Actually, it's on the high end of 3 1/2 Stars
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The good reviews on Yelp caught my eye--- Also, the wide variety of items on the menu. So, after looking at the menu online, we decided that it was worth it to once again venture into the wilds of Ashburn.
Sure, we could have gone up Leesburg Pike and saved some money but dealing with all that traffic---ugh! Besides, it ended up being worth it to use the Greenway as it was very easy to find once we got off the Belmont Ridge Road exit.
We got here a little after 5 p.m. and already, there were a few seated tables. A friendly hostess greeted us and asked if we would like to sit at a high top table at the bar. Well...after having sat at "the rail" at Ford's Fish Shack last week, we were so ready to sit at a regular table. A woman who was also standing at the host station welcomed us and asked if we had a reservation. No, we did not---and it didn't matter.
The dining area is rather small and the tables are close together. This is fine if the place isn't too busy. However, it got busier and noisier as our meal progressed.
Our server greeted us almost as soon as we sat down. She was very friendly and polite. We hadn't had much time to look at the menu when she asked if we wanted something to drink. I ordered plum wine and she asked if the house brand was okay. I said "yes". After tasting it, I would recommend that if you want plum wine, pay the extra $2 and upgrade. The house brand wasn't very smooth and the plum flavoring was faint. My husband had a Yuengling. I asked him why not a Kirin or Sapporo and he said that they only came in the 22 ounce sizes and that was too much for him.
We decided, for an appetizer, to get a tuna roll as we both didn't want to order a sushi meal here. Ordering a roll is a good way to gauge the quality of the sushi without committing to an entire meal. The amount of tuna that was in the roll exceeded the amount of rice, which is always good. We both agreed that it was good quality. My first thought was that the tuna roll was better than the ones at "The Teet", which is to be expected.
We both got some soup. My husband had miso soup while I decided to splurge and order a bowl of lobster miso soup. I was curious about it as I never saw it before on any menu. It came in a larger bowl than my husband's and had a generous portion of lobster pieces. Both our soups had generous amounts of tofu. I liked the idea of lobster in my miso soup. That said, it basically just tasted like any decent miso soup.
For my main course, I ordered chicken katsu while my husband had chicken teriyaki. Both dishes differed from the standard teriyaki and katsu dishes offered up in Japanese restaurants. My husband's chicken teriyaki was piled on top of some broccoli and on top of the teriyaki were some fried thin vegetable chips. I tasted the vegetable chips and couldn't tell what vegetable they were. All I knew was that they weren't potato chips.
The katsu dipping sauce was not a conventional katsu sauce. I have a recipe for a homemade katsu sauce which mainly consists of some ketchup, Worcestershire sauce, garlic, fresh ginger and some sugar. Passion Fin's version was brown with both a sweet and sour undercurrent. The chicken was properly prepared---breaded in panko and fried to perfection. That said, to me, it would have been better to have a more conventional katsu sauce.
So, when our server checked on us, I asked her about the vegetable chips that were on the teriyaki. She said that the kitchen makes them fresh but she didn't know what vegetable was used tonight. Also, I asked her about the katsu sauce. Again, she didn't know the ingredients. When I told her it wasn't a typical katsu sauce, she was surprised and asked how it was different. I told her and she asked if I wanted to try a different sauce. I told her, no thank you, the sauce wasn't bad and worked with the chicken as it didn't drown out the chicken flavor.
Our server also saw us take photos of the food and asked if we found out about Passion Fin on Yelp. Uh oh! I am so busted LOL! Yes, I told her and my husband piped up and said that I would leave a review. To which, she said she would look for it. So, to our server--- thank you for giving us good service!
Passion Fin isn't strictly a Japanese restaurant. If you take a look at the restaurant specials, they are Thai dishes. Our server told us that much of the fish is prepared very fresh as they have a tank in the kitchen with some live fish in it!
Dinner was just under $49 before the tip.
We would consider going back. Next time, we would try some other cooked dishes. read more