Onami

I was so excited to go to Onami’s last night. I had my groupon in hand and was ready to tackle the buffet, when I noticed the sign was no longer on the building. My heart sank as I read the letter posted in the door that said that the location CLOSED forever and the only one that’s open is in Mission Valley. I know there are bad reviews but I’ve never had a bad experience here. I will admit that the Mission Valley location is far superior to this location, but this one is waaay closer to my house, and who wants to deal with Mission Valley. Not me, but now if I want to get my Onami’s fix, I will have to deal with it and drive alllll the way there =(

Restaurant Closed.

???Under New Mangement???
I think they are gearing up for the Mall’s Bowling/​Tavern Crowd going in at old BJ location…
Came for Sat. Lunch 2pm… They close 3 to 5 for staff. First: $ 16.95 gets
(main area) Miso Soup, Rice, Noodles, Chicken, Tempura, Fishballs, ??Chicken Wings, & Fish Tacos??? The Sushi area was old & not restocked. The Deserts, Cookies, small cakes, Cubbed Fruit, & Green Tea Ice Cream. The Pasta in Catering dish old & Uyon Soup bowl SMALLER… What happened to this place? The Economy? The only thing Japanesse here was the Manager Collecting the money.
We saw 2 couples Seated than Walked out due to nothing in FOOD for buffet. I should of walked out… but I was ready for sushi (that was left)
We had to Force the Manager to have Staff cook Tempura Shrimp. She Told me Dinner has more $ 26.95: Lobster (every hour) Steak, & Seafood (Where was that on the sushi/​Fishballs?) NO SEAFOOD FOR LUNCH
Took my Mints & can’t believe what I spent…(as staff rushed food 3pm lunch) Poor guys, Working hard for low wage…
We are never comming back & just going to Mission Valley everthing better there… I miss the Old «Onami north» … why God … Why???

WORST PLACE I EVER BEEN!!! Their foods were ABSOLUTELY disgusting. I will never ever go again!!!

The sushi is pretty good for an all you can eat sushi place. I love that this place serves sashimi as well. It gives you a bigger bang for the buck. The hot food is decent though sometimes I feel like it’s all oily food, so usually I prefer to go all seafood. The hot food is the main reason why I give it 3 stars instead of 4. Though I have to say, compared to Todai, Onami’s hot food is a lot more edible most of the time.
It’s a great location and easy to get to. It’s right off the freeway and conveniently located within the vicinity of North County Fair mall. I get to have a great meal and get my shopping done!
The service is hit or miss but most of the time the waiters are very accommodating and friendly. It’s just sometimes they seem to get too busy for the number of staff they have on hand and they get overwhelmed. I guess there shouldn’t be too much expectation though in terms of service since it’s a buffet style restaurant.

this is the best for all u can eat sushi and all kinds of seafood hot or cold. Little pricey but worth the money

Terrible sushi with a terrible price on top of it. Expensive and not good. I hate when the rice in my sushi is hard like its been in the refridgerator. They premake everything and put it out. I would stay away from this place. Its subpar sushi with an expensive price. I am suprised its still in bussiness. I would not suggest this place to any of my friends.

Great food, but overpriced. Good for birthdays. $ 30 for dinner. Employees are friendly… but can’t seem to answer any questions. Sushi and lobster tail are delicious.

Pricey…
Paid around $ 27 for Sunday dinner.
Large variety of Japanese /​Sushi foods but i didn’t even come close to eating my money’s worth.
Highlights — lots of sushi rolls to choose from, green tea ice cream, desserts, not too many people in there.
Lowlights — Beef teriyaki too chewy, crab meat hard to remove from legs.

I’ve eaten here a few times already and enjoyed myself every time.
Yesterday, my kids and I did lunch here after a track invitational.
Lil’ Dude was starving and way cranky. There was no time to go home and fix a satiating meal for the boy. He wanted to get his grub on right then ‘n there. Mi Chica wanted something pretty quick as well.
I think neither wanted to wait in a regular restaurant for the entrees either.
So, the next best thing was a buffet with the food ready to grab. I chose to go Onami. I’m glad I did.
Once we got our table, we headed to the sushi bar. All the sushi selections looked good. As I was getting my share of those yummi treats, I watched the sushi cheff replenish the supply of sushi. Good turnover rate of sushi is good to see. Both mi kids loved the sushi and soybeans in the pods.
I loved their seaweed salad. Aside from the seaweed, there were shredded carrots and shitake mushrooms in it. It was not fishy or weird tasting and had a little sweetness to it. I read that seaweed enables you to digest the ocean carbohydrates you get from the stuff. I think that’s beneficial anyways.
The hot foods were good. Ms. Chica loved their mussels topped with mayo. She also had their fried rice and said that was OK. Lil’ Dude was heavily into the tempura veggies and shrimp.
I’m OK with that noodle dish. The suki yaki (bean thread soup thingy) though struck me as too sweet. I much preferred the miso soup. Another item I liked was the corn and crab hush puppies. I went back for more of those and the mussels.
I would skip the dessert bar, with the exception of the fruit tart and even that wasn’t so good. At issue was the lack of moisture and flavor of the cakes. Guess I’ve been spoiled in that department. Clearly, pastries are not their forte’.
Another «issue» were the fresh (?) fruit. When we were there, the pineapples looked dark and on the verge of spoilage. Too bad, because Lil’ Dude, Chica and I love fresh pineapple. We would’ve seriously overindulged in that delectable fruit. I would’ve loved to try them dipped in chocolate.
I didn’t bother with the watermelon. The papaya wasn’t tasting right and the cantelope was just OK. Of all the fruit there, the sliced apples were good.
Oh, they also had white and regular chocolate fountains there. At the time the regular chocolate fountain was not running. The scary thing about chocolate fountains at a buffet is you don’t know what other people before you might have left in them. I dared to dip my apple slice in the white chocolate though. It turned out pretty good.
I didn’t enjoy the green tea ice cream. The color and strange after taste had me fearful for my stomach. As of today, everything’s a-​OK.
The main appeal were the sushi items.
I asked Lil’ Dude how many stars out of 5 he would give this place and he said it deserves a 4. That’s what I would give the sushi, salad and entre bars anyways. I dropped a star for the dessert bar.
The service was good and they had a decent amount of customers there at that time.
‘da kids filled up so much with the entrees, that they both had to go #2 before we left.
This lunch buffet was pretty pricey for the 3 of us. I regret that I could not eat as much as I felt I paid for.
Come here to grub on the hot food and sushi. Skip the fresh (?) fruit and dessert bar.
ehhh gads! I hope that cockroach review is NOT true. Oh God please no cahcah-​roaches. Please let that not be true.

I used to love this place until I watched a cockroach crawl all over their cookies. I complained and they actually told me it was a regular thing for bugs to come out of the chocolate covered strawberries. Seriously.

i have no0o0o0o clue why this place would ever have less then 4 stars! Every single thing about Onami’s is dope!
1 crab legs… all u can eat!
2 a sushi bar as long as a city block with a million different lil choices
3 PLUS hot food, may i say the korean beef ribs here are AMAZINGLY GOOD
4 mini desserts u dont feel guilty after eating all the crab in the kitchen.
for the price, i can say i only go 2x a year, but if i wasnt a broke college student i would pitch a tent in the parking lot and eat here every day!

Normally, my sushi and buffet loving friend and I head to Todai to feed our fix, but this weekend I wanted to check out Onami, seeing how I’d never been there.
To be honest, it wasn’t all that bad — despite their fruits not being that fresh, the udon noodle soup not having the fish cake slices I’m used to at Todai, and an overall smaller selection. Several things stuck out for me at my visit to Onami: their awesome beef teriyaki, fried rice, tempura vegetables, fried calamari rings, and sushi. Oh yeah, and the chocolate fountains for fondue = nice! I will be back next time I’m in the North County Fair area.

I went to Onami last weekend for a birthday dinner and was quite impressed that the food quality has remained consistent over the years.
I’ve been going to Onami for years now but it had been awhile since my last trip. I thought it was a good time to go back and check things out and since there was an occasion, it was perfect timing.
Onami is great in that it has hot plate served as well as a sushi bar. Be prepared though because it’s a buffet with all you can eat everything. The sushi bar is stacked with your typical buffet sushi’s AND MORE. They’ve got a full range of sashimi’s on hand as well. Oysters, salads, you name it. Chances are they’ve got it.
As for the hot foods, it’s headlined by the lobster. They usually limit it to one per customer at a time (you can go back for seconds). Also great is the stuffed shrimp, shrimp tempura, and assortments of fish and beef.
Overall I’d say go for it. The price isn’t too bad either. I believe it’s around $ 25 per head which can easily be made up with the price of sushi nowadays. I say go for it! You won’t be disappointed.

Whenever we felt decadent enough for Onami, our goal was to eat so much that they wouldn’t make any money off of us. If you couldn’t eat your weight in seafood, you didn’t deserve to be Asian. My poor six year old switched to the highest ticket items mainly to justify his existence. Unfortunately we accomplished this short-​sighted goal, and put the Carlsbad branch out of business. Now we have to drive to North County Fair, but the chocolate fountains make up for it… no more waiting for them to replenish the dipped strawberries, then rushing to raid the plate.
I’m perfectly satisfied with the preparation, presentation, quality, and variety of the sushi, sashimi, and hand rolls. So easy to get your money’s worth on the crab claws — child’s play! I don’t know why they have to ration the «lobster tails» — what are they, crayfish with mushy filling? There are plenty of other choices… if they’re not slow about replacing. We’ve never gotten sick, but I guess you have to have a pretty stong stomach to chase salty all-​you-​can-​eat clams with green tea ice cream. Probably the most impressive thing is that everyone maintains this calm façade when inside you just want to fill plate after plate before anyone else can take it!

This Place Stinks Like Bad Sushi!
We’ve been going there for years, as a sort of McSushi but quality AND service has gotten SO BAD that since Father’s Day we won’t go back, EVER.
After we sat down the server told us apologetically that they had a special higher price ($ 27,95) because they had split stuffed «mini lobster» Okay, fine. The place was mostly empty, a bad sign with fresh buffet. I stalled and picked at salads and sushi which seemed wilted. Finally the lobster came up. As I took my first bite, i grimaced as i slid a long hair out of my mouth.
After I told the waitress, the manager came and took my plate, and the poor chef came and apologized, said that a child had been in there with a toy of some kind, but my appetite was gone. I’m no CSI, but it didn’t look like toy hair. Anyhow, then the manager came back and said she had checked my plate and there was no hair, INSINUATING that I WAS LYING!!! Hey, we just wanted a nice family dinner, not to be insulted. After that they refused to make any adjustment on the bill. I paid so as not to cause a scene for my husband, but I DIDN“T EAT.
This is all too much. After five years going there I’m not sure I would have gone back even if they’d comped us, but insult on top of poor hygiene is unacceptable entirely.

Bunch of hungry dudes. Bellies full of beer. Tired from the sun. Food is a great idea.
Tongues waggin’ with stories of pure smack. Filling a table for 4 at a buffet is a better idea.
I have no problem with paying for quantity. Onami does the job for me and my pals especially after a day of golfing with the boys at the nearby Vineyard.
Besides you don’t have to eat everything, just eat what you want and more of it. Don’t hate. Some of it might be bad — don’t eat it — and leave it for the next hapless person.

Grey tuna… all I have to say about this place.

Damnit, thats the last time I go somewhere without reading the reviews first!
I simply don’t ave the heart to give a place one star, but this came pretty damn close. The buffet is WAYYYY overpriced at 25 bucks! They do have a good selection of sushi, but none of it stood out… at all.
After seeing the workers, i have come to the conclusion that us Mexicans suck at making sushi! I’ll stick to Old Town Buffet. At least they know what they’re doing there =)

Why do they make sushi buffets?
It is run by Koreans and the cooks are Mexican.
BTW, I have nothing against that, its just an observation.
Sushi in buffets makes no sense to me. It’s like those pre-​packed sushi boxes– you never know how long its been out, or in this case, who’s being picking at it.
Despite the variety of sushi you can get, most of the sushi is bland and disgusting. Even though they have a section for non-​sushi eaters, I advised going to another Japanese restaurant, preferably non-​buffet.