Japan House Springfield — Restaurant in Springfield

I stopped by here for lunch, and it was an interesting time! My waiter was Drew who was very attentive and nice. He very deftly explained the menu and the approximate sizes of everything. He was great! The place was very quiet, probably due to the rain storm. The food here comes out quick which is a good and bad thing, one issue I noticed is every item with shrimp tempura is soggy from having the tempura made well in advance. When you order an item with shrimp tempura you want crunch and crisp, their tempura is not that which is a shame because it’s in many of the rolls. Now onto the individual items: the Rainbow roll was good! It didn’t have too much cucumber as many rolls at ayce places do and the fish was tasty. The fish was a little small but not the smallest I’ve seen. The Holiday roll suffered from soggy tempura and to add to it the eel sauce was very watery which made it even soggier. The Mega shrimp roll had the same issue with the tempura but the shrimp on top was also very small. I did enjoy it though, it had a good balance of flavor. The Caterpillar roll had the same problems as the other rolls with tempura unfortunately. The Ocean roll was soggy with old tempura and watery eel sauce. Not an enjoyable texture or taste, I ended up not finishing this roll. The Dragon Roll had laughably small pieces of eel. It was kind of funny, the roll was basically a cali roll with a hint of eel which although funny was disappointing to eat. The Rattlesnake roll was much the same, very disappointing. It had soggy tempura and the smallest pieces of eel imaginable. The Eel nigiri was good, the piece was sizable but it did have a bit of fat on it which made the texture odd. The Salmon nigiri had a great ratio or fish to rice and the fish was nice and thick. I was very impressed, if I had more room I would have ordered more of this. Honestly the salmon nigiri may have been my favorite thing. The Shrimp nigiri was good, the shrimp was not over cooked and had a good rice ratio. Onto the non-sushi, the Miso soup had the shallowest spoon possible which made it annoying to eat with. There was also a lot of seaweed compared to everything else and with the shallow spoon I was basically just eating seaweed. I will say though that the seaweed was fully rehydrated which made the texture of the seaweed much better. Lastly, I had the Takoyaki which was delicious but had very little octopus unfortunately. I did forget to snap a photo of this but it looked great. The plating was well done with everything and besides the laughably small pieces of eel it was all great to look at.

I would recommend the nigiri, Takoyaki, and the rainbow roll and I would learn from my mistakes and avoid items with the tempura and with the eel unless you want limp tempura and the smallest slices of eel on your roll. The images in the menu were incredibly misleading with the amount of eel would be on top. I believe I would come back here and just stick to the non eel and tempura items and I think I’d have a wonderful time. The small portions make it so you can try more rolls and get to explore more of the menu, which I would like to do again if I’m ever back this way. I’d rate this a 3.4 out of 5, it’s got a nice atmosphere and staff and all the problems I noticed are easily fixable if they decided they wanted to take my...

Best of Springfield!!!

I am kicking myself for not trying this place sooner. An excellent, elevated AYCE experience and quite frankly a hidden gem. Stuffed behind Sams in the old TGIF building, it's easy to miss, but you will be glad you found it.

The selection of items and quality of everything I tried was top-notch and it was all delicious. Staff was very polite and very helpful. Atmosphere was great....Even the seats were above average comfort.

We purposefully tried a wide variety of items to get a feel for their food game and we were immensely impressed. Sashimi was fresh and flavorful, all of the rolls we tried were amazing and well put together. We tried things like calamari and yakitori and they were excellent as well. We were also impressed with how quickly food came out when another round was ordered.

I even give them points for the chill nature of their AYCE experience. So often anymore, there are weird rules, or other steps required. Here you order your drinks and then the rest of the menu is there for you to freely choose from.

At the time of review, pricing is under $20 for lunch and under $30 for dinner, which is somehow even lower than many of the AYCE Sushi options in Central IL.

Couldn't be happier with this place and I'll see you there as I'll be going back at every...

This is exactly what Springfield needed!! My partner and I are here from VA, and out there we have a similar restaurant called “sushi bomb”, so we were elated to find an all you can eat sushi place here. For those of you unfamiliar- it’s like a buffet but everything is fresh made and you stay at your table. It is all one price for everything, not individually priced like a normal restaurant. I know the concept of “all you can eat sushi” is a bit off putting, but it truly is fresh made. Not just sitting on a bar for a couple hours like at a normal buffet. I will warn- - ONLY ORDER WHAT YOU CAN EAT. Don’t let your eyes be too big for your stomach, go roll by roll. If you’re in a large group, maybe order 2-3 rolls for everyone to eat off of, you’re paying one price for everything regardless. I do recommend the cooked sushi if you have a picky eater, sometimes the cold sushi is a bit much for someone expanding their pallet. The Volcano Roll was amazing, it’s Fried. The service was amazing. Kevin was on top of it the whole time and our drinks never sat empty for more than a few seconds. The ambiance was good, a bit too simple for me but that is a nonissue, I am one person that has odd tastes in decor. I very much recommend you try this place. It is worth the...