Thursday, August 6, 2009

Ashiya 2: All you can eat sushi and sake for $30, worth it?

We have mixed feelings about this place. We’ll just lay out the good, bad, and ugly for you. Let’s start with something nice to say:

THE GOOD:
You cannot beat the price. All you can eat sushi for just $25 and with an additional $5 you get unlimited beer and sake. We highly recommend the Ashiya and Dragon rolls. The food was some of the best we’ve had at any sushi buffet. If you are looking for decent sushi at a
reasonable price and don’t mind the crowd, this would be a safe bet.

THE BAD:
We had made reservations for a large birthday dinner here. We called a week in advance, gave them all the information they needed including our credit card number to hold the reservation. The morning of the dinner, we called again to ask if it was okay to bring a birthday cake to eat there. Turns out it was okay to bring a cake, but they have NO RECORDS of our reservation! They also
said they didn’t have a table to accommodate for a large group that night either! After much negotiating and talking to several people, magically, a table became available.

THE UGLY:
You are given a two-hour limit on your sushi buffet, but after you put in your first order, expect to wait at least 40 minutes to get your first sushi rolls to your table. We had some late comers to dinner, but their two-hour limit started when ours started. So in actuality, some people had about 1 hour. You may be tempted to order A LOT of food in your first order since its take so long to come, but be WARNED, if you don’t finish it all, they charge you extra (depending on how much is left). They tried to sneak some rolls to our table that we did not order and after we sent it back, all those same rolls still came back at our table. They sneaked a roll here and there to the plates of sushi that we did order.

Don’t expect a nice, quiet dinner here with friends either. It’s an extremely rowdy crowd. There were people playing “sake bombs” all night. This game involves loud banging on the tables (and yes, you’ll hear plates and chopsticks come crashing down once in a while).

Double check your bill when it comes. Some of us did not order the sake, but was charged. They did take it off after we complained.

To sum it up -- food is decent, price is great, and service is so-so (if not poor)!

Address:
167 1st AveNew York, NY 10003-0309(212) 505-3348
http://www.ashiya2.com/

Total Yummy Points: 6.5

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