I was a little skeptical when my partner suggested we have sushi at Ju Hachi last Saturday night. The first time I ate here back in 2023, I ordered the ramen and it was, without question, the saltiest bowl of ramen I have ever had. I hadn't been back since.
That said, it was already around 8:00 p.m., we had just gotten home after a long day in the Bay, and I figured I wasn't ordering ramen this time, so why not give their sushi a chance?
When we arrived, there were only about three groups dining in the restaurant. Everything started off well, and I honestly had no complaints. We ordered the spicy edamame as an appetizer, and it came out quickly. It was delicious and I'd definitely recommend ordering it.
I'm pretty basic when it comes to sushi, so I ordered the shrimp tempura roll, which the menu describes as shrimp tempura, cucumber, teriyaki sauce, and sesame seeds. My partner ordered a lion king roll and a California roll for us to share. We were both in the mood for something refreshing, which is why we chose sushi.
Unfortunately, that's when things went downhill. I took my first bite of the shrimp tempura roll and immediately felt like something was missing. After looking at it more closely, I realized it was literally just shrimp tempura wrapped in rice and seaweed. There was no cucumber. I already knew Ju Hachi's version of the roll didn't include avocado, which was fine because I had read the menu before ordering. But cucumber was listed as one of the ingredients, so I pulled up the menu on my phone just to make sure I hadn't misread it. Sure enough, cucumber was supposed to be included. I called our waitress over, and she was incredibly kind. She looked at both my shrimp tempura roll and our California roll and was just as surprised as we were to see that both were missing cucumber. She took them back to the sushi chefs to ask what happened. If you've eaten here before, you know the sushi bar is completely visible from the dining room, so you can hear and see most of what's going on.
The chefs told her they had run out of cucumber, which is why it wasn't included. You could tell she was frustrated because no one had told her they were out. She even rolled her eyes and mentioned that it would have been nice if someone had let her know beforehand.
At that point I thought maybe they'd offer to substitute something else, like avocado, or at least ask if we'd still like the rolls knowing a main ingredient was missing. Instead, the rolls came back exactly the same, and the only explanation was that they were out of cucumber and sorry.
My partner looked over at me apologetically because he was the one who suggested we come back. He knows I've intentionally avoided Ju Hachi ever since my ramen experience a few years ago. Back then I didn't say anything because I'm not someone who likes to complain.
What disappointed me most wasn't that they ran out of cucumber. Restaurants run out of ingredients sometimes, and that's understandable. What bothered me was the lack of communication. If the sushi chefs had simply told our waitress when she entered the order or even before then that they were out of cucumber, I'm confident she would have come back to let us know before making the rolls. That would have given us the chance to order something different or even decide to eat somewhere else.
For me, cucumber is what gives both a shrimp tempura roll and a California roll that fresh, crisp bite. Without it, the shrimp tempura roll was just fried shrimp wrapped in rice, and it honestly wasn't what l ordered. Had I known they were out of cucumber, we probably would have gone somewhere else that could satisfy my craving. Yeah cucumber might not be a big deal for some people but it affected my dining experience and I didn't get what I ordered and paid full price for, I would have appreciated the psa so that I could make the decision to willfully order that roll.
Long story short, it took three years for me to give Ju Hachi another chance, and unfortunately this visit didn't do much to change my opinion. The spicy edamame was great, our waitress was friendly and handled the situation as professionally as she could, but the lack of communication from the kitchen left us disappointed, along with the lack of options afterward. read more