Ukai

What a gem! Brought the family here for dinner and was so surprised by the beautiful interior because the outside looks a little cheesy. The all you can eat sushi was amazing and the kids had a really, really delicious sweet and sour chicken. This place should be busier, it was great!

I don’t know if the rumors of Ukai’s demise are greatly exaggerated or not. But I can assure you that the rumors of it’s food being tasty most certainly are.
First off, I am always somewhat hesitant when it comes to all you can eat Japanese food, no matter the location and setting. That being said, Ukai was not an all together terrible experience. The inside dining area was actually quite nice, and the wait staff was extremely friendly, even stopping by our table to have a drink.
But what I cannot ignore is the fact that it is simply too difficult to find fresh seafood in the Plainfield area. I don’t believe it is Ukai’s fault. To bring in fresh seafood every day and still maintain the prices they do on an all you can eat menu simply seemed unsustainable. And maybe it was. Maybe that’s why they’re out of business.
Or maybe people just were not feeling the food. Because even if you showed me the receipts telling me that the octopus came in that morning from Japan directly, I would never believe it given how it tasted the night I was there.
To go a step further, the drinks were on the expensive side too. Which is typical for an all you can eat place, I get that. But it didn’t help with my experience.
The menu is also all over the place. The Chinese influence is obvious, and not in and of itself a negative thing. It provides a depth of options for families with kids who might not be sushi fans. But it sort of robs me of the authentic experience when I see things like that. Again, I might just be spoiled from my time in the Bay Area.
Even in the face of all that, if you’re the kind of bloke who is just going to order the deep fried rolls, or stuff with cream cheese and dragons and whatnot, this is probably not a bad place to spend $ 20 dollars. In fact, I think you are exactly who this joint caters to. But if you are looking for some fresh, delicious, tasty fish, then, [understandably so], Ukai is most certainly not the place to look.

I can’t believe this place went out of business. They were just selling groupons recently!

Food was sub-​par. The price was $ 20.99 for dinner for an adult and $ 10.50 for children. The host/​wait staff did not specify the age in which a guest was considered a child. I had to remind the waitstaff after I had asked why I was charged for two adults. The place was empty and the service was slow and horrible. Had to ask for utensils three times before getting up and walking over to the sushi bar. This will not be a place I would visit again.

I ordered Orange Beef, General Tso Chicken and Orange Chicken for take out. When I got home and open all three items, I couldn’t tell which was which. They all looked identical; same shape, same batter items with broccoli. Now I like broccoli, but how can all items look the same? The General Tso Chicken and Orange Beef were labaled as spicy, but they were practically unedible. I like food with some spice, but this rendered the food tasteless.
In summary, very disappointing given the price paid for the food. I won’t be back. There are too many other Chinese food options in the south Naperville, north Plainfield area.

Terrible food and terrible service… well what else is left to grade them on… umm nothing. If you want a lot of greasy food for cheap here’s the place to be. Throughly disappointed! You would at least think the fancy décor would match the quality of the food. I give this place another year to vacancy. You want awesome Chinese food go to Dragon Lite in Crest Hill (Joliet). And no I don’t work for Dragon Lite… just an honest recommendation.

The food is somewhat decent, nothing exciting and memorable. The service is horrible! The server with short hair was very clumsy and almost pour our sushi rolls on the table, in the mid part of our lunch she put a dirty dish on top of the food that we were still eating! She said she thought we we’re finish already! OMG by far the worst experience ever!

Love this place. 5 out of 5. Excellent service and the staff was friendly. This place made me a sushi fan will return when I am in this area.

One if our faves in the area for sushi! Great sushi… bad service. The waitress was NOT happy that we had a Groupon and didn’t order drinks. We were the only ones in the restaurant and had to wait for simple things: an extra plate, more water, an extra fork, more ginger, a to-​go box. The food is good… just be patient if you can!

What a great surprise Ukai was! The location and building exterior notwithstanding, I was amazed at how beautiful the interior was! As tasteful and elegant as some of the fancy «city» sushi places I’ve been to. The food was above average and they had a nice selection of rolls. It wasn’t very busy in there so I feel compelled to spread the word: Ukai is worth every penny!

While the food was excellent. The service was borderline horrible.
We order some of the rolls, yakitori, and fried rice. Again, Food was served in good time and quite delicious.
We were seated and waited what felt like a deal of time to give our order. It took so long we ordered apps and dinner for fear we may not see the server for a while.
My wife and I drank water while our kids had lemonade. Refills were a challenge at every pass to the point I was asking for a pitcher of water and dish of lemons. I asked our server — I was acknowledged but got nothing. I asked the busboy — I was acknowledged but got nothing. I asked the watress handling a bulk of the other tables — SCORE! This cycle would repeat 3 more times in almost the exact fashion.
Receiving our bill was also an issue as we were charged for drinks we didn’t order. Once this was corrected we showed them a coupon on our phone. He proceeded to take the phone and vanish for 10 minutes.
I will try it again as the food was VERY good but the service was a circus to say the least.
My goal is to determine what the staff is huddling around at the corner of the bar. .. some mystical orb that made them forget about waiting on customers or worse?!

I don’t normally write bad reviews, but I’m so upset by our recent experience at Ukai that I feel it’s a disservice to not write one.
We met friends here on a Saturday evening to celebrate recent birthdays. There were six of us in our party, which I don’t consider a large, unmanageable party. The restaurant had other patrons, but it wasn’t packed and we were seated immediately. Our friends, who have been here before, put in our sushi order, and we all ordered drinks from the bar.
It took about 20 minutes to get our drinks order. After an hour and 10 minutes of no food, and apologies from our server, one of us went to the manager and said if we weren’t served food immediately, we were leaving. We’d been sitting there watching parties who came in after us get their food, and we were starving.
The manager came over, apologized profusely, and offered a second round of drinks on the house for their lack of food service. We accepted, and our sushi came out soon after. (Total time between placing our order and our food arriving was 80 minutes!)
When it came time for our bill, our server charged us for the free round of drinks, and had to «consult» with the manager when we pointed it out. The server returned with the new bill for the reduced amount, and I gave the server a very generous cash tip for being professional and pleasant during a somewhat tense situation. Imagine my surprise now as I’m checking my bank statement five days later, and I see I was charged for the original amount! No free drinks after all. What a slap in the face! I’ll be disputing the charge on my card, and I will NEVER give them another dime on principle alone, which is too bad, because the food was actually pretty good, once we actually got it.

I’ve been trying to find a good sushi restaurant that is not too far of a drive. Well, we found it & we will be back. The inside of the restaurant is very nice. We ordered a few special rolls (they have all-​you-​can-​eat, which we did not do). The rolls were very good, not the best sushi I have ever had, but very tasty. And the presentation was excellent.

The boy and I finally made it into this place after passing by so many times. It was now time to see what Ukai was all about. This day in particular they were dead. I mean there was only one other table in this place. Ukai is GORGEOUS on the inside, and I was too excited! The fountain in the center of the restaurant gave me so much life! Ukai boasts a double menu, and I could have my Japanese while my boy could enjoy Chinese. Looking at the menu it seemed extensive, but when you actually looked at it there were only about 5 things on each page with big print. I noticed that the prices for the Chinese food were much higher than most restaurants. The Japanese food seemed correct with it’s price points. I went for the all you can eat sushi dinner, and the boy went for the Mongolian beef.
We started with appetizers– Chicken wings, and egg rolls. Yes I ordered chicken wings. Chinese people can fry some damn chicken. Just not these people because the wings had no taste. They were just greasy. The egg rolls were no better than what you would get from panda express. They tasted like a frozen egg roll. My boyfriends Mongolian beef was good, but it lacked one important factor– Beef! His plate was mostly white and green onions. The little bit of beef on his plate was good, but I’ve had better elsewhere.
My sushi was very good! I had the Alaskan, Salmon, shrimp tempura, and the rainbow rolls. I would definitely have them again. This was the first time I had shrimp tempura rollsl and I really dug it. I usually prefer raw sushi, but this was good for cooked meat in a sushi roll. I wanted to try a couple more rolls, out of pure gluttony because I was getting full so I asked the waitress to tell me what other rolls were. The menu lists the names of the rolls, but there is no description of what’s actually in them. The waitress tells me to take my time and look at the menu. That was to shut me up because she had seated another table. Omg there were 3 tables now so I guess it was too busy for them. I left it at that, and went for a seaweed salad. Worst seaweed salad ever. It tasted like the container that it was stored in.#Plastic. The way I ate that salad you would’ve thought I loved it, but I shoveled that mess in because Ukai charges for any uneaten food with the all you can eat sushi, and I was not about to pay twice for some shit I didn’t even like.
I really wanted red bean ice cream, but I was over Ukai at this point so it was a no go. The waitress brought fortune cookies and the bill. The boy never eats his fortune cookie, and I usually eat them both. I ate half of mine, and spit it out. Those damn fortune cookies tasted like they were involved in a fire! How do you mess fortune cookies up? Gross!
Ukai needs to get it all the way together. It was like a cemetery in there #Dead, and I can definitely see why. The food is definitely lack luster with bottom of the barrel service. The waitress had the personality of a dial tone. This was the first time I’ve ever given less than a 20% or higher tip. If you don’t want to give decent service I’m not going to just give my money away. I also left her a note on the receipt to be a little nicer to her patrons.
The library is closed!!!

Quite good, pleasantly surprised. We love to eat both Chinese and Japanese.
The sushi is great, we like the Japanese selections we’ve tried. My whole family loved the Chinese items we’ve ordered, all were great and we couldn’t decide what we liked best. We had Chicken Fried Rice, General Tso’s Chicken, and Chinese Noodles with Chicken (Can’t remember it’s exact name). Even my picky 11 year old liked them all. Huge menu, we haven’t even begun to try all the things to choose from. Huge servings as well, got 2 – 3 meals from each entrée. Nice décor and relaxing.

Ukai is a sneaky restaurant in that the exterior does not match the feel of the inside. The interior is decorated nicely and I’ve seen several people enjoying (what appeared to be) dates here. The Chinese side of the menu is fine– they don’t have all of the options you’re probably used to seeing, but what they do have is good. I would strongly recommend the house fried rice as they pile the veggies and meats into it. I’ve only gotten sushi here in the evening, but they came a lot stronger with it than I would’ve expected. I’ve had a sushi pizza special that had eel and tuna and all sorts of deliciousness on a cracker crust (if it’s a special when you come, you should seriously try it), and the rest of their offerings seemed good for middle of the country sushi. If you’re in the area and have a hankering for both Chinese and Sushi, this is a solid option.

We came on a Monday at 2:30 for the AYCE lunch deal. Nice selection of fish on the menu for lunch… The other AYCE sushi lunch in the area (sushi ya) takes away yellowtail for the lunch deal. Boooo!
We were sadly the only people here eating the entire time we were there which was sad because the inside of this restaurant is pretty cute and you can tell there was a lot if attention to detail in the design even if it is a little cheesey with all the bamboo and waterfalls Etc.
The AYCE menu has a limited selection of some nigiri, appetizers, And some non– specialty rolls.
Now the fish slices in our nigiri were really nicely sliced and good sized but they again played the «too much rice» game that all these places play. Too bad.
Also they forgot a few little things on our orders which is forgivable but we just ordered again.
I still think sushi ya in Joliet has a better dinner menu for AYCE but then again I haven’t seen ukai’s dinner menu so maybe it could rival the abundant selection. Not sure. The attmosphere of this place is nice enough for any suburb of Chicago!
If come back again hit lunch as long as they can stay in business.

They just started an all you can eat sushi lunch and dinner. Lunch is $ 15, dinner is $ 21. Can’t wait to go back and try this!

VEGAS FLAIR IN PLAINFIELD :)
FIRST — The Ambiance. This place is fantastic. This was our first visit to Ukai. We had never been to the previous restaurant (Hope Buffet). From what we were told (and had read), the owners did a stand out job in the remodel. Yes, there is a fountain in the restaurant. For those of you who have experienced upscale themed dining or a trendy Vegas restaurant… you will definitely appreciate it! The color scheme is pleasing, the lighting is absolutely perfect. In a nutshell, from the moment we stepped through the door we were wowed.
SECOND — Customer Service. Outstanding. Theresa was our server, she was phenomenal. We were «sushi newbies» and she made excellent recommendations. She took the time to ask about our likes and our comfort level with more exotic foods. She was very attentive, and really made our experience wonderful. My only unfortunate statement is… I don’t know the names of the rest of the staff that was working as I would mention them by name as well. EVERYONE WAS ATTENTIVE AND POLITE. Being in the customer service field myself, I give them a great big two thumbs up.
THIRD — Food. I cannot describe how delicious our food was. We started with crab rangoon. Hands down the BEST I’ve ever had. For entrees: I had the California roll, my husband had the sushi pizza, my mother had sweet and sour chicken. As we all sampled each others food… there was not one dish that was better than another. As a matter of fact it was so tasty, we ended up ordering the Angel Hair Sushi Roll. It was out of this world delicious. We then ended the evening with Mochi Ice Cream. When you visit… you MUST save room for the ice cream. We had the strawberry and the red bean. Don’t be deceived, the «red bean» actually tastes more like a mellow black cherry. Very tasty!
We cannot wait to return and hope that Ukai is here to stay!

Very nice, Japanese/​Chinese restaraunt. You can feel the Japanese influence which is good. Its very clean, the staff is excellent and the portions are sizable. We ordered the godzilla roll as an appetizer, and the thing was a good size, as well as being really tasty. I’ve only done sushi in one other place in the area, (and it was buffet sushi) and I’d have to say this place wins the contest hands down. I will make sure when I get a craving for sushi, I hit this place up!