Aka Japanese Cuisine - Houston

Aka is a sweet spot to have in your neighborhood, the service was great (fast, welcoming, very polite) and the sushi/sashimi is a great value. It was only us and a couple of other tables for a Saturday afternoon. If we're ever on this side of town again, we'll be back! It was a rainy day so their miso soup really hit the spot while we waited for our hamachi chili sashimi. The hamachi was flavored just right, not too spicy but just enough for the ponzu sauce to balance it out. We ordered 5 rolls: Letry Try, Hamachili, Gloria, Shaggy Dog, and the OMG roll They all tasted great, the only minor complaint is that the Shaggy Dog has a little aftertaste like the oil it was fried is was due to be replaced but it was still good!

My friend selected this place for our trio to enjoy and what it boils down to is that she can no longer select the places. Lol. Hear me out. We went in on a Friday evening for dinner (and in time to enjoy happy hour). We ordered a few appetizers, they had cocktails, and we all ordered various sushi rolls. Listing the appetizers below: -Smoked Salmon Egg Rolls: No. Too mushy, the texture was not it. The sauce that comes with it was also a no. -Crab Puffs: No. The puffs tasted like they were still frozen, not fresh at all. -Firecracker Shrimp: Yes! Fresh, hot, and delicious! The sauce on top of the shrimp was good. We had so many sushi rolls, I won't pretend like I remember exactly what we ordered. After getting eel sauce the sushi tasted better. One of my friends didn't enjoy one of her rolls, but thankfully our server took it off of her bill. Service was lackluster though. While she was friendly, she was not very attentive and she moved really quickly so we had to order swiftly. Due to her moving so swiftly, she was dropping and spilling things. Which one of the spills landed on me and my friend. That was annoying. Sadly, it was evident that she had a lot of tables/guests to serve which is not a her problem. The restaurant appears to be understaffed. All in all, while the sushi was not horrible my experience was underwhelming.

I had miso soup which was good. I got the spicy salmon which was okay/meh. I think it was the salmon mixture.. taste meh. There was only one waitress so it took a while to get our check.

The sushi at this restaurant is average, as is the service. I was not a fan of the chopped scallop nigiri due to its strange slimy texture. The other sushi options were decent. The main attraction is the full bar. The interior has a dated look that hasn't been updated in 20 years.

I hadn't been to AKA since the Covid shutdowns (I don't get to that area much anymore), and boy had things changed. We were immediately seated upon arrival at lunchtime, and as we walked to our table, I noticed only one other table was occupied; since it was only 11:20 I didn't think much of it. The server was friendly and accommodating, but the food coming out was very slow, especially considering the small number of customers in the restaurant. As we sat down, it felt hot in the restaurant and my companion agreed, so we asked the server if they could lower the temperature in the dining room. She replied that the A/C was working as much as possible, but it took a long time to cool down the restaurant after opening. As lunch progressed, the heat became uncomfortable. Soups and salads before our sashimi were very good. We ordered Toro, Salmon, Octopus, and Yellowtail sashimi, which were all fresh, chilled perfectly, and presented nicely; however, at $54 for 12 pieces, they seemed a bit pricey compared to other sushi places. Our rolls were served as we continued to endure the unpleasant heat. We ordered Alaska Maki, Shaggy Dog, and Rainbow rolls, but they were below average and almost terrible. They were warm (possibly due to the heat of the restaurant) and tasteless. The Shaggy Dog had shrimp tempura, which may explain the warmth, but even the crab strips were warm. If the A/C had been working and we had stopped at the sashimi, this rating would have been 3 stars. After visiting both the Eldridge and West Alabama locations dozens of times over the past 12-14 years, I will not be returning to this location and will be cautious if I visit the West Alabama location in the future.