Wasabi — Restaurant in West Lampeter Township

Wasabi Japanese Restaurant, 2600 Willow Street Pike, Suite 313, Willow Street, May 25. Fail. The person in charge does not have adequate knowledge of food safety in this food facility as evidenced by this noncompliant inspection. A food employee was washing their hands at the prep sink rather than the designated hand-wash sink. Employees in main kitchen area not wearing proper hair restraints, such as nets or hats. Multiple food items in the walk-in cooler and bain-marie stored open with no covering. Bags of onions stored directly on the floor in dry storage area rather than 6 inches off the floor as required. Several food ingredient storage containers throughout the food preparation area, walk-in cooler and bain-marie are not labeled with the common name of the foods/ingredients. Dispensing container without a handle in rice bin in dry storage area. In-use knives and/or cleavers stored between table edges or between tables, an area not easily cleaned and sanitized. Wet-wiping cloths throughout the kitchen, sushi bar and soda service area not being stored in sanitizer solution. Exposed food preparation in sushi bar area under dirty ventilation ducts and subject to potential contamination. Food facility person in charge not able to produce records showing that raw or partially cooked ready-to-eat fish has been frozen by the facility or approved supplier as required, before use or sale. Refrigerated, ready-to-eat food prepared in the food facility and held for more than 24 hours in the walk-in cooler and bain-marie not being date-marked. Dry breading mixtures used for dipping of raw animal foods is not sifted every four hours to remove excess moisture and doughballs that may render the dry mixture a temperature-control-for-safety food. Food facility has a reminder statement on the menu for foods that are/or could be served raw or undercooked to the consumer; however, does not clearly disclose which foods the reminder statement applies to. Broken rice cooker handle in sushi bar area repaired with duct tape, a nonapproved material. Facility storing food items in freezer in nonfood-grade storage bags. Temperature measuring device for ensuring proper temperature of equipment is not available or readily accessible in reach-in refrigerator next to dry storage. Microwave oven on the prep table in front of three-compartment sinks with cracked, burned-out interior and should be replaced. Soda nozzles had black residue and were not clean to sight and touch. Nonfood contact surfaces (floors and walls in dry storage, as well as in and around fryer and cooking battery, wire shelving units in both main kitchen, walk-in cooler, dry storage, outside and handles of two-door refrigerator) not cleaned at a frequency to preclude accumulation of dirt and soil. Hood vent and grills with a heavy accumulation of grease and carbon. Unwrapped and unprotected single-use chopsticks and utensils stored in the customer area. The hand-wash sink in the main kitchen area was inoperable at the time of inspection and was being used as a food preparation sink as evidenced by heavy accumulation of old food debris in, around and under the sink. Plumbing system not maintained in good repair — leaking at the spigot on the cooking battery, prep sink in main kitchen and sink by soda station. Outside grease handling unit and surrounding area was extremely dirty, sticky and attracting insects and rodents. Screen door in the back receiving area of the food facility with a gap along the bottom that does not protect against the entry of insects, rodents and other animals. No sign or poster posted at the hand-wash sink in the sushi prep area to remind food employees to wash their hands. Rear entry and two dry storage rooms of the food facility to be extremely dirty, dusty and in need of cleaning. Two working containers of butane fuel stored above and on the same shelf with food, equipment and/or single service articles in the sushi bar area. Food facility unable to provide documentation for procedures, monitoring temperature and pH of...

Looks like this is an unpopular review. My wife and I had heard good things about Wasabi so we decided to make the long drive to check it out. First, I just want to say that we are connoisseurs of Sushi Restaurants. We have sampled nearly all of the Sushi places in, and around Lancaster. And when we travel, we usually end up using google reviews to find a good place to go.

To explain the 3 star rating. First of all, the taste of the food was good enough for 5 starts. However, everything else was one or 2 stars. Our waiter was one star. We saw him when we got seated, took our order, brought our food, an delivered the check. He completely ignored us otherwise. One thing a good sushi waiter usually does is tell us which rolls are which. We ordered 3 rolls to start with and we would have ordered more but by the time the waiter got back, I was tired of waiting so we just took our check. Which, by the way, we had to stand in the line at the cashier to pay instead of the waiter taking care of it.

Cleanliness was a 2 star. The floor was dirty and grimy and our table was poorly cleaned.

Price was a one star. Talk about expensive...WOW, First of all we got an appetizer. I forgot what they called it. But it was combination jalapeno pepper with yellow tail. It was $9.95, which would have been fine if it was a roll or something else creative. No, it was 4 TINY pieces of fish with a ridiculously thin slice of jalapeno and some sauce drizzled on time. Yes it was tasty, but if you took all the fish and pepper slices and combined it, it would be the size of one bite from a roll. The rolls we ordered were what they listed as their "specialty rolls" Usually, at other sushi restaurants, specialty rolls are bigger and more substantial than just your normal roll. These were not. Which is why we wanted to order more rolls. We were still hungry after the tiny appetizer and undersized specialty rolls.

Presentation - 1 star. Wow... talk about lack of effort. My wife and I always look forward to seeing a sushi chefs creativity when it comes to presentation. But the 3 rolls we order were simply laid out on the plate in 3 little groupings. Not a big deal, but restaurants like MoJo's in Lititz make it very entertaining.

Summary: After checking out the new place off the beaten path, the food was good, but expensive. In spite of poor service and less than desirable cleanliness, we left hungry and not very entertained. With other choices closer to home in Lancaster, we...

I share this review as an out of town guest - my parents recently moved to Willow Valley.

Took my mom and dad here for Mother’s Day dinner (at my mom’s request). We had been here before with no issues but tonight was just an awfully busy night for them. We used Google to make a reservation and had no problem getting seated right away at 5:30pm. There was a miscommunication right from the beginning, however, and our server didn’t even know we were his next table so it took about 10-15 minutes to be greeted. We immediately order our meals when giving our drink order. A take out line had already started and throughout the course of our stay, it kept growing and growing to the point where people were waiting in the dining room and outside.

My mom ordered Mongolian beef, my dad ordered Teriyaki chicken and I ordered a combo dinner with chef’s choice sushi appetizer and salmon teriyaki. My mom got her meal first, in what I would call a normal amount of time. My dad got his meal about 8-10 minutes later. During the time I watched my parents eat, the waiter came by twice to assure me that my meal was still being prepared. My parents ended up finishing their meal before I got mine. I had my first bite at 6:35pm.

My mom was very upset but I tried to remain calm for her. We asked to speak to a manager but she was too busy to address us. I asked for an explanation for the wait and for possible compensation. The server said that because of the holiday, they were trying to fulfill over 200+ orders! I got $10 off my bill so that was nice however the restaurant should have stopped taking orders so that they could get back on track with all of the orders already in the system. They just didn’t have the manpower to fulfill their orders.

The point of sale system should be able to calculate the number of incoming orders vs. completed orders and if not, the employees running the register should have temporarily shut down the incoming online and phone orders. The chefs were probably super stressed out. Anyway, suffice to say - that was the longest I have ever waited for a meal and even worse, the meals for the table came out at 3 separate times - it was just poorly executed dining service.

I imagine that on a non-holiday, this restaurant can operate smoothly under normal circumstances but every manager should have a plan for order fulfillment...