Tachibana Japanese Restaurant

6715 Lowell Ave
McLean, VA 22101
(703) 847-1771

http://www.j-connections.com/dc/blog/tachibana.php

Visited: March 28, 2009


Should you believe the hype about Tachibana? Maybe, maybe not.

Being a HUGE fan of great sushi and after reading through all of the great reviews for Tachibana, I was excited. My excitement magically moved my mouse pointer to click on the "Send Friend" button on the Tachibana Yelp page. My mouth watered as I addressed the Yelp email to my wife and a few close friends with the subject line, "We MUST try this place out!"

Since sending this message and knowing my love of sushi, I received a great response and ultimately decided to visit Tachibana over the weekend. The days seemed to pass ever so slowly as the thought of dining on amazing sushi danced in my little pea brain. With a Homer Simpson like fascination for food, I'd find myself on the verge of drooling whenever I read the reviews for Tachibana.

Saturday finally arrived and my wife, a friend and two sons made the trip to Tachibana. From the reviews, we arrived right at 5pm for the dinner service in an effort to beat the rush and land a table large enough for three adults and two babies. The portly hostess was an older Asian woman in her late 50's that mumbled her word and only raised her voice to tell us they only had one high chair.

Okay, not a problem...

We made our way to the table, sat down as the wife quickly ran to the minivan to pick up a baby stroller for the one baby boy that didn't have a high chair. Tachibana was already starting to fill up with patrons and we were greeted by a kind looking waitress that handed us our menus and took our drink orders.

My wife, our friend and I quickly opened the menus and gleefully shared some of the delicious sounding rolls and sushi. Now I must confess, I love Toro (fatty tuna) as I find it to be one of my favorite cuts of sushi. We decided on our order and quickly put in our order with the waitress. I happily ordered three orders (6 pieces) of Toro to share with the wife and our friend and could not wait to experience what I had read other Yelpers post about Tachibana.

The order arrived and looked spectacular. The rainbow roll was probably the most beautiful roll I have ever seen with all the bright color blending together in such a gorgeous combination. The pieces of Toro were generous cuts and sat there tempting me to leave my manners behind and dive into the sushi. Thankfully I controlled myself and waited for our friend to start us off and then attacked the Toro.

So here's the real deal on the sushi and our rolls. Let me first begin with the Toro. The quality of the Toro was AMAZING and probably the BEST Toro I had eaten in years. The consistency of the Toro was fresh and buttery as it should be. Each bite was blissful as I was so happy to finally have such great quality Toro after what seemed like an eternity of mediocre Toro.
The flavor of the rolls were okay, but my biggest surprise was related to the rice. The quality of the rice wasn't the best and actually seemed a bit mushy and overcooked. Overall, I thought the rolls were okay and unlike the Toro didn't provide that "wow" factor with the flavor and/or quality. My wife actually reported experiencing a bit of "fishy" flavor in one of the rolls (jalapeno, scallions and tuna) which I couldn't taste myself.

The entire time we were stuffing our faces, our boys dined on their Cheerios which as most babies are known to do drop five on the floor for every one they managed to get into their mouth. Soon the floor was littered with little O's and the wait staff smiled and almost appeared to "coo" as the boys waved and smiled at everyone.

Surprisingly the portly hostess kept coming by our table, loudly mumbling something we didn't understand as she looked at the floor. Walking away she's yell to the waitresses and pointed at our table, our boys and the floor. This odd behavior would've been okay had she done it once...but she kept coming by over and over and really started to make us feel unwelcome in a crowded restaurant.

Finishing our food, we asked for the bill which was brought to us quickly, almost as if the staff was ready for us to leave. I'm not often shocked at a bill (especially when I order Toro), but was a bit surprised to see our bill to be ore than $100 for four rolls and 3 orders of Toro. The rolls didn't warrant such a high bill but I knew the Toro was a specialty that knocked up the price, I just didn't expect it to knock it over $100 especially as there was no price listed next to the Toro.

Regardless, I happily paid as the Toro was quite exceptional although I didn't experience almost orgasmic dining experience shared by other Yelpers. After I signed my credit card slip and we packed up our belongings, the hostess immediately ran over and started barking orders to the bus boys and wait staff to clear our table and clean the floor.

I honestly would've been happy to give an additional star to Tachibana had it not been for the rude hostess and her odd unfriendly behavior.