Nami Japanese Restaurant — Restaurant in Richmond

Oh where to begin.

My wife and I went on a date there, it was dead the whole time. Normally that's not a bad thing, but it was eerily quiet so conversation was a little awkward.

The waitress comes back with drinks, we order the takoyaki because it's cold out, and a hot appetizer sounds lovely. Then we wait. And wait. And wait.

Eventually the waitress comes back and asks what we'd like to eat. I order the Spicy Kani roll (i would have gone with the chef special crab roll but I don't like avocado) & the Spicy Salmon roll. My wife orders her roll with "a side of seaweed salad".

Notice at this point I haven't said we received the takoyaki. We just kinda assumed the order was never placed and were happy to just not have it at this point, but more on that later.

As soon as the waitress leaves with our order, she returns with just the seaweed salad. No rolls, just the seaweed. It was so quick there's no way that salad isn't pre-made ahead of time, and my wife was very clear that she wanted it with her sushi, but whatever. We laughed it off.

Then the rolls came. My Kani roll, despite the menu not mentioning it, was half avocado. Meanwhile, the Spicy Salmon roll (which does list the roll as having "crunch") was mostly crunch on the inside. It was like someone took tempura breading and blended it with the smallest amount of Salmon and aoli. I realize these are cheaper rolls than the chefs special, but for the same price I could have gone to whole foods and gotten something better out of their refrigerator. But fine. I'm determined to have a good night. I won't let this bother me.

What happened next is what made me leave this review.

After both entrees, our appetizer arrived. The Takoyaki was visibly burnt, and the waitress apologized "for the wait". OK, maybe they were still tasty, so I tried one.

It was still so searingly hot on the inside when it reached our table that my eyes teared with pain. And even though it was burnt on the outside, it was still incredibly underdone in the middle. A soft, gooey dough like texture.

I've realized since that the only way that could have happened is if the Chef realized he never cooked the order, cranked up the heat, dipped them in the fryer until they started to burn, assumed they were cooked, and immediately sent them out, resulting in a burnt but undercooked and painfully hot takoyaki. It was dangerous in many ways.

If you want sushi, there's so many great places in...

This place has a nice vibe. Service was decent to start, but when we ordered drinks, we asked if there was a full bar, and the server said that they have alcohol, but they don’t really do drinks… It’s mostly for shots. Which may be an indicator of the VCU crowd that goes in? We each ordered a roll and a salad, and the salads came out at different times, no big deal. The seaweed salad was the same seaweed salad you get anywhere. However, after about 25 minutes, the server came out and apologized because the rolls had not come out. But he said they were just about ready to come out. After another 10 minutes—my wife and I were watching the clock because we had to get to a show at Richmond music Hall—we realized that we just needed to cut losses. So I said, if the server walks by one more time and doesn’t say anything about our food, we’ll just get the check forour beers and our salads and bail. So next time he walked by, he ignored us, and so I hailed him and said we needed the check for what we’d used. He said “oh but they’re plating your food right now…” And I just politely insisted that we’re ready to pay for what we’ve had and we need to leave. So he brought us that check, we paid and we won’t be going back here. One other thing: my wife had a good view of the kitchen entrance where our server kept going in and out, and a couple of times saw him stand there with his hands all over his nose and his face and then he’d go get food and bring it out to guess. And that’s just gross. I’m glad we didn’t let him touch more plates that he brought to us. The place was really busy, which tells me that it must be pretty popular… I’m sure the sushi is good if you ever...

UPDATE: AVOID AT ALL COST, DO NOT EAT HERE!!!! After reviewing the other low rating on this site, the owner is terrible and allows customers to be overcharged so he can "see how employees will handle their mistakes" I honestly can't believe it, you mam/sir are a terrible owner and you can't even deliver half decent food. Do NOT go here, find something else, these types of businesses should fail so that something better can replace them.

ORIGINAL REVIEW: Southern Virginia is home, but I've had the pleasure of living elsewhere for over a decade. I shouldn't compare the quality of Richmond sushi to LA sushi...entirely...

But positives first: The sashimi cuts are 7/10 and good size, ours was a good level of fatty and buttery, but had a bit more of a fishy taste than it should have. Pricing is decent...but this is also the downfall. At these prices for a roll I should be saying everything was at least 8/10...but...

Negatives: Sushi rolls were a middling 6/10, not bad, not good, decently presented. Volcano roll was underwhelming at best and the texture was concerning at minimum....but at almost 20 dollars a roll, I should be saying this was a 8/10 roll. Edamame was HEAVILY and UNEVENLY salted, this is a quick and easy fix, but as it was the first item that came out and I literally had to dust over the pile of salt on some pieces (with little to no salt on most) unacceptable. Booths: the booths are unevenly situated from the tables, and quite far away....

With a rating of 4.5 I expected much better, do yourself a favor, there has to be better sushi in the richmond area...if not

Richmond...you can do better...you deserve...