Onibaba by Tsukushinbo — Restaurant in Seattle

My experience of this restaurant definitely deviates greatly from the high rating and generally positive comments. Whether it's in the subject of food quality (bad), value (expensive), service (long wait time) or hygiene (cockroach & food poisoning), Tsukushinbo can hardly deserve more than one star.

We came to Seattle for a day trip and my wife decided to book Tsukushinbo after seeing raving reviews. We arrived slightly before the 5pm opening time and there was already a small line-up of hungry customers outside. We were sat down soon after. The first red flag I noticed was the moldy odor. After all, it is an older building and the restaurant seemed to have sat in a time-capsule since the 90s.

We opened the menu and were slightly startled by the price. It wasn't just the price itself but more by what were offered for the price charged. We are from Vancouver where there are a great handful of authentic and high-quality Japanese restaurants and they charge roughly half of what’s charged here. We each ordered the dinner set. I chose Tempura and Sushi and my wife had the Katsu and Sashimi. Our friend also ordered a dinner set and a Seattle Roll.

Shortly after we ordered, I noticed a small cockroach climbing on the wall beside our table. I quickly notified the waiter and he swiftly removed the uninvited guest; nevertheless, we have already lost half of our appetite.

The Seattle Roll came half an hour after we ordered. It was pretty much California Roll but replaced the crab meat with salmon. It tasted bland and the sushi rice lacked any hint of vinegar seasoning. How could they charge $12 for the quality of gas-station sushi?

We waited almost an hour before our dinner sets arrived. In my set, the tempura was quite decent but nothing special. The sushi on the other hand seemed to be on-par with the quality of the Seattle Roll we got earlier. There were 4 pieces of sad looking nigiri - salmon, tuna, shrimp and a white fish. They all looked (and tasted) dull and deprived of any hint of freshness. There were also couple pieces of California Rolls and Kappa (cucumber) Rolls - all the cheapest possible sushi they could offer and all tasted gas-station quality at best. Asking for the bill was another 20-minute wait. We walked out of the restaurant wondering how they got away with all the hype.

We thought that was the end of it until my wife got home and felt sick and had diarrhea the whole night from food poisoning. And we know it’s definitely from the dinner since we didn’t eat much the whole day.

Can someone please tell me how this restaurant with such low food quality, poor value, appalling hygiene, and absurd wait time garner such a...

Highly recommended and local friends raving about their quality. I decided to finally go and give it a shot.

First and foremost to what shocked me was the ultra slow service, it took nearly 15 minutes to even get a glass of water and some idea of service. The waiter attempted to tell us the special menu board, which was directly to my right and on the wall, unfortunately perhaps only on that day, the specials were hastily scribbled on, I could barely read either English or Japanese.

The fish when cut in front of us, were all stacked together in a messy pile with different assortments of fish stuck together before the chef makes a nigiri out of each cut. I found this to be incredibly odd, quite frankly concerning and... Not what I expected with the price charged ($9-10~ USD per 2 pieces).

The food service was very personal with the sushi chef with him giving us the sushi directly, this was a nice touch.

The fish quality was not what I expected either, I would say each and every piece was quite average and certainly does not match up to local places to me like Ichiro, Sushi Hachi, or Seto. The uni was not a single piece but rather multiple ends combined into a nigiri. A quarter of the sushi when picked up would nearly immediately fall apart, this was supremely disappointing, most definitely pathetic. Additional rolls were ordered but they came out drenched in sauce and mayonnaise, the worst kind of "special" rolls. These rolls also cost almost $16 USD each.

The service was slow, but not bad. The food was average at best and the prices were very high. Costed more than a full omakase course in Canada.

Really the only issue I have are the very high prices charged, perhaps being one of the older restaurants in Seattle, they may have the prestige to charge as such, but the quality does not match it. The high rating for this store seems antiquated, because it was definitely not a worthy dining experience. I highly suggest taking 10 steps back and reflecting on what Tsukushinbo did to make it so great, as it seems it has become a shell of its...

Hope this review helps meal seekers. Don’t pick the place based on stars. Read a few low stars first, then a few high ones. Don't rely on Google or online menu nor hours, they're outdated prices and menu items, nor the high ratings with short reviews, these have no substances, could be paid bias. Anyways, My wife heard this place has the best ramen that only serve on Fridays with limited quantities. We’ve been in the zone to search and try out the best ramen. We Google and reserved a table. To our disappointment, ramen was moved to Saturdays brunch only. The place is small but charming, service is slow, finished my water and no one took our order, finished two more waters and no food has arrived. Our taste was set on ramen, but settled for other hot items: • Edamame more salt sprinkled on than needed. Miso soup was salty, didn't finish them. These came out first, then another wait. • Perhaps to get your thirst up to order drinks. Good thing I took on water. • Agedashi Tofu is soaked in thick starchy broth, NOT our usual crunchy on the outside, firm/chewy on the inside and base in light broth. So Neh ... • Tempura = nothing special • Grilled saba = ...... not fresh ... • Grilled salmon = dried and salty • Fried chicken = perhaps the best items of our selections, a bit chewy though • Teriyaki chicken = ...nothing to write about • Salmon roll = not fresh dried sockeye salmon All this set us back $70. Good thing we didn’t order drinks and were not hungry. Well, still thirsty even with all the water we drank, perhaps MSG …. Don't think we'll come back to try their ramen, not worth the wait, the drive and Parking is nonexistence. They must be catered to the locals who can’t get out of the downtown zone for the best dining experience. And no website to keep consumers updated on their menu, hours and prices, is another sign …. Perhaps they were great once and now luring meal seekers with...