Ichiban Sushi & Ramen — Restaurant in Virginia

Copied from my TripAdvisor Review. My local sushi had to close due to COVID ( :( ) so I had to explore and find a new establishment. I explored a few local options and found Ichiban to be not only the best of all the others, but even better than my previous place.

We go here about once a week for the 2-3 roll lunch special, and my spouse will get that or a bento box or the chirashi bowl.

I am a simple person, and I get tuna roll and shrimp tempura. The portions are fair to good but the flavor is outstanding. The shrimp is always warm and crispy even after a short car ride home. The sauce used on the shrimp is flavorful and not too salty. The salmon is correctly temperature-d and delicious.

The sushi was what I was expecting to judge the place on. What I enjoyed much more than I expected was the sides, a simple salad and miso soup. The salad is ordinary with lettuce, cucumbers, carrot slices. The sauce is a very delightful mustard which goes well on the salad but we will also save for other meals during the week. The miso soup is extremely flavorful with tofu chunks and I gobble mine down every time.

The price is extremely fair for this great quality, and we will be continuing to go here...

Atmosphere is pretty but worn down. Our booth had large rips in the seating. The service was really slow! We would have left had we not been so exhausted from visiting awesome con in DC all day. The major draw was the high star rating this place had but the three of us cannot figure out why the rating was high. I wish I'd taken pics. The mushroom roll hubby ordered was mostly rice w a tough, chewy center of mushroom, kid ordered California roll and a California dream. Not terrible but dream roll fell apart easily. I ordered chicken ramen. Everything in it was actually good except the rubbery, hard to bite/chew chicken. Hubby also ordered pork donburi. By the time it finally made it to our table, it was cold and everyone else had finished our food, and I'll let it be known, I'm a pretty slow eater. Husband's arthritis was flaring so he wanted a fork, good luck trying to find our waitress. I wish I'd taken pics, but again we were very worn out, the egg on his meal was so over cooked and crusty brown he wouldn't even eat it. Next time we head to this area, we will be avoiding this place. Should have gone to Jinya while we were in DC...

Worst experience ever! Went in today for lunch right when they opened (11:36am to be exact). We were seated within 5 minutes and told that there might be a little wait. Our party of 4 ordered right away - we skipped appetizers or any food and went straight to ordering sushi. We were sitting at the table without any food or service for an hour and a half. When we went to go find someone after waiting an hour and a half we were told that we were warned about a wait and were treated extremely rudely. We told them that we had work meetings and needed to go if our food wasn’t going to be brought out. When we told her how long we had been waiting instead of providing good customer service the waitress argued with us and was questioning what we ordered saying we wouldn’t finish it and she’d be charging us extra. We should have walked out. It was a HORRIBLE experience. I’d never recommend it to anyone and will never be coming back. Beyond just the large wait, the staff was extremely rude and disrespectful. We didn’t end up getting any food until close to 2 hours after we arrived. Don’t go here if you want...