Blowfish Seafood Restaurant

Blowfish is kind of a «hidden gem» in the Silver Spring area.
Blowfish has a large interior. They offer stool seating at the bar as well as tables and ½ booth, ½ tables.
My first experience here was not too bad.
The hostess was a bit unfriendly but I managed to get over that.
The food is fabulous and so was our server.
I ordered the Chicken Teriyaki with White Rice. This platter comes with an overload of chicken, which by the way is not a bad thing lol. The white rice was served in two large rounded off scoops topped off with a few pieces of broccoli. The presentation was beautifully done.
I also ordered a Long Island Iced Tea as my drink. They make their drinks VERY strong, just a warning have a DD in mind!
The food came out in about 20 minutes so the wait wasn’t too long to complain about.
I recommend trying the food here, it’s very delicious and not overly expensive. Especially because of how big the portions are.
They serve great seafood and sushi!!!

Yes, this place is more of a bar than a sushi restaurant, but to me it looked like a happy place. I walked in and ordered shrimp and an Alaska roll. The food came out in about 10 mins. The server apologized for the «delay» and offered me a free drink while I was waiting. The food was excellent! Shrimp were huge and had a nice Cajun spice to them.
I would definitely go here again!

This place is weird as hell. Honestly just go in and see for yourself because I really don’t know where to start. And if I do start, I’m afraid I won’t stop.

This is not a sushi restaurant you go and sit and have a quiet dinner with your wife its a clubby sports bar with amazing sushi at a reasonable price. And that’s OK. I get my sushi Togo. After I have a beer with a buddy. Music is controlled by bartenders usually hip hop or reggae and thats OK too. Beer is cold bartenders are friendly and eager for the business. The to go sushi never disappoints. Sexy jalopenos is awesome. The place has an identity crisis with two menus one is soul food and fried seafood the other is a great Japanese menu. As long as you know what to expect this place is better than good.

So super sad what has happened to this place. It used to be so awesome now it is another bar that serves questionable Fish. Never again.

Went for a lunch during the workday. The service was slow, crazy since the place was empty. The waitress offered me refills on my coke a few times, which I agreed to. Then it turns out they don’t give free refills. Definitely felt tricked.

Holy fucking God.
Once we got through the gang of thugs outside of the door at 11pm, no one served us. We left promptly.

New management? Certainly new faces. The décor has been splattered with beer posters, the sushi bar has been converted to a booze bar, and the music is classic rock. The bartender was more interested in chatting up the female customers than serving. He had to be reminded to bring the miso soup, and it was so weak I had to add soy sauce. Sushi quality was merely adequate, buffet grade. I hate to dismiss Blowfish entirely as it is in walking distance, but today’s experience knocks it down to Meh.

I love blowfish. The atmosphere for a Friday and Saturday night is very live. Everyone is very friendly. Happy hour drink is from 2 – 10 so try to get there before that. Every time we go there Mama (the owners mother) always hooks us up with 50% discount and free drinks. She’s mad cool. She sometimes comes out to take shots with us. It’s definitely my to go place.

I’ve had better ramen noodles in a microwave. Bad service, horrible drinks, check it out if you want food poisoning .
A ghetto establishment, run by a half as-​s owner.

I DJ’ed here twice and got free drinks. That was a first.
I have visited this restaurant before though so i know what’s up.
The drinks are a bit pricey considering the fact that they have competition in the SAME plaza center. They have a latin restaurant and an american bar in the same vicinity.
The food is pretty good, they just need to lower the drink prices.

I simply cannot give this place more than one star. And that star is for the food. It’s in my neighborhood. I love seafood. So far it’s always been fresh. BUT THE ATMOSPHERE AND SERVICE IS THE WORST EVER!!!
problems?
1. LOUD HIP HOP MUSIC THAT INCLUDES PROFANITY
2. Servers that act like they aren’t that pressed that you’re there
You walk in at almost anytime and its empty. A pretty large space with no one in it. No one really there to greet you. You’d almost think they might not be open. I walked in once and the hostess was TAKING A NAP on the seating bench at the back wall!!!
The only folks that I ever see there are guys, hanging out at the bar, watching the game. So they are drunk, the music is loud, and it’s generally not a place that anyone in their right mind would choose to sit and eat dinner.
But the seafood is actually good. A real shame. I’ve never seen a spot trying so hard to fail in terms of environment and experience. I’m just not that desparate.
If you want, get carryout. Wear earplugs. Don’t have any expectations and you MIGHT be satisfied with what you get. Better yet — go somewhere else.

I don’t know if my experience was abnormal, but this place was not what the reviews made me expect. The nigiri was not fresh, lukewarm, and the rice was poor, under-​seasoned, and poorly formed.
The service was from a young lady who was not dressed at ALL like a lady, and sadly she did not know anything about sushi or the menu. Nothing at all. Sushi is not hugely complicated, training a server and making sure she knows what is on your menu is hospitality 101.
The fried rice was good and worth buying. But this place is billing itself as a sushi place. I expected at least passable sushi.

This place serves sushi and it is a bar. By no means is it a sushi bar.
Came here on a Friday night with a friend after reading Unilocal reviews. I stepped in and almost walked back out. I thought I had stepped into a bar in College Park. We were confused since the hostess/​waitress let us stand at the door trying to figure out if we seat ourselves or wait. You sit yourself by the way. After checking out the menu my friend and I waited another 10 minutes while our waitress was attending/​flirting with the bar full of gentlemen. We ordered spicy salmon, spicy tuna, shrimp tempura roll, waterfront roll, and white tuna sashimi. The waterfront roll was pretty good. I didn’t care for either spicy rolls since they weren’t spicy at all and filled with panko bread crumbs to make up for the lack of fish. The white tuna was mediocre. For 5.95 I expected thicker and bigger pieces of sashimi, not small lukewarm fish that lacked white tuna’s crispy crunch and buttery flavor.
I really agree with other Unilocalers about the service. By the time the waitress returned to check on us we had finished. Its not family friendly either; the music selection is rather explicit. This is definitely a place I’d try once but don’t plan on returning.

Strange indeed! Hit it at 7 or so on a tuesday. Nobody at tables, just a bunch of guys at the bar for happy hour. Ordered sushi/​sashimi platter and a martini. Had no olives, so had lemon on the side.
Sushi was good! Sashimi maybe a bit too thick for my taste, but was fresh and CHEAP! 22 bucks for a pule of sashimi, 4 pieces of sushi and a salmon roll. Only word of warning — you have to like rap music and loud guys at the bar (which I do). Proved too much for a foursome that came in-​then left very shortly after that. Obviously the bar takes more precedence than the food, which might be a bit of a waste of kitchen talent.

This is based solely on my experience just now attempting to order delivery. I got a flier on my door saying they’re open until 2AM and delivery is possible with a 15 $ minimum. Great. It’s 12:30, I’m hungry, lets do this.
1) The lady put me on hold 4 times. The last time she put me on hold, she told me they couldn’t deliver past 12. Fair. Should’ve told me that when I first called. Fine, I’ll pick it up.
2) I repeated everything I ordered + my phone number + my address several times — she couldn’t understand a word I was saying. This is your menu, yes? When I say tuna tartar, I do not expect you to say, «The WHO?»
3) She sounded sleepy/​drugged. Completely unprofessional. Acted surprised I was calling to order. Does this not happen normally when you flier people’s doors?
4) She just called me back as I’m finishing this review to tell me the sushi bar is closed and the only thing I can order is yakisoba. HOW DO YOU NOT KNOW THIS BEFORE YOU WASTE 20 MINUTES OF MY TIME IN A MANNER SIMILAR TO PEELING MY NAILS OFF?
This is the stupidest fucking experience I have ever had with a dining establishment. I’m trying to spend 50 dollars in takeout food. You have to do nothing but slice raw fish and take my money. REALLY?! If you can’t do that past a certain time, TELL ME BEFORE I SPEND 20 EXCRUCIATING MINUTES ON THE PHONE WITH YOU. Trust me, I don’t want to be doing that any more than you do.
Ok. /​rant

We were excited to have a new restaurant in the neighborhood. Unfortunately, Blowfish isn’t anything to rave about. I thought the sushi was good, but completely comparable in both price and flavor to our other local sushi bar (about a mile away). There was nothing we ate that set Blowfish apart from the competition. Having said that, there was nothing that makes it worse than the competition, either. The food is good. Not special, but good.
I’m afraid that this restaurant is going to struggle because of its location. It is in a shopping center and difficult to see from Cherry Hill Road. It shares its parking lot with a Popeye’s Chicken, a pizza delivery place, a liquor store, and the sketchy Corner Pocket bar, definitely not the best neighbors for a restaurant trying to pitch itself as something semi-​upscale.
As far as atmosphere goes, Blowfish can’t quite make up its mind. It’s significantly bigger than it looks from the outside, and it has nice mood lighting and a fun-​looking large bar. I walked in and was impressed. However, it was hard to get a real sense of the atmosphere because the restaurant was completely empty. We were there on a weeknight eating early because we had our baby in tow, so I didn’t expect it to be hopping, but it felt strange to be the only customers for most of our meal. And note to Blowfish: if you are going to go to all of the effort to create a hip and pretty dining space, take the last step and order menus suitable for a fine dining restaurant. The laminated, misspelled menu felt amateur and out-​of-​place. Oh, and the music was baffling. When we walked in they were playing Boys II Men (seriously) and at one point we listened to several minutes of acoustic Christmas carols. In June.
Because we were the only customers we received lackluster service. I have found that, counterintuitively, the fewer customers there are in a restaurant, the lazier the service becomes. That was certainly the case at Blowfish. Our waiter would disappear into the kitchen for long stretches. The food was served quickly but drink refills were hard to come by and it took awhile to pay the tab.
I’m desperate for more nearby restaurant options, and for that reason I hope the new Blowfish pulls itself together and draws a good crowd. There is potential here, so I hope it is realized.

Don’t know how this place got any stars, the service was horrible and had less than sub-​par «sushi.» The empty restaurant was proof of the rest of the review. The spicy tuna was shredded and had icky little crunchy things in it. The rainbow roll tasted like under ripe cucumber. The spider crab roll tasted like pasty sand and had LETTUCE in it! When we brought it to the attention of the waiter, he defended the crab and said it’s all like that, even though in the many years of eating the roll I have never had one taste like that. He also never returned to the table after we complained, I had to go up to the bar to pay the check.
When we left, I was feeling sick and threw up when we got back to where we were staying and my husband wasn’t feeling much better. My husbad said that the white tuna on the sashimi also tasted like pre-​cooked packaged chicken fish SPAM and was repulsive.
As an aside, they were playing terrible 90’s R&B and other music with many profanities. Definitely not for children!

(One of the last dining adventures l had before going gluten-​free back in June.)
No, they do not have fugu, but they do have a decent fresh variety of sushi and rolls at a reasonable price. We had gyoza, Japanese pizza, the regular love boat and a Paradise Roll. They had Kirin on draft at $ 4/​each! Next time I would skip the gyoza and Paradise Roll, but I would reorder the Japanese pizza. We were expecting it to be like okonomiyaki, but it’s a bit crunchier than that, and of course, topped with salmon and drizzled with a teriyaki-​style glaze. The love boat had your usual variety of salmon, white fish, tuna, red snapper and the more common rolls. Appetizers and entrees and 2 draft beers were $ 78.48 before tip and fed 3 people.
The amusing thing about this restaurant is the combination of Mando-​pop and early ‘90s mixes they have on their playlist. We’re talking about hearing the first few notes of Biggies’ «Big Poppa» and feeling nostalgic and getting into your nod and groove, when suddenly the singer busts out in Mandarin. I could tell the two guys at the bar were hella confused! And it was only 6pm.
One star off because after we were served, they forgot about us. After waiting over 15 minutes, we had to go up to the hostess stand to settle our bill.

1^st time dining in, and my experience was pleasant! Staff very friendly, and attentive! Sushi was delightful, as well as the presentation. Melissa (bartender), is sweet, come out and visit her!