Ichiban Japanese Sushi Bar

Ichiban was a disappointment. We went here for lunch, hoping to get some really good specials. I was initially really excited about the interior. The restaurant isn't very large, but it is nicely decorated and there are really cute four-person booths with glass separations and a long roof along one of the walls. There are some plants as well when you first enter. Ichiban looks really nice.

We ordered shrimp tempura and a sushi set. The tempura was amazing. Probably some of the best I've had in Saint Louis. It was very crispy and light, not greasy at all. The tempura sauce was really good as well. Perfect tempura. It came as a set, which was excellent on the presentation and the portions were decent. It was a nice lunch.

The sushi set at Ichiban, however, was kind of sad. Four pieces of nigiri and one six-piece tiny roll of tuna (or salmon, your choice). There are three other sets as well. For around $10 you can't expect too much, but when my food arrived, I was a little shocked. It was too tiny. It did come with miso soup served as a first course, but even so, I don't think there was enough food there for an adequate meal. If I ate only that, I would have walked away hungry.

The nigiri was both amazing and kind of disappointing. The cuts of fish were fantastic- big, thick chunks of fish. The size of Ichiban nigiri is only comparable to one other sushi restaurant that I have found so far. In contrast, the rice under the fish was the smallest I have ever seen. I was shocked. My tuna nigiri had a clump of rice literally the size of my thumbnail. Literally. I don't understand why Ichiban is so generous with the fish and so stingy with the rice. It's great for a low-carb diet, but it made the set even less filling than it should have been.

My last gripe about Ichiban was the service. Our server wasn't friendly at all, almost to the point of being rude. There was only one other table of customers at the time, so the lack of service wasn't due to being busy. It was kind of a downer and ruined the experience. I won't be going back.