Sushi On the Rocks

Not so sure of this new location...

LOVED this place downtown... but my experience at this new location is that it is a lot busier such that customers don't get as good of service and time lapse from ordering sushi to delivery on the table has greatly increased.
Downtown I felt like servers were constantly within sight and always attended to... here, we were in a second section towards the back and I hardly saw our server.
Downtown was always a little slow... as goes hand making fresh sushi, I guess... but that was GREATly increased on this visit to this location. (Dinner took about 2.25 hours, which was mostly waiting on our dinner to reach our table!)

PROs: I like the expanded menu with pictures. I also liked the server offering suggestions (though they didn't seem real sincere... maybe just trying to boost sales!?).

Meh: New location looks pretty cool at first glance, but seems a little over done... I liked the small, quiet, place downtown better.

Overall, I do like this place... but it has a whole different feel than it did downtown... Hope it does well (as it seems to be by all the customers at this place) but... it just isn't the same.
We may not be attending as often as we had in the past.

HORRIBLE.  That really sums it up.  Made reservations for 7 the other night, and arrived a little early.  We were seated right away anyhow, and that's where the positive part of our experience ended.  We were sat in some back room that had weird lighting and some kind of stereo system that wasn't hooked up.  It took about 10 minutes for our drinks to arrive (cokes, no alcohol) after we had already been sitting for about 5 minutes.  Us getting to place our order took another 15 minutes.  Then the massive wait began.  We only ordered 3 rolls and 1 entree.  We had been waiting for about 35 minutes at this point, and were out of our drinks and told that the food would be right out.  That wasn't even close.  We waited another 15 minutes, and finally got our food.  The waitress was right when she said the food was about out, because at this point, the entree was cold.  At this point, we just wanted to leave.  We got to wait another 20 minutes for the bill.  With this horrible experience, we will not be returning.  We thought it may be different from the downtown location, but we were wrong.  Lesson learned.

Driving from Chicago to Cincinnati on Sunday and saw their billboard.  Sushi sounded like a much better option than the typical road trip fast food.  We were confused as the Internet pointed us to their old closed location and on top of that our GPS was acting up.  I ended up calling the restaurant about a half dozen times because my navigator wasn't doing her job!  The person on the phone was so patient each time.

When we arrived, we were properly greeted with a smile and given our preference of seating.  We sat at the Sushi bar and had the most amazing experience.  Tashina (sp?) was our server and at 37 years of well traveled age, I have never experience a more genuine server.  At the risk of sounding like her best friend, she had the perfect balance of small talk, giving us her recommendations, announcing the specials,  throwing in some humor and making sure our Japanese beers were always topped off.  There are nice servers, there are servers that act nice because that's how they get tips, then ....well.   At one point, I told her I would pour my own beer into the chilled glass that she brought.  She hesitated and almost gave me the bottle, then said, "its my job to serve you".  It was just said in the most genuine tone.

Anyway, this will be our standard stop on our Chicago trips and we will definitely ask for Tashina.  Back to the review.  We also spent some time interacting with the Sushi Chef's.  They made sure the selections were to our liking and were very responsive to our requests.  The sashimi had nice size pieces and was high quality.  The selection of rolls contained some unique combinations and were well prepared.  The only reason for four stars instead of five was because I felt that the rolls could have used larger amounts of fish vs. other ingredients and a bit less rice.  Maybe I'm spoiled because at my regular joints, the ratio is a bit more favorable.  

We were dressed down in travel clothes (wife had on pajama pants) and felt a bit under dressed because of the trendy atmosphere.  Not an issue as everyone made us feel welcome!  This would be a great first date type of place or somewhere to take clients.  Absolutely cannot wait until our next trip through Indy!