servers were set up to fail or the owner didn't care about the experience for new guests.

Number 1, and this one is a smaller deal: the website has a cocktail menu, a sake menu, etc. When I saw it, I was delighted to try them out. When we got there, they had no alcohol at all whatsoever. This was mildly irksome, just cos the site had menus that had my palate revving for certain flavors. Just say on your site that you don't presently offer alcohol but will at [DATE].

Number 2 is an extension of number 1 but actually irritated the hell outta me. Like I said, when I heard about this place, I peeped the menu. I was DELIGHTED to see that they distinguished between imitation crab meat and snow crab. The language is very clear, "snow crab meat." So, when my rolls came and I saw it was imitation, I was irritated. My family is from the mid-atlantic, I know snow crab meat. So I order 2 more rolls that are listed as having snow crab in them; one snow crab roll and another roll I can't recall the name of. When they came, I recognized the imitation. I called Metty over - I wanted to see if she'd own it, because her response would dictate my own - and asked, "the menu says X, but I'm looking at it, and my eyes are telling me Y. Is this snow crab meat?" she looks at it, looks at me and says "it's probably imitation." I'm glad she was honest.

She brought me a substitution, didn't charge me the food waste policy. Really, Metty made lemonade where she could but it truly infuriates me to know that the language was abundantly clear: snow crab meet. Some said kani, some said imitation, some said snow crab - so the delineation is clearly understood - but that wasn't what was served to me.

What this makes me think is that the owners know what the area wants - more fresh sushi, more cocktails, better options - and they marketed to that, but when I actually went, they didn't deliver on those marketed promises.

This place had a chance to really grab me - my fiance and I do a date night at least once a month and we LOVE sushi. But I don't think we'll be back. I felt deceived. They used very specific language "kani," vs "imitation," vs "snow crab meat" and let me tell you how MAYBE one roll had real crab meat in it and it was HAMMERED with cream cheese. The amount of cream cheese made it hard to tell.

The alcohol was kinda "eh, nbd" on its own cos we get that liquor licenses can take time to be delivered. They didn't have sake, wine, nothing - and THEN it was compounded by misrepresented ingredients. Not a fan of the lying part. I care about what I'm eating. I'll likely stay with Sono Sushi from here on out. AYCE is only enjoyable if you know exactly what you're eating and trust the menu.

We ordered dessert but it was taking an inordinately long time and the staff had started breaking down, and we simply didn't care about a deep fried oreo enough to wait more than 20 minutes for it. Once we got to 10:15, we asked the host to pass along our thanks to Metty and explained why we were leaving. We simply don't care for an oreo 25-minutes bad.

PS - to management: there's a typo in your menu. Instead of saying "desserts," it says "deaaerts" Look at the S's in other words on your menu, then look at the...

I find it extremely disrespectful as a former employee to be spoken about and posted about on managements PERSONAL and PRIVATE social medias, I also have everything voice recorded from when I was able to speak to the owner Jeff about incidents that took place on that day. Karla (the manager) initiated an argument with me during a PRIVATE conversation I was trying to have with Jeff and Karla invited herself to the conversation then started raising her voice and yelling saying AND I QUOTE “you have such a nasty attitude” and when I asked her to not raise her voice and talk to me like some child she started raising her voice even more In the voice recording you clearly hear me stop yelling and turn to Jeff and say “this is your manager she uses her emotions and her authority to walk over people that’s not right” so instead of making a false narrative please correct your mistakes Jeff told me personally that Karla would get her own punishment due to the Unprofessionalism all I did was ask her to not speak to me as a child and speak to me with respect I had a connection with all my customers and employees, until they started picking and choosing which I also have proof of I was never violent or disrespectful, yes I raised my voice but not once have I been ill mannered to anyone in that work place. The employees get treated differently depending on their relationships with the management and it’s not right if you ask all your coworkers you will hear the same thing from everyone who does not have a personal relationship with them. Please do better it’s not right and you can delete this but I promise it will be posted everywhere and I’m guessing the cameras also have proof of Karla initiating the argument on top of all the witnesses that were there, and the voice recording I started before I walked in the lobby with them because I already knew they were trying to fire me because multiple employees came up to me saying that Jeff and Billy (the owners) as well as Karla(the manager) and not just me, a few of us who have been there from the beginning so he can “have his family friends and friends of family” working there instead of everyone else resulting in them cutting everyone’s shifts with 0-2 shifts a week and the select family friends having mostly doubles everyday. The messages attached are the owners response to us WORKERS when asking about not getting put on the schedule. again please do better you have amazing people worker but the management is toxic...

I was looking for a Celiac friendly sushi place, and heard many positive things across various social media websites and internet forums stating Umiya is really accommodating for people with gluten allergies (Celiac's disease).

I called prior to arriving asking about their policies for serving someone with Celiac's. They explained to not get fried food, obviously, they said they have gluten free soy sauce, they use separate cutting boards for gluten free orders, and most rolls can be modified to exclude gluten items. All of this sounded amazing, and I was excited to dine here.

When I arrived, I double checked their protocol for how they handle patrons with gluten allergies, and was told the same thing I stated above in this review. We were promptly seated, and this is where everything went downhill. Our server was completely unaware of how to handle my allergy. She was not clear when answering my questions, and she was not clear with what the kitchen staff relayed to her about their individual ingredients. Additionally, we all asked for water when we got seated, and our server just did not bring the water at all, I had to burden a busser with retrieving water. We waited 15 minutes before asking for it.

The server brought us dirty plates — they had watery soy sauce remnants and tiny dried food pieces on them. The server did not bring us napkins, or utensils either. It was truly a bizarre experience because the place wasn't incredibly busy? It had a few other tables, but I wouldn't say more than 10 tables were seated.

Menu issues - some rolls are labeled as "kani" and some as "snow crab". If it is labeled as "snow crab", they just use kani. We were told this after we consumed a roll with "snow crab". Their kani is not gluten free, and is coated with an anti caking agent. This is not unusual, and we asked before ordering anything containing kani if it was gluten free. Sometimes it is, sometimes it isn't. We stayed away from kani rolls, went with snow crab rolls, and it was just kani. (We did not order fried soft shell crab. This is not what I'm referring to on their menu).

Anyways, the manager was really kind helping us out, and she said she'll work on retraining staff or helping them be more aware of gluten allergies.

The food my friends had, who are not allergic to gluten, was really tasty. But the rest of the experience really brought this place down. If you have gluten allergies, specifically Celiac's, I do...