Mai Japanese Express

Ok place. The sushi wasn’t all that. The hibachi was good but don’t expect the portions like if they prepare it in front of you. The location was right after traveling all day. It’s not bad but I’ve had so much better.

This restaurant is very close to my house, so I order take out from here at least once a week! Love the hibachi, only thing is a wish they gave more vegetables.

Solid 4 stars. I love it when a place has really gotten their gears greased and knows how to do their food in the most efficient manner. Mai is located in the Ayrsley shopping center — hang your first right after turning in off of Tryon. The parking lot has a weird flow to it, but it’s one way and it seems to have a good amount of traffic in it. I went on a weekend afternoon so people were out and about.
Promptly greeted and seated… the dining room has a lot of tables and booths in the perimeter. We didn’t go at ‘peak’ hours, but it was nice to have a quiet dining space and attentive service, but something tells me they can move people in and out of here pretty quickly.
I was craving sushi that evening and went that route, but my friend ordered a meal (salad and drink). Pretty impressed that the sushi didn’t take that long to come out along with my friend’s entrée. One pound of wasabi and a lot of soy sauce later… I was a happy camper. I ordered the Sumo Roll, Spicy Tuna, and a Salmon roll… yeah I was a little greedy that night.
Overall, I will definitely come back and try there other offerings… judging by the extensive menu (it will take a couple visits) they have a lot going for them.

Wow this place in my opinion is not good at all. I ordered a few appetizers for a dinner as take out and I threw most of it away. The veggie tempura sat in oil because it wasn’t drained well before putting in the container. The pork gyoza was horrible. First most places pan fry but deep fry. The flavor tasted liked the pork was expired. The side salad with ginger was literally lettuce with nothing on it, the ginger dressing was fine. I won’t be returning as simple appetizers should not be such poor quality.

Out of town and saw this place. Wasn’t busy so we thought we’d get our food in no time. Started out with some great miso soup and the steak fried rice wasn’t bad. We got our sushi rolls only to discover it wasn’t ours. The waiter told us it would be 5 – 10 minutes. After 30 mins and watching 5 to go orders go out the door we got our food… it was horrible. We have never left sushi at the table. I told the waiter that the food was horrible, totally not worth the wait and to bring the check. There was no discount or apology for us waiting an hour and half for sushi! Sushi was slimy and tasted fishy. They ONLY received the one star so I could post this review.

I love their sushi. I’ve tried about five different kind from here and have been impressed with all of it. Their wasabi is more powerful than most places and my head feels as though it will explode if I’m not careful. I kind of like it though.
Also, I eat meat again now, and they cook their chicken amazingly. It’s soft and tender and flavorful. I like that they use sweet carrots also. As for the vegetable tempura, I’ve had better, but it’s by no means dissatisfying.
The only issue is that they will not hold the mushrooms. Why won’t they hold the mushrooms you might ask? (I know, crazy right?) The waitresses say that it’s all cooked together (with the other vegetables such as sweet carrots and broccoli).
So?
Doesn’t a lot of places buy mixed bags of veggies? Have the cook remove the mushrooms anyway. It’s not hard to do. I’ve seen hibachi cooks do this with my very eyes. I mean, if I can remove them from the entrée after they’ve been cooked, why can they just not removed at square one? Ay ay ay.
I’ve asked on three separate occasions with three (or was it two?) separate waitresses and they will not do it and you have eat your food after picking the mushrooms out, making a tiny little fort of dirt fungus around the edges of your plate. You stuff the rest of the food in your mouth knowing that they were infused together while cooking on the grill with wood wort residue, no doubt fertilized by the decomposed remains of chipmunks or beetles, making the food taste like three stars instead of 4 or 5.
Fix your mushroom sitcheation, Mai!

Yes! This is my spot! Hibachi is very good. Ginger salad is good. The reason I come here at least 3xs a month is for the HOT LAVA ROLL!!! Every sushi friend I have tell me over & over where their best sushi joint is how nothing can beat it. Then I take them to Mai & order them this roll. Not one of my friends have been able to say it’s beatable!

We have been to this restaurant 3 weeks in a row. It is the best lunch deal around. You can have the soup, salad, fried rice, veggies, and chicken for $ 7!!!
They have sushi and other things too but have not had them.
Give this place a try– it is fantastic!

This review should really be 1 star but I’m being as fair as possible. I came with a co-​worker during prime lunchtime and they were about 70% empty, which in hindsight should have been a sign.
Our drink order was taken immediately and overall the service was good, hence the 2 stars.
I ordered the spicy tuna roll and the 6oz hibachi entrée as a combo with the addition of salad, soup and fried rice. The best part of the meal was the soup and the yum yum sauce… yes you read that right.
In a nutshell: the chicken was lacking flavor, hard, and dry, the salad was drowned in the ginger dressing, the veggies were overcooked and the sushi was just a mushy mess. The carrots in the mixed veggies seemed to be honey glazed carrots that were added to the other veggies at the last minute.
I won’t be back unfortunately.

Mediocre food but friendly service. I would not come back unless I had nothing else to eat. Tbh it just isnt worth the quality vs price you would be better off going somewhere else for sushi or hibachi.

Small but quaint Asian/​sushi restaurant. Some of the best Sushi I have ever had. Not from Charlotte, haven’t been back to try the hibachi yet. I plan to do that on my next visit.

Met a friend during lunch hour and it took forever to get a hibachi dish and some sushi. The server came across as if we were bothering her. All her attention was on the 6 top next to us. The food itself was alright once we got it. We basically had to trip the server to get her to give us enough attention to ask for the check. It surprisingly took no time to get our money but she got no tip from me.

Wow. So I’ve given Mai a chance, thinking I had visited on a bad day or something, but I’ve faced the last straw and it’s time I give my review. I don’t think I will ever be back. I don’t understand how it has a 3-​star rating.
The service was awful. Just awful. The waitresses scarcely visit and seem completely disconnected from their patrons. No kindness, maybe ONE smile, no sincerity or concern.
The soups and salads came out fast. The soup as adequate. The salad was drowning in ginger sauce. I could barely get through it.
My friends ordered hibachi, which only took about 10 minutes to arrive. They said it was okay, just your run-​of-​the-​mill hibachi food. It was probably the only vaguely positive thing about our experience.
I ordered sushi, which I got 20 MINUTES LATER with no apology and a further mix-​up, after my coworkers were almost completely done with their food. It was a roll with spicy tuna inside and tempura on the outside. I should’ve taken a picture — when it arrived at my table, it was literally buried beneath a HUGE pile of tempura. I think there was sushi in there somewhere, but it was also awful. I’m now hoping that won’t get food poisoning from the old, disgusting fish that was inside. I couldn’t finish it, even in my ravenous hunger. My friends also had ordered rolls, both of which were disappointing as well. An eel roll was about 10% eel and 90% cucumber. I’ve never seen such ridiculous, sloppy sushi in my life. The grocery store would have been better.
There was a couple next to us who had been there even before we arrived, and one of them NEVER received her food the entire time we were there. She had to ask for it in a to-​go box after waiting 30+ minutes, and even then, she waited another 15 minutes for the check.
Speaking of checks — the waitress had clarified that we were splitting it at the very beginning. There were only 3 of us, and we weren’t sharing any food. And yet, in the end, we got 2. The one that had been combined was missing an item completely. It took us another 10 minutes to sort out the payment process.
There was no politeness or kindness offered, even though we didn’t show any of the anger we were feeling. Instead, just cold, careless interactions that left us with a horrible taste in our mouth — literally as well as figuratively.
I’m not giving my money to this restaurant again. The experience pretty much wrecked the entire day, and I hope it doesn’t wreck my stomach tonight.

The food is great but the service is horrible. They don’t notice you’ve sat down half the time and when you finally flag someone down they get to you when it’s convenient. Everything you ask for seems to be an inconvenience as they say yes with a loud sigh and eye roll. The server we had tonight was actually on the restaurant cordless when she brought our food out! The only reason we come back is because they let you order off the kids meal and it’s plenty of food. Good food. Good prices. Crap service.

Ordered take out and picked it up close to closing time so I cannot say how busy this place is on a weeknight or provide review about the service.
The take out consisted of shrimp fried rice and three rolls. She misheard one of the rolls so we ended up with a veggie roll instead of spicy salmon. She offered to make it for me but the sushi bar looked to be cleaned up so I passed on that offer and was charged about five dollars for the veggie roll that had avocado, cucumber, lettuce and carrots (probably could have made three at home for that price). The food was packed up nicely, sushi rolls with fish were decent for the price. Fried rice was disappointing, won’t be ordering that again.
Not bad as a neighborhood sushi fix, will be back.

After living close to this place for years and never once going to check it out, I finally happened to stop in for lunch now even though I’ve moved across town. Go figure. Anyway, I wasn’t missing much based upon my experience there.
It was about noon when I stopped in and the lunch crowd was starting to fill the place up. I was offered any open table which was nice (there were only a couple available). The place was full groups of folks that appeared to be mostly from the nearby business park. I sat myself on down and waited for about 5 minutes before I got my water, and then took a look over the menu. No lunch specials to be found here which I found extremely odd given that this is obviously a spot that does a lot of business during lunch. Okay, whatevs.
I ordered up a couple of sushi rolls, which I verbally ordered and then was advised to mark on the paper sushi menu. That was a bit absurd to me, we’re going to waste a whole sheet of paper for me to make 2 marks?! Fair enough, I followed the sushi ordering rules. I went with one specialty roll and then a standard spicy tuna.
The place was pretty full, yes, but I watched several other tables that showed up after me get their stuff before I did. I know sushi can take longer but they had sushi too. Plus, I was flying solo. Anyway, the sushi arrived and it was about like everything else to this point, meh. Lots of white rice on the outside, not a ton of stuff on the inside, and not a lot of taste. It was pretty inexpensive and, as they say, you get what you pay for. The whole lunch took about 45 minutes which is pretty long considering that I was by myself.
Maybe the sushi isn’t their specialty, I don’t know. There are also some other Japanese-​ish dishes, hibachi and such. Based upon my overall experience, I was pretty underwhelmed.

This place is deserving of such a higher rating than 3 stars. Another review mentioned that they almost didn’t try it out because of the star 3 star rating and I fell into that category too. The service was great, the sushi was fresh and well-​prepared. I can definitely see becoming a regular

I almost didn’t come here bc its only 3 stars but people are giving bad reviews bc the food wasn’t made fast enough. This is not a fast food restaurant, this is a sit down, made to order restaurant. Food came fast for us & WE WERE STARVING!!! Everyone at our table loved their meal, my hibachi was delicious, veggies not overcooked. Nice, clean, quiet, friendly… Managed to even play all my favorite music the entire time, weird! Dish Nation on the Tele, five star experience.

Food was excellent. Ordered steak teriyaki. Nice clean environment. I was starving and the food came fast. Will visit again!

This is very convenient to work and I thought the sushi was pretty decent. I made a substitution from salmon to tuna with no extra charges and everything tasted fresh. The maki rolls are very small; the price (about $ 7.50 after tax) plus quantity (8 rolls) led me to believe I was getting a little more than I thought, and I was disappointed when I opened my takeout container. One roll was not filling enough for me for lunch, and a $ 15 lunch would not be something I would want to swing regularly. I would definitely return if they added some sushi lunch specials.