Nara Sushi — Restaurant in Virginia Beach

If not for the high level of service, this would have been a 1 star review.

I've eaten at a great deal of sushi restaurants, but I hadn't tried Nara despite it being 5 mins from my house. Admittedly, my expectations were high after reading numerous 4 and 5 star reviews from Yelpers and others on Google. I'm now convinced that most people don't know what good sushi actually tastes like(my opinion) or what it tastes like when it's not drowning in various sauces(again, my opinion).

The restaurant was very clean and the staff were fantastic. Our server went above and beyond to make sure my special needs child had everything he needed for his meal. She made small talk with us between table visits and promptly removed excess dishes as fast as we cleared them.

Now, the food... I don't even know where to start.

The Shumai and Gyoza were pretty standard, same as you get just about anywhere. The rest of the food was very 'meh'. The tuna and salmon Sashimi were both slightly slimy and tasted at least several days old. The yellowtail rolls were 80% cucumber with a tiny amount of minced fish. The spicy tuna rolls were somewhat bland with almost no heat at all. The only thing that wasn't disappointing was the salmon skin roll. All of this was made worse by the very weak soy sauce that tasted like the bland packets you get at a fast food Chinese joint. My special needs child loves pork and chicken katsu, but he was very disappointed this time around. It was by far the smallest, thinnest piece of pork we'd ever gotten at any other sushi restaurant(even Kappo Nara Ramen has a bigger portion of pork).

To summarize: Great atmosphere, fantastic service, slightly below average food quality with a mixture of bland to serviceable flavors. Definitely not worth the price(in my opinion) you pay, but your mileage may vary.

Two places I recommend are Zushi in Va. Beach or Daikichi in Chesapeake. Both are a little pricey, but...

I used to love this place😥 My wife and I went to Nara for three reasons:great sushi,great service and they had Uni.We left sad . We ordered the Omokaze where the sushi chef decides what you'll be eating. We had ordered this before so we had an idea what we would recieve.The first two samplings were spot on and tasty.then came the nigiri sampler .Three pieces of nigiri (which seemed a bit stingy for one person let alone two)The rice was undercooked,hard starchy and cold.These are all things that should NEVER be experienced at a sushi restaurant. We mentioned the state of the sushi rice to our server (mainly so she might let the sushi chef know so he could prepare some better new rice)and her response was"really?"and then nothing .She didn't tell the chef either. the final sample was a roll that used glutinous rice with cilantro,and mango .I was intrigued to try it but once again the rice was cold and after trying one piece left the rest of the roll alone. Our Uni nigiri came and the Uni was pure iodine (which I can't blame the chef for not knowing if we were the first people to order it)but I suspect he might have had an idea because two of the pieces were soaked in pickled ginger juice to offset the taste. The creme brulee dessert was probably the best part of the evening. I have worked in restaurants half my life and I know even the best place can have an off night but this was disappointing especially when the quality was nowhere near comparison for the amount of money spent. Fresh Harris Teeter sushi would have been a better call. I think I would reccomend Kyushu .They are consistently good if...

OMG! We were just visiting the town and asked a local friend for a recommendation and let’s just say this place didn’t disappoint! By the time we came in for dinner, both me and my husband were starving hungry and didn’t feel like deciding what we want to order. So we went with Chef Omakase option each plus a California roll for our toddler. Even the California roll was nicer than typical sushi restaurant, but every single course of our meals was out of this world incredible! There were takoyaki and wasabi dumplings, eggplant salad, generous serving of sashimi with various toppings and sauces, 3-4 different rolls - all quite well seasoned and well composed and I loved the choice of the ingredients! We even got crème brûlée for desert. All in all, I was extremely pleased with everything. I’d say if you’re very hungry like we were definitely get chef omakase for each person, but if you don’t have wolf appetite then it would feed a couple well (keep in mind each only comes with 1 soup and 1 salad so if planning to share may want to order these extra) Service was so warm and welcoming too! I didn’t have to even think if I needed anything like refills or sauces, it just appeared and any time we had questions they were happy to describe dishes served and help out. 10/10 would totally return...