I normally like this place, and visit it every time I'm in Richmond, but I had a very frustrating experience with a Sunday night crew. There was no leadership or initiative demonstrated by that rotation of employees. My partner and I waited in the lobby for over 30 minutes for drinks and onigiri. There was no attendant at the front desk to think it was weird that customers were aimlessly standing there for that long. Finally, an employee comes to the front and another customer asks about the status of his drinks. The employee says their internet was down, and some orders didn't go through. My order did not go through, either. This would have been nice to know 40 minutes prior.
The professional thing would have been for an employee to come out to the lobby and announce to people that the internet was down, and to collect orders personally. I said as much to the employee, and she just said she had no way of knowing about orders if the internet was down. That was Not the point I was making. Someone should have told customers about the issue and discouraged them from using the kiosk tablets. I am under the impression that those employees took the internet being down as an opportunity to hide behind the wall and relax. Nobody had a clue about how many customers were in the lobby and what any of them needed. I left after getting a very unenthused apology. The crew needs to be present up front and help manage scenarios like this. Even before that, it took three tries to find an employee that knew anything about an item's allergy info. I'm hoping future crews will be trained to be more proactive. To be clear, Multiple customers encountered this issue and had their time wasted while we were there because employees did not care to problem solve.
Tymon
Beverages are nice. Atmosphere is comforting.
Bodhi Crowe
$10 for bad, overly sweet milk tea with extremely undercooked and still warm boba. Store was cute, but wouldn’t go here again.
Bailey Smith
Very good, but extremely overpriced. Paid $18 for 1 drink and 4 bite-sized pieces of chicken.
Jen Ansley
My partner and I stopped in for onigiri on a Sunday afternoon and I started having trouble swallowing so panicked and ran up to the counter to ask for water. The person behind the counter started explaining to me that I would have to pay for a cup, but given my situation, I interrupted to say that I was having trouble swallowing and needed water *immediately.* After a delay that seemed too long given the situation, a small cup of water was pushed out to me. I picked it up immediately and started drinking and the person behind the counter responded by rudely and loudly saying YOUR WELCOME in a way that emphasized that I hadn’t said thank you (because I was preoccupied by choking). The situation was exacerbated by a very high counter that I think prevented the person from seeing how serious the situation was. In any case, I’m disturbed by having eaten at a place with such meanness and disregard for customer safety and well-being.
Banh Vo
The Vietnamese coffee is not good. It is worse than Starbucks and way expensive for a small to go coffee cup. Will not be back.
Nola
Super cute shop with lots of household items, gifts, knick knacks, overpriced tea and coffee vessels. If I were to have a shop, it would be just like this one. I enjoyed browsimg their collection and offerings. Reminds me of SE Asia markets!
Their milk tea satisfied my cravings but was not impressed but the taste or quality. Plus it took almost 20 mins to get the drink.
Atmosphere: 4
Food: 3
Service: 3
Hannah B
Such a cute market with very tasty food. I got both my drink and food in less than 5 mins! Both were delicious!
Atmosphere: 5
Food: 5
Recommended dishes: Spicy Mayo Tuna, Garlic Butter Salmon
Maya V
I've been dying to check this place out because I loved the menu, and the branding is so cute. We ordered a few things and it was disappointing. Prices are very expensive for what you get. We ordered "for here" and everything came out in to go boxes, which made it hard to eat at our table. Would have been nice to have plates for this reason. They didn't have chopsticks available, but we could buy them next door which seemed shady. Chicken Katsu onigiri was bland and the chicken was so tiny i wondered if they forgot it. The chicken inside was flabby and and not crispy or seasoned. Rice not seasoned or sticky enough to hold it together. Same issues with the pork belly onigiri and bulgogi onigiri. Takoyaki portion was small, octopus so chewy we had to spit it out. Probably the worst item was the hot chocolate. Incredibly bitter, not stirred, and not even filled to the top of the cup. No whipped cream and a few lucky charms marshmallows on top. The positives were the Shrimp Tempura (super crunchy, hot, great sauce) and the Cutie-Patootie fruit tea. Ordering was easy on their ordering tablets, but they forgot to call my name and we sat a while waiting. The cafe is located inside a cute market with lots of interesting Vietnamese foods and quality pantry staples, and the music was good. I understand Carytown has expensive rent, but we spent over $40 on food that was mostly bland and boring.
Atmosphere: 5
Food: 2
Service: 2
Chris P.
Excellent, fast service and great atmosphere. The food is amazing, with tons of options. Definitely a must for foodies.
This place is extremely overpriced and the onigiri was not worth it. Purple sweet potato was actually awful (potatoes were boiled with zero flavor) and rice was dry. Pumpkin curry was better but I tasted the salt more than the actually pumpkin. And what on earth makes most of their drinks $9 at MINIMUM?
Atmosphere: 3
Food: 1
Service: 3
Chris Poupore
I like the onigiri however the rice was kinda stale. Kind of expensive for Richmond. I was the only customer in the store was never greeted, walked through the entire store past like six staff members they didn't say anything to me. Felt sort of judged or ignored, which is weird because I was excited to go back to the store after not being in Richmond for two years.
Dietary restrictions: Gluten free
Atmosphere: 2
Food: 3
Service: 1
Recommended dishes: Chicken Katsu
Justin Conlee
Been here a few times and I have a few notes for them. The coffee cups reliably leak. The ordering terminal has an option for dine in but they still give me to go cups. Lastly and this is partially my fault but the musubi labeled oyster was actually an oyster mushroom not a sea oyster
Atmosphere: 4
Food: 2
Service: 4
Charonda Lewis
I’ve lived in Japan for a total of 13 years and was visiting. This is nothing like Japanese onigiri. Everything westerners do is more complicated than necessary. I’m so glad that we are so extra!!! Bring it on! This place is great! My garlic butter salmon was amazing and my son loved his braised pork onigiri (think Vietnamese and Japanese marrying ?)! I recommend this place.
Atmosphere: 5
Food: 5
Service: 5
Mi-Leesha Hargrove
Having to pay $10 for a drink I only sipped three times and the drink was finished was a waste of money to me. They have a blended options which is convenient to have ice in your drink, yet not for the price I had to pay for this drink. It tasted like water and not a chai latte
I normally like this place, and visit it every time I'm in Richmond, but I had a very frustrating experience with a Sunday night crew. There was no leadership or initiative demonstrated by that rotation of employees.
My partner and I waited in the lobby for over 30 minutes for drinks and onigiri. There was no attendant at the front desk to think it was weird that customers were aimlessly standing there for that long.
Finally, an employee comes to the front and another customer asks about the status of his drinks. The employee says their internet was down, and some orders didn't go through. My order did not go through, either. This would have been nice to know 40 minutes prior.
The professional thing would have been for an employee to come out to the lobby and announce to people that the internet was down, and to collect orders personally. I said as much to the employee, and she just said she had no way of knowing about orders if the internet was down. That was Not the point I was making. Someone should have told customers about the issue and discouraged them from using the kiosk tablets.
I am under the impression that those employees took the internet being down as an opportunity to hide behind the wall and relax. Nobody had a clue about how many customers were in the lobby and what any of them needed. I left after getting a very unenthused apology.
The crew needs to be present up front and help manage scenarios like this. Even before that, it took three tries to find an employee that knew anything about an item's allergy info. I'm hoping future crews will be trained to be more proactive. To be clear, Multiple customers encountered this issue and had their time wasted while we were there because employees did not care to problem solve.
Beverages are nice. Atmosphere is comforting.
$10 for bad, overly sweet milk tea with extremely undercooked and still warm boba. Store was cute, but wouldn’t go here again.
Very good, but extremely overpriced. Paid $18 for 1 drink and 4 bite-sized pieces of chicken.
My partner and I stopped in for onigiri on a Sunday afternoon and I started having trouble swallowing so panicked and ran up to the counter to ask for water. The person behind the counter started explaining to me that I would have to pay for a cup, but given my situation, I interrupted to say that I was having trouble swallowing and needed water *immediately.* After a delay that seemed too long given the situation, a small cup of water was pushed out to me. I picked it up immediately and started drinking and the person behind the counter responded by rudely and loudly saying YOUR WELCOME in a way that emphasized that I hadn’t said thank you (because I was preoccupied by choking). The situation was exacerbated by a very high counter that I think prevented the person from seeing how serious the situation was. In any case, I’m disturbed by having eaten at a place with such meanness and disregard for customer safety and well-being.
The Vietnamese coffee is not good. It is worse than Starbucks and way expensive for a small to go coffee cup. Will not be back.
Super cute shop with lots of household items, gifts, knick knacks, overpriced tea and coffee vessels. If I were to have a shop, it would be just like this one. I enjoyed browsimg their collection and offerings. Reminds me of SE Asia markets!
Their milk tea satisfied my cravings but was not impressed but the taste or quality. Plus it took almost 20 mins to get the drink.
Atmosphere: 4
Food: 3
Service: 3
Such a cute market with very tasty food. I got both my drink and food in less than 5 mins! Both were delicious!
Atmosphere: 5
Food: 5
Recommended dishes: Spicy Mayo Tuna, Garlic Butter Salmon
I've been dying to check this place out because I loved the menu, and the branding is so cute. We ordered a few things and it was disappointing. Prices are very expensive for what you get. We ordered "for here" and everything came out in to go boxes, which made it hard to eat at our table. Would have been nice to have plates for this reason. They didn't have chopsticks available, but we could buy them next door which seemed shady. Chicken Katsu onigiri was bland and the chicken was so tiny i wondered if they forgot it. The chicken inside was flabby and and not crispy or seasoned. Rice not seasoned or sticky enough to hold it together. Same issues with the pork belly onigiri and bulgogi onigiri. Takoyaki portion was small, octopus so chewy we had to spit it out. Probably the worst item was the hot chocolate. Incredibly bitter, not stirred, and not even filled to the top of the cup. No whipped cream and a few lucky charms marshmallows on top. The positives were the Shrimp Tempura (super crunchy, hot, great sauce) and the Cutie-Patootie fruit tea. Ordering was easy on their ordering tablets, but they forgot to call my name and we sat a while waiting. The cafe is located inside a cute market with lots of interesting Vietnamese foods and quality pantry staples, and the music was good. I understand Carytown has expensive rent, but we spent over $40 on food that was mostly bland and boring.
Atmosphere: 5
Food: 2
Service: 2
Excellent, fast service and great atmosphere. The food is amazing, with tons of options. Definitely a must for foodies.
Atmosphere: 5
Food: 5
Service: 5
Restaurantji Recommends
This place is extremely overpriced and the onigiri was not worth it. Purple sweet potato was actually awful (potatoes were boiled with zero flavor) and rice was dry. Pumpkin curry was better but I tasted the salt more than the actually pumpkin. And what on earth makes most of their drinks $9 at MINIMUM?
Atmosphere: 3
Food: 1
Service: 3
I like the onigiri however the rice was kinda stale. Kind of expensive for Richmond. I was the only customer in the store was never greeted, walked through the entire store past like six staff members they didn't say anything to me. Felt sort of judged or ignored, which is weird because I was excited to go back to the store after not being in Richmond for two years.
Dietary restrictions: Gluten free
Atmosphere: 2
Food: 3
Service: 1
Recommended dishes: Chicken Katsu
Been here a few times and I have a few notes for them. The coffee cups reliably leak. The ordering terminal has an option for dine in but they still give me to go cups. Lastly and this is partially my fault but the musubi labeled oyster was actually an oyster mushroom not a sea oyster
Atmosphere: 4
Food: 2
Service: 4
I’ve lived in Japan for a total of 13 years and was visiting. This is nothing like Japanese onigiri. Everything westerners do is more complicated than necessary. I’m so glad that we are so extra!!! Bring it on! This place is great! My garlic butter salmon was amazing and my son loved his braised pork onigiri (think Vietnamese and Japanese marrying ?)! I recommend this place.
Atmosphere: 5
Food: 5
Service: 5
Having to pay $10 for a drink I only sipped three times and the drink was finished was a waste of money to me. They have a blended options which is convenient to have ice in your drink, yet not for the price I had to pay for this drink. It tasted like water and not a chai latte
Atmosphere: 4
Food: 2
Service: 3
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