OVERALL: 7.8/10 (Yelp Converted Score: 3.9/5 - rounded up to 4/5). I generally don't hit up places around the Mill Creek area, because (a) I don't live in that area, and (b) I subconsciously compare everything to Seattle, and that's not fair, because Mill Creek has places too!
I stopped by since it had a decent average rating, and I had to play a tennis match in an hour.
1) VARIETY/SELECTION: 7/10. The menu had a relatively decent selection: hibachi bentos (lunch/dinner), ramen, sushi / sashimi a la carte, sushi rolls, hand rolls, teriyaki, and udon. My issue was that there didn't seem to be any kind of specialty dish - sort of like a "jack of all trades, master of none" place. I'd posit that ordering more rolls than anything else would yield a better result, since there was certainly a lot of sushi and roll selection (I saw ramen - I started craving ramen).
2) FRESHNESS: 6/10. The spicy tuna roll that came with the "Ramen Combo B" was decent (say 7.5/10), and the green tea was adequate (8/10). The ramen dish is where I took issue (5/10, if that) -- the soup had enough MSG in it that I could feel how much bloat it would give me by just looking at the surface of the broth. The noodles were "okay", but they generally had a neutral-to-"none" flavour. The togarashi topping helped to give *some* flavour, though.
The major complaint I had was regarding the egg - which was extremely hard-boiled - there was no yolk whatsoever, which made me sad, because it's *ramen*!
Minor complaint about the spicy tuna roll: it was an inconsistent size - some of the rolls were tall, others were short.
3) VALUE FOR MONEY: 9/10. My full meal $15.96 (after tax, before tip) for green tea & "Ramen Combo B", which included shoyu ramen and an 8pc spicy tuna roll. I went in hungry, and felt full leaving, so decent value for money. Unfortunately, the MSG in the broth made the soup hard to drink fully, but I did enjoy everything else in the combo.
4) SERVICE: 9/10. From what I could see, there were 2 wait staff (1 primary, 1 secondary), 2 sushi chefs; everyone always seemed busy. Note: I dined alone, so that might have helped expedite my experience. After ordering my food & green tea, I received all of the items within 10 minutes, and was able to finish eating, get the check, and pay within 40 minutes. I was somewhat saddened by the lack of green tea refill - especially since the restaurant wasn't *that* full, and a lot of time was spent in between "when dishes were ready to be served". That may have been due to the distance between the (central preparation) area that the dishes were coming from, and the tables that had ordered them (which were on the far reaches of the restaurant).
Another note: There were tons of open tables - I can see how this place may get busy on a Saturday or Friday night, but on the Sunday evening (around dinner hour - 6pm) that I went, there were maybe 6-8 other parties in the restaurant.
The big plus was that they accommodated my peanut allergy - when I originally ordered the "classic" Ramen Combo B, the wait staff went to put my order in, and warned me that I should avoid that one due to possible cross-contamination - recommending the "shoyu" option instead, which I went with, and had no issues with!
5) CONSISTENCY / FIRST IMPRESSION: 8/10. Decent first-time experience, I'd definitely come back! This place seemed more suited for parties of 3 or more, simply because there were very few tables that sat exactly two people (and the seating arrangement didn't seem that flexible, since a lot of the seating was booth-based bench seating, for mostly parties of 4 or more), and that's definitely reflected by the large selection of rolls available (which you could order multiple of, for the entire party).
The dinner bentos also seemed interesting - I was fairly close to trying one of the teriyaki dinner bentos (since they're hard to mess up, and I needed energy for a tennis match), but ultimately I picked a "ramen combo" that included a basic sushi roll as part of the combo.
For one person, the combo size was large enough.