Umi Sushi — Restaurant in Reno

Just moved to reno from Seattle. I'm a sushi addict and eaten it all over the U.S. My expectations are never high at an AYCE place nor in smaller cities. Place is a cavernous, warehouse-like stark interior. AYCE they always go small on the cuts of fish on the Nigiri and if you're unlucky, they go really high on the rice. This was like no other AYCE portion size I've ever encountered. The cuts of fish are micro small, smallest I've ever seen (maybe 1.5 inches in length - the square part of the chopstick in the photo is abour 0.5 inches long they look bigger in the photo than in person), but luckily the amount of rice is small and appropriately relative to the size of the fish cut so you don't get a stomach ache from eating so much rice! Also luckily, unlike other places they don't overseason the rice, sort of like they put salt/sugar/MSG in a lot of the food at buffets so you feel full. BUT, I'd estimate the size/weight of the cuts of fish are about 1/3 the size of an average decent non-AYCE sushi restaurant portion size. Yes, no exageration, 1/3. So If for example you order 7 orders (14 pieces) of Nigiri at a typical traditional Japanese Sushi Restaurant, the equivalent order would be 21 orders (42 pieces) here. No lie or exageration, seriously. Dinner AYCE as of 9/30/22 was $30.95. I got my money's worth.

Fish quality is what I'd describe as "standard" or "normal" or "average" Many of these places, no matter what city they are located or how close to the ocean they are, the fish is shipped in frozen, even in cities on the coast. The frozen at sea fish is actually the best quality next to getting it within 12 hours of coming fresh off a boat. The scallop quality here was abysmal - very watery with no taste. The Tuna, Hamachi, Salmon, etc, was fine but nothing to write home about.

The rolls however are a decent size (in length and not too much rice). If you're a roll eater and squimish on big pieces of raw fish, they will be satisfying and you don't have to order a dozen of them. They are the typicaly 20+ permutations of the same 5-7 ingredients, many with mostly cooked ingredients and lots of either mayo and or teriyaki/eel sauce (or both) on top. Those types of rolls are what I refer to as sushi wimp sushi - which a lot of people prefer over large pieces of raw fish. (You'll notice on most of the 5-star reviews if there are photos, the are of rolls, not nigiri or sashimi.

My only thought is the philosophy on micro-size Nigiri is two-fold. 1) With smaller pieces, people are much less likely to "over order" and not finish eating what they ordered. (I went through three rounds of orders - about 20 orders of nigiri and 3 rolls.) And 2) you sort of psychologically start to feel "greedy"/awkward placing so many orders!

Definitely one of the most unique experiences I've ever had at a sushi bar. In a larger city like Seattle, Bay Area, Los Angeles I'd rate it 3 stars. But for Reno (no offence Reno, I LOVE living here!) I'll go 4 if not just for the great value. A la carte nigiri is $4 which is $6 in most big cities now but the price is on par with the...

[SHORT: KEPT CHANGE WITHOUT CONSENT, EXTREMELY RUDE WAITRESS]

The food here is decent, and the fish to rice ratio was also really nice on the nigiri, though the rolls were really small. However, I’m giving this restaurant a bad review because of the service. At first the service wasn’t too bad, the waitress came and checked on us, and served us kindly. However, another waitress was also switching off with her and serving us. This waitress was really rude. She didn’t ask us how we were doing, didn’t smile much, and would turn away too quickly for us to ask her questions or for more things. On top of this, they weren’t busy for most of our meal until it came to about dessert, since we had come in at about 4:50 on a very rainy day. In fact, we were the only customers until dessert. It wasn’t too bad so we still decided to tip 25%, considering the other waitress was good to us. So far, my experience wouldn’t seem to warrant a 1 star review, but when we paid in cash, (our total was 100 and some change) we never got our change back. It was only about 60-70 cents, but still, the restaurant didn’t have the right to just keep the change without our say so. We were getting concerned, since we didn’t know if the payment had went through, and when asking a waitress about it, which happened to be the ruder one that had served us earlier, she rolled her eyes at us annoyed, and in a sarcastic and rude voice told us that “Yeah, it went through”. We ended up tipping only 20%, and honestly contemplated not tipping at all, but the other waitress had been nice enough and I work in the service industry and know how appreciated tips are. Perhaps they had discriminated against us because we were teenagers (17, 16), and thought we wouldn’t tip, but that didn’t give them any right to not give us our change back and be rude to us. Won’t be coming back here, and I wouldn’t recommend others to come...

I enjoyed that the sushi was bite sized and fresh tasting. That was nice but some of the rolls and sashimi didn't pair as well for me personally.

As for the service.. unless we order take out. We will never go again. The customer service was much better after I said something. Why bother asking if we're all doing AYCE if you're going to have us ask for new order paper. Or possibly not have us stacking our things repeatedly because we clean up the other two tables around us but ignore ours. I grew up in the restaurant business. I get when it's busy rush hour but it was not. Others on both sides of us were taken care of without request of needing anything. Repeatedly might I add. I tried to be patient and understanding and I've maybe said something to a restaurant once or twice before. My husband didn't appreciate me doing so but I also didn't appreciate the service or lack thereof. We sat with our first rolls plates empty for 5 mins plus before having to ask for a new order paper. Meanwhile, that was when most of the other tables had left. They were chit chatting which I have no issues. Just make sure your people are taken care of first. That's what I was taught to provide good service and get a decent tip from it anyway. The other server was kind and helpful after upsetting the other one. I do appreciate him. The girl smirking and chuckling as she continued to hand me the new plates of sushi instead of setting them ON THE TABLE where they should be placed. Extra professional on being petty.. I don't work there... I was supposed to have a night off ANY dinner...