Hayashi Sushi & Grill

Yesterday I enjoyed my last meal at Hayashi. Chef Lin, owner and head chef, is moving to Toronto to pursue the restaurant business there.
I have had nearly every house and specialty roll on the menu over the past few years so we shared three rolls that we never had at Hayashi, Han & Matt, Ex Girlfriend and the Longhorn Roll. Han & Matt is a spicy tuna roll with escolar, tuna, mango, drizzled with spicy mayo (usually not a fan but was pretty complimentary on this roll) with seaweed salad on top. This roll was right up my alley, it had all my favorite sushi ingredients. The Ex Girlfriend was more for Jesse than I. It is a smoked salmon roll with spicy crab, shrimp tempura, avocado and cucumber. The three others I was dining with LOVES the Longhorn roll but I was not a big fan. This beast has garlic chips, jalapeño, sweet potato tempura on the inside, topped with rib eye and red wine sauce. To me the Longhorn roll had to much going on.
Our last visit was a lot like most minus Chef Lin. We sat at the bar and couldn’t help but to crack up when my coworker and her boyfriend walked in just after we arrived. We had coincidentally done this many times but this would be our last.

Ugh, I had such high hopes. They were squashed, big time. Oh, where to begin.
Our server, few problems here. He looked like he hadn’t washed his uniform in weeks. This is not something I would normally notice, but it was so bad that it put me off. He was not friendly at all, and seemed almost bothered that he had to help us. His English was terrible. I specifically told him that I did not want a specific item on one of my rolls and sure enough when the food came out it was caked on. When I mentioned this, he did not seem to understand. I repeated it several times as he looked at me puzzled, so finally I just pointed and shook my head «no». He then took the entire tray of sushi back to the kitchen put it down then turned around and sneezed. He didn’t bother to wash his hands. At this point I was about to walk out.
The food came back out and is was edible, but not great. I ordered the go go roll which had potential, but the pieces where too large for one bite and the seaweed was so tough that I couldn’t bite through it. In other words, it was a big ol’ mess. The food is wayyyyyyyy overpriced as well. We will not be going back.

I used Dine On Demand Sunday evening to deliver Hayashi for myself, and a friend.
We ordered the 27 $ sushi and sashimi dinner which includes 6 pieces of sushi and 12 pieces of sashimi, and the teryaki chicken.
It was my first experience with Hayashi… and I have to say I was only slightly OK with my food. It was not the best sushi I’ve had, but it is certainly better than the dross of sushi bars that are springing up in Austin.
I will concede that using a delivery service which delayed the time from the dishes being finished to my first bite. I will definitely be dining in at Hayashi, and have a sense that I will be happy.

I ate here twice and both experiences were bad.
1^st visit: The hostess wasn’t around and we had to wait almost 10 minutes to be greeted. as the the owner was sitting around staring at us doing absolutely nothing. Our server was really slow and never came around. and the sushi was below average. The sushi was expensive for the quantity of food. I left the restaurant hungry and disappointed.
2^nd visit: we had a groupon here and had no choice but to eat here again. being open minded to give this place another try. Ordered the chicken teriyaki bento. the chicken was over cooked and dry, and the sushi that came with it was falling apart. It looked like a money made it. I was disappointed with the food once again. and will never come back.

Pros
–great atmosphere
–delicious rolls
Cons
–TERRIBLE service

Great with happy hour prices but not good enough to pay full price. I like The Trio but the other rolls, while not bad, were also nothing special I was craving to have again. So good, but not amazing. Doesn’t seem to be a lot of fish in their rolls, either.
The service was pretty good. The hostess was really sweet and remembered me when I came back two weeks in a row. The servers were ok. I was pleased when they didn’t charge me for a dish I ordered that I though was a sushi roll but was actually cooked fish, which I don’t like. That impressed me since it wasn’t their fault. I was upset, though, when I was charged $ 1 for some extra unagi sauce for my pretty dry roll, especially since they didn’t tell me ahead of time about the extra price.
Bottom line, go for happy hour. It’s well worth the price for that.

I ate here Christmas evening. I always wondered why restaurants were even open on Christmas evening– little did I know I would finally feel like eating dinner out on this holiday. Luckily, Hayashi and it’s staff were welcoming. I felt bad for them having to work, but they truly seemed to be enjoying themselves.
We had a spicy tuna roll and sashimi sampler. It was all reasonably priced, fresh, the restaurant was clean, the staff was friendly. No complaints.
Upon checking out, the waitress/​bartender informed me that my bill had been picked up by a «secret Santa». I did a double-​take and let out a Scooby Doo like sound of «Hughhh?». She said it again. I left her a fat tip for working Christmas night and called it a successful evening.
I look forward to coming back and trying the rest of their VERY large menu! They also have some great HH specials!

We went there for happy hour last week and it was fairly good. We sent back the Spider Roll. Something didn’t quite taste right with the crab.
The saki bomb was great deal and was really good! It was really empty for such a big restaurant. At one point we were the only ones in there.

I had lunch at Hayashi earlier this summer. The food was good, but the service wasn’t. I wish I could remember my waitresses name. She wasn’t very friendly. Maybe it’s because I went in by myself? Maybe it’s because I took a while to decide on my order? Maybe she was just having a bad day? I don’t know but she wasn’t very friendly.
Because I felt pressured to order quickly, I ordered my usual: a tuna roll and two pieces of salmon nigiri. The salmon was delicious and buttery. The tuna roll was good as well.
I’m sure I’ll give it another chance someday. Hopefully the service will be better.

Amature sushi at best. I wasn’t impressed at all with their sushi menu. However, their bar is a great area if you want to come hang out with your buddies or gf’s.

We visited Hayashi again, this time for some Sunday afternoon sushi & drinks today. The Escolar with garlic slice sushi was very nice, and the Hamachi roll (spicy tuna) was excellent as well. Although the food was very good, I wouldn’t have been as pleased if I hadn’t been there during their Happy Hour special… as I find their prices a bit high.
One thing for sure, I did not enjoy the «urban» music that was being played in the restaurant… complete with words (e.g. sh**, b*tch, pu***). And there were some families there with little kids hearing it disgusted me. They really need to find some music that is palatable to everyone.

I wish I could give it between 3 – 4 stars but I’ll have to settle for 3. The food isn’t spectacular but it is good. The service is either great or poor depending on when you go. I stop in about every 6 months to see if things have gotten better but I never leave there dying to go back or craving anything. I found most of what I have tried bland except the kobe burger, which is the one thing I can give 4 stars for. They have a decent happy hour though.

I went here a couple nights ago for happy hour and it was dead inside. Only us and a couple people at the bar. But the food was great! I thought their happy hour prices were good except on the signature rolls. $ 7 for ½ a signature roll?
I ordered a shrimp tempura & spider roll for $ 4 each. A mimosa to drink for $ 2. Since the appetizers were ½ off I ordered a miso soup and fried spinach leaves. Everything tasted freshly made, I will be coming back!

The atmosphere and décor of the restaurant was excellent. Very nice place to have dinner.
We had two rolls and some edamami. The rolls were excellent and very tasty as was the edamami. We found the pricing to be a bit on the high side. Austin metro has a large variety of good sushi restaurants for very cheap prices, this one is on the higher side for what I found to be equal quality.
Very good though and we will certainly be back.

Positives: The foxy lady roll was amazing. I want to eat nothing but these for the rest of my life. We also ordered the godzilla roll, the ex-​girlfriend roll and the fried spinach. I was impressed with the food in general. I’ll definitely be back for more foxy lady rolls. There was more than enough food for four people and everything was well priced.
Negatives: The drinks were undrinkable. The waitress said they were training a new bartender but wow. Horrible. Everyone had to send their drinks back and we were too scared to order any new ones. Also, the taste of the rolls were delicious but they were cut so haphazardly; some rolls were normal and some were gigantic and even the guys couldn’t stuff them in their mouth (so you know they must be huge). Also, the crab salad in the foxy lady was so cold it was slightly frozen. I’m glad they keep their crab salad cold but it needs to be unfrozen completely before they put into their rolls; the crab being that cold hurt our teeth and changed the texture of the roll.

Albeit Cedar Park is growing, I have to admit I was a bit excited to see a sushi place open up in an area that is surrounded by brick and mortar stores.
Invited by an old childhood school friend for dinner, my first experience was not bad – good wine, nice atmosphere, and our waitress happened to have started work that day. Let’s just say it was good enough to try it again… and with a $ 15 coupon why not. This was a month ago.
Unfortunately my coupon had expired by the time I made it back, and believe me I wish I would have just opted elsewhere. The positives of my second visit was a) a conversation with the manager at the bar while waiting for my friend and b) well, the company of my friend. While waiting I had the Blushing Geisha which was a concoction of Pomegranate liqueur and champagne – not bad and the glass was tall and fancy. Fun! I specifically asked if it was an option to transfer my drink to my table bill, but was told they were separate – no problem.
It was about 8pm at this point, and there was a pretty good crowd on the dining side, including a very loud table of 8 next to us which drowned out our ability to even have a conversation. We made the best of it. Our waitress, who happened to be the same girl from last time, unfortunately still provided service as if it was her first day on the job. Kinda painful, but we were forgiving at best.
For apps, we ordered edamame and the beef negimaki which were amazing. So far so good.
For dinner I ordered the spicy tuna roll and the go go roll which were mediocre. The crab tasted imitation and I’ve had much more fresh tuna in other reasonably priced places for less money – Midori and Imperia being two of them. My friend went with the sushi dinner (seven pieces of sushi and one spicy roll) — honestly I can’t remember exactly what came with this (and either could our waitress) but I had one piece of tuna and it was more fresh than what was in my roll.
During dinner the band started setting up, and eventually played. Before then trendy techno music played from an itunes list on the computer that was sitting openly on the stage for all to see. It would be nice to be a little more discreet. Fast forward to the band which started to play –LOUD. It was impossible to have a conversation. In fact it was pretty frustrating which helped make our decision to wrap up and get outta there.
All in all, I don’t think I will be going back to Hayashi anytime soon, and don’t really recommend it unless you are not an avid sushi lover and are okay with mediocre or less.
Word of note: I was charged twice for my Blushing Geisha at $ 9 a piece, and we never received our $ 15 gift card which is a standard offering for every patron who eats there. It usually expires two weeks from the date. Probably a good thing then being it would have expired anyway if I had one.

I’ll start with the positives. There are some good prices on select rolls and drinks during happy hour. You can order the rolls as a hand roll (temaki), which I really like. All of the hand rolls that I tried tasted great and the GoGo roll was pretty tasty.
Now the negatives… if you like nigiri or sashimi, I wouldn’t recommend going here. The rice was prepared poorly and fell apart with every piece of nigiri. The fish was not bad, but it can be better and is in a lot of places. Food takes a long time here. The waitress herself was not bad, but the sushi took an unbelievable amount of time to get to the table.
To sum up, the rolls were good, especially the hand rolls, but the food should never take so long and the rice needs a lot of work.

ALL DAY Happy Hour on Sundays and Mondays! Nice surprise post movie going. Nuff said.

Went here on a saturday night for a late dinner. We got to the restaurant a little before 10pm.
The first thing you notice is that the décor is really odd. It’s like they’re trying for a hybrid restaurant/​bar/​club/​opium den vibe. The restaurant was almost completely dark, minus the light from the projection TV and pseudo-​club neon lighting. There was a large speaker plunked down smack dab in the middle of the room and they were cranking club music at VERY high volume, to the point where I could barely hold a conversation with the people at my table.
Between the three of us we ordered a couple of sushi rolls, the Kobe fried rice, and the Chilean Sea Bass.
Sushi (spicy tuna and some sort of salmon roll) were pretty standard. After 10pm they have half off specials so they were actually a pretty good deal in the end. But nothing to write home about.
Chilean sea bass was two pieces of sea bass, seared and served on a bed of sauteed spinach with a bowl of rice. It was supposedly sauced with some kind of mango something or other, but I could barely taste it. Fish itself was cooked decently, although bear in mind it’s pretty hard to screw up cooking Chilean Sea Bass. Spinach was unmemorable.
Third person at our table had the Kobe fried rice. It contained what appeared to be tiny bits of beef (like almost a ground beef texture), and various veggies like broccoli, bell pepper, and I think I saw some zucchini in there too. The rice was overpowered by the taste of beef fat and was pretty heavy. And they also broke the cardinal rule of cooking fried rice. You should use day-​old rice because it is slightly dried out and thus is more appropriate for frying. You could tell the rice they used here was freshly cooked and thus the texture of the dish was mushy. Not appetizing at all. I guess the only saving grace was that it was a pretty large portion… if you think large portions of below average food are a good thing.
My main gripe with this place is that it seems to have an identity crisis. What are you trying to be? Night club? Bar? High end restaurant? It was just a really odd experience. And the food wasn’t even that good! Especially for the prices. I can see coming here during a happy hour for some drinks and cheap sushi, but that’s about it. I don’t think the vibe they’re going for here really fits in with the Cedar Park feel. A place like this might be more appropriate (and successful) somewhere closer to campus or downtown.
Oh, last gripe before I forget. The kitchen’s timing is terrible. They brought my friend’s sushi out first. Then about 15 minutes later the fried rice. Then about 10 minutes after that the sea bass. So there was a lot of sitting around the table staring at food before everyone could eat.

It’s next to Cedar Park theater. Before we went to watch «Love Guru», we decided to have dinner at Hayashi. It was under construction for a long time, finally it opens.
The menu is a little bit simple. It doesn’t look that creative.
But I saw all other tables’ dishes. They all have good presentations.
I ordered crabmeat salad and lamb chops. Both are very tasty. Especially lamb chops, very tender.