Azian — Restaurant in Tucson

AZ-BISMAL: I really wanted to like this place. I really did. The decor was fun, modern, and colorful. The energy was lively and the staff friendly. And that's where the good times ended.

The surroundings of any meal matter, but it's the food that takes the stage. This show started off badly and got worse as the night progressed.

To begin with, the ordering process was the old-school "Sushi Scantron" sheet where you mark your selections on a piece of paper, and number your desired amount. This idea was "cute" back when sushi first began it's move into in the masses in the mid-90s to the early 2000s, but now it's pretty outdated and with the dozens and dozens of sushi restaurants I've been to all over the country, this is the first time I've seen it in over a decade. But, no harm no foul, and I was fine with a little nostalgia as we proceeded on to our meal.

First, the calamari. I've had unconventional cuts of calamari before, so that wasn't the biggest deal. What is unfortunate is that this calamari was undercooked, rubbery, and extremely fishy. The "sauce" wasn't very helpful either. A tabasco/aioli type mixture that was mostly heat and very little taste. I didn't finish the plate. Then came the sushi.

Very very small portions. I ordered the Popcorn Lobster, and the California Tempura. These rolls, usually six to eight pieces, were only four to six small pieces. The rice was average, as was the fish, and only a tiny pin drop of wasabi was the last bit of disappointment. And because the amount of food was so small I ordered another roll. An Azian Rainbow roll. When the server arrived with the food he noticed it was the wrong roll, apologized and said he would return with the right roll. Eleven minutes later he returned with another roll, and then disappeared. How do I know he disappeared?

Because the second roll he delivered was also wrong. And so I looked around, and waited, and looked around, and waited. He never returned to check on us to see if our tea needed refilling, or how our meal was progressing. Finally I saw him from across the room and had to stand up at the table to get his attention. I informed him of the mistake, and once again he apologized and took away the wrong roll. Happily, he returned just a few minutes later with the right roll. Sadly, it wasn't much to speak of.

At the beginning of the meal I was hoping to get some dessert, but because of what had happened we just quickly finished and departed.

I was only in Tucson for a few days, and I hope to return soon. Hopefully this is not the best sushi Arizona...

Me and a few friends got together to go eat and and ended up here. I wish we could go back and choose another restaurant. Let me start with how dirty the place was, we got sat (group of 7) on a dirty table with multiple items under our table (menus, pencils, forks, etc.) They had a full bar with a multiple selection of alcohol, unfortunately you can only order the drinks that are listed on the menu. A member of our group asked for a "7 & 7", a simple whiskey and 7-up drink, the waiter did not know the drink and told us we couldn't order the drink, to only order what was listed on the menu. The drinks were not good at all. We waited for our sushi for about 25 minutes after the dishes from our other members were served. To our surprised the sushi came with an extra ingredient! (Hair) We decided not to complain simply because we were starving and did not want to wait another 30 minutes or more for our the food. We obviously did not eat the sushi with the hair, but did try the Bulgogi which was okay, nothing special. Our waiter checked on us zero times, we had to grab his attention to ask him how much longer our sushi would take. Not only did we find hair in our food, but because we had a party of 6 and more (7th member was just a 5 year old kid) we requested our check to be split between three checks, our waiter automatically added an 18% tip on each ticket (which is pretty normal in restaurants with larger groups), but to get $12-$15 per check when the food took longer than expected, to not ask for a 2nd round of drinks, to refuse to check with the bar to see if they offered any other drinks other than the ones listed on the menu, for our extra ingredients in our food, to the cleanliness of the place, I feel a tip over $40 was not worth it. We didn't complain we simply paid our bill and left laughing because of the entire experience. Needless to say we will not be going back again, please save yourself time and hard earn money and choose a different restaurant. We also noticed multiple employees arguing and yelling at each other multiple times I hate leaving bad reviews, but I would feel bad for anyone else to be spending money here, and have an experience...

Got food poisoning from the sushi here on Sunday 8/16/2015. We arrived here and sat down at a table and were talking for quite a while (a good 10-15mins) before we realized a waiter still had not come to even ask us our drinks or anything (and they were not busy!). We should have just got up and left but my friend decided to go over to the front where several young waiters/waitresses and hostesses were just standing around talking and ask them why we still did not have a waiter. Then, not immediately mind you, but a couple more minutes later a young guy finally came over to our table and asked us if we had been helped yet to which we of course said no and he took our drink order. Soon after he came back for our sushi order and when it came out I found 2 clear/white hairs in 2 different pieces of one of my sushi rolls. I thought it was maybe string or something from the sushi mat used to form the rolls so I picked them out and proceeded to eat them and later that night as well as the next day I was very sick and threw up/had diarrhea. Don't get me wrong, the food was good when I was eating it, and our waiter was good and quick enough once we began to be waited on but the lack of care or attention when we arrived and the fact that I got sick is a never again for me. It's too bad because I had been here several times before this. Also, as you approach the back of the restaurant near the restrooms, as well as in the restrooms, it does smell awful. I think they need to ramp up their cleanliness/hygiene big time! Would also have to agree with the other reviewer who said the rolls are comically tiny, as well as the fact that they got rid of their all you can eat option here so it's not such a good value anymore. I always eat more than $20-25 worth of sushi so maybe i'll start going back to sushi garden since they still have the all you can eat option (even though they raised the price of it from $20 to like $23 I think)

Update September 2015: Got sick here again! That's it for...