Sushi & Shabu Time — Restaurant in Spring Valley

UPDATE: This place has been upgraded to include shabu Japanese hot pot. The extremely large hot pots are divided in two, so you can choose two flavored broths. There are a lot of different meats from which to choose, depending on what grade level you choose from the menu. See my photos for all the choices. They still have most all of the old Sushi Time menu, but no miso soup, obviously because of the new hot pot offerings. They have a very large "salad bar" to self-serve all of your non-meat items such as bok choy, several different mushrooms, vegetables, tofu, bean sprouts, etc. lots of nigiri and sushi rolls are still available. Most all of the appetizers are still available. They have two extremely large TV sets in there, usually playing sports. Most of the seating is booth style, with some split booths on one wall. Unfortunately, soda is only served in cans, no fountain or refills. I don't know, it just seems to me they are trying to fill you up on cheap soup before you eat sushi. I suppose you don't have to have the soup if you don't want it. Our server did seem to press the issue pretty hard, though.

OLD SUSHI TIME New menus were introduced to us upon being seated. Weekday lunch and late night are the same reasonable price, plus their all day premium menu is available for only $5 more. The dishes are all very good! In particular, the tempura shrimp batter was perfectly light and thin; the tonkotsu ramen was exquisite; and the salmon skin salad was spectacular. All of the rolls and nigiri was fresh and served with appropriate rice portions. A great value for the quality served. Water was served in an aluminum decanter, left on the table, into aluminum cups - very nice. Suitable indoor decor. Japanese pop music was playing in the background. TV screens are around the walls with random videos and sports. Using tablets for ordering, Christine got our orders in fast, did a great job recommending dishes, and everything was also delivered fast. Located in the heart of Chinatown, we'll be sure to...

We came in to order two items a la carte and to go and the lady messed up the order (reference pictures of menu vs receipt).

What We Ordered - We ordered 1 crispy chicken skin and 1 chicken karaage. There were 3 sauce options for the chicken karaage (sweet onion, soy garlic, KFC); we asked to mix the sweet onion and soy garlic sauces which she said was possible.

What We Got - We receive 2 orders of crispy chicken skin and honey as a sauce for both order (what?) instead of sweet onion and/or soy garlic. I checked the receipt and saw that the lady put 2 orders of crispy chicken skin with mix sauce. I don't know how she got it wrong when I was pointing at each item on the menu as she rang me up. The price for the crispy chicken skin & chicken karaage were the same ($5/each) so I didn't think anything of it when I paid. I should have checked the receipt and the order there before I left so that's on me.

I called them to inform them of the wrong order. The lady that picked up heard me out then asked to put me on hold. When she came back, she acted like she just picked up the call and was like "Yes?" I was just shocked that I had to re-explain my situation. She did not apologize for the wrong order and asked me if I would like to come back to pick up the correct order. I said no, I'm already at home and asked for them to refund the portion that they got wrong. She said she would check with the manager and call me back. I asked her if she needed my invoice # and phone # and she said no, she had it. It's been 6 days, and I still have not received a phone call or refund. There's clearly a lack of employee training on how to handle situations like this. It's also on the manager if he/she was informed and did not take any action. It's only $5 so it's not a big deal in terms of money, but the service we received as first time customers left such a bad impression that we would probably not come back to try the dine in...

!!Go to Umiya instead please!! I chose this place for date night as we have never been and god I regret it. As soon as we walked in I was underwhelmed by the decor, it really isn't much to look at.

Our server was interesting.. We told her we had never been there and she wasn't helpful at all. She told us they only had Corona for beer and none of the late night beer specials. And for other alcohol only soju and 2 types of sake. So we ordered a Corona and I got a sake, but after we placed our order and walked to the hotpot bar, we saw that they had the other beer my boyfriend wanted in the first place. So we took a another look at the menu they had a pouch cocktail that I would have prefered over the sake.

So we flagged her over and requested that she change the Corona to a Asashi beer before she interjected and said" they were out" Then she looked sheepish when we told her we had just seen them back there. I told her I wanted the pouch drink instead of the sake and she informed me they only had strawberry flavor which I said was fine. Then she came back to double check if they had the beer and informed me they had all 3 flavors for the pouch.

She was annoying me sooo much. I'm a server myself. Why wouldn't you double check to see what you're out of before putting in a order? It was so annoying to have to flag her down to correct our order minutes after placing it.

Service overall was a huge miss, the other servers to seemed not to want to be there.

On to the food.The Meat is pretty good good!! Sushi was really mid. Rice was kind of mushy along with sushi as well it just wasn't as fresh as other places. The appetizers would be just OK, they lacked any real flavor the only one that was pretty tasty was the chicken karauge. But their quality of food is questionable because my boyfriend got sick after getting the mussels so be careful with what you order! I would not come back for...