Okada Japanese Restaurant & Sushi Bar — Restaurant in Virginia

Perhaps I am just extremely unlucky, but both of my experiences at Okada have been disappointing. My wife and I first went to Okada about eight months ago. That night the restaurant was full and the wait staff was doing their best to keep up but it was apparent that they were understaffed. Consequently, it took more than an hour to get our food. We ordered several rolls and most of it was pretty good but I did find a sizable hair embedded in my shrimp tempura roll. To our server’s credit, he apologized and took the plate, with about half the sushi roll remaining, to show his manager. The server came back and apologized again, we said it was no problem and asked if we could get the remainder of our non-eaten sushi packed up and the check. When we received the check the shrimp tempura roll was included on the bill. When the server returned I questioned him about the charge, he said that he didn’t know how to remove the item from the bill. Instead of pressing the issue I simply gave him my card, paid for the meal and left.

This past Friday my wife and I decided to try Okada again. The restaurant was full and we had a limited window of time to eat so we decided to sit at the bar. Our server took our drink order and my wife and I selected four different sushi rolls from the fillable card. We gave the card to the server and began to chat. Soon after we ordered another couple sat to our left and a single gentleman to our right. About 30 minutes later the couple to the left had received their sushi and the gentleman to our right had received his entrée. A few minutes later a plate of two sushi rolls were placed in front of us, I did not recognize either as a roll we had ordered so I asked the server if this was the right order. The server immediately pulled a large stack of the fillable sushi menu’s from his pocket and asked which one was ours, I recited our order and he flipped through the stack. A few moments later he pulled our menu, scanned the restaurant and simply said, “I think I just gave you the wrong plate, yours will be up in a few minutes.” At this point we were 45 minutes into dinner and had about 20 minutes before we had to leave to pick our son up from his friend’s house. My wife and I watched the server talk with his manager and then point to a few things on the computer. As the server stood at the computer and furiously began to shake his head and enter in an order, my wife turned to me and said, “He forgot our order.” We both agreed that we could not wait for the order to be prepared so I approached the server and asked if he had forgotten to put our order in, he admitted that he had and apologized. I explained that we could not wait for the order to be prepared and asked for the check. The server returned with our check for our two drinks. We paid for our drinks and left. As we left we heard the gentleman to our right talking to the server, apparently his order was incorrect and he requested to speak with the manager.

My wife and I left Okada hungry and frustrated but we were fortunate to get out of Okada in time to catch the Wegman’s hot bar before it closed… so that was a plus!

I am honestly shocked that Okada has received such high ratings, my two experiences have been nothing short of disappointing. My wife and I will be looking elsewhere the next time we have an...

So this review comes in two parts. I met a friend there recently for dinner. We saw that the reviews were a little lower than other sushi places in the area, but we both wanted to give it a try, so we met there.

1. The restaurant is very nice inside. I like the atmosphere and decor. Additionally the staff were all very friendly. No complaints on service either. The food arrived in a reasonable amount of time all the while the entire place was full.

2. We came for Sashimi/Sushi. On this, our first, visit, we were thoroughly impressed. I ordered Tuna, Fatty Tuna, Salmon, Scallop, Yellow Tail, and Tobiko w/ Quail Egg. All were tasty, fresh, and I was very happy. My only complaint was that sometimes the cuts were perfect done and the bites didn't melt in your mouth the way they should, specifically, the Fatty Tuna, but I'm being picky here. This one visit made me excited to return and have some more. I'd rate them a 4.5 star if I could for this visit. Oh... I also ordered some Onion Soup (a broth) and side salad. Both were as expected.

3. My wife was out of town and I decided to do Uber Eats and with that, some more sashimi. For this order, I had Tuna, Salmon, Yellow Tail, and Scallop. I wanted to Order Tobiko w/ Quail Egg, but I could not make that happen through Uber Eats :( This is one of my favorite pieces, so I was bummed. I also ordered a half dozen oysters in a half shell ... and of course the Onion Soup and Side Salad. The soup and salad were as expected and consistent with the 1st visit. My first complain comes with the oysters. 5 of the 6 were delicious, plump and fresh. The shucking could have been better as the meat was still attached to the bottom shell and when eating with chop sticks, this was more difficult than it should have been. 1 of the 6 oysters was not like the others. Like I said, the 5 looked fresh, flesh-colored, and amazing. The 6th was gray and didn't smell the same. There was no way I was going to eat that one. When it came to the sashimi, none of them tasted fresh. Don't get me wrong, they weren't spoiled or anything, but if you know sushi/sashimi, you can taste the difference between fresh and some stuff that's been sitting around or maybe not the highest quality. All of them had a slight fishy taste to it, which is an immediate sign of poor quality. The tuna had no color, the scallops tasted like something from Red Lobster, the salmon was just ok. I felt the best was Yellow Tail and that's normally my least favorite of this group.

I simply was utterly disappointed. I thought that I had found a great place with great food, but the one thing people look for is consistency and I have now eaten there twice and would rate it a 4.5 the 1st time and a 0 the 2nd. Listen... sushi and sashimi isn't cheap... and Okada is more expensive than many other places. Price to value for the 2nd time was disappointing. Couple that with a bad oyster and I'd give them a 0. Averaging the two out, I give them a 2.

I really hope the owners look for consistency and handle their fish freshness and quality. I don't want to gamble on whether I'm going to get an amazing meal or be utterly disappointed. It's with that, I will probably go elsewhere...

I wanted to like this more than I did. The restaurant itself is lovely, but service was slow at times and sporadic. This was a family dinner with my parents and my husband, and for some odd reason because my mother was eating sushi, she got her appetizer as well as her entree substantially in advance of any of the rest of us getting any food.

I am a vegetarian, and I was looking forward to the vegetarian options. I went with the vegetable gyoza as an appetizer. Frankly, it didn't have a lot of taste. The sauce that they served with it for dipping was likewise tasteless. It was nicely cooked and the portions were very reasonable for the price, but there was really just nothing to say about it except that it was bland.

For an entree, I ordered the vegetable miso ramen. It came in a big bowl and the presentation was lovely, and the vegetables were very obviously fresh and cooked al dente, which is how I like them. That said, the actual broth was again pretty tasteless. I wound up having to add soy sauce to the entire bowl just to get some flavor out of it.

My husband also had the gyoza appetizer, and he ordered an entree that had shrimp. I'm not sure exactly what it was, but he indicated that it was just so so and didn't have a lot of flavor.

On the plus side, my mother seemed to enjoy her sushi. At other sushi places, she complains that spicy sushi is not spicy at all. She was very pleased with the spice level in the sushi at Okada.

There was nothing awful but nothing remarkable about dinner here. I contemplated giving two stars because of the weird way service was handled and how our needs were really not attended very well despite the fact that it was not very crowded, but I went with three stars. I don't know that I would go back unless someone else in my family really...