Ajia Restaurant & Sushi Bar

Meh is the term that pretty much sums up this place. If you live in the building and want to quickly grab dinner this place is a decent option, but definitely not any place to seek out. The basics are fine, but some of the more rare types of fish often taste a little off. For example, I refuse to eat any type of yellowtail from here. It’s just not right. I definitely recommend that you stick with rolls that involve tuna, salmon, fake crab, or tempura. If you venture outside of those options you’re bound to be disappointed. The teriyaki dishes are also decent. The one time that I ate there the servers were a little rude. Note that it’s BYOB.

I stopped by here a week or two ago, and it looks completely shut down. A note on the window from the landlord said something about the lease being broken. Too bad, this was my favorite spot for sushi. I hope some new sushi joint takes its place.

Came here for the AYCE sushi, which was just mediocre. However, I was VERY unhappy with the service and hence gave a less than usual tip. A week later, I saw that on my credit card statement the charge amount was wrong. Turns out that the server fraudulently increased the tip amount without my authorization!!! I called them up and they admitted to changing it, and on top of that, screamed at me over the phone for giving too low a tip! This is plain criminal. Never again.

I used to live in the apartment building above this place. It used to be my go to Sushi resteraunt long before I got on Unilocal.
I was there the other night. 25 minutes in I had to ask for my appetizer and gave them 5 minutes or I was walking out the door (note, they were not really busy at all).
My appetizer amazingly came out 4 minutes later. Was good and the Sushi was good as well. Nothing to write home about or to overcome my disappointment in the service.
Given the number of Sushi places there are in the area, I won’t be going back.

This place is OK. The prices are pretty cheap. 8.99÷3 rolls for lunch + salad and 9.99÷3 rolls for dinner. Not too bad. However, my spicy tuna roll was rancid. I couldn’t eat it. I got my order to go or else I would have sent it back. My salmon/​avocado and veggie rolls were great, though. The ginger dressing on the salad isn’t the normal one you get at most Japanese restaurants, but it was very good. Since my bad experiences here, I’ve been ordering from Machi Sushi Bar, which is much better. Do not go out of your way to eat here. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to order that spicy tuna roll again…

Came here with a group (I didn’t choose the restaurant) and was pleasantly surprised that it wasn’t terrible! Food took a bit long to come out, but we weren’t in a hurry, and they didn’t rush us. That said, it is so close to the Walnut Street Bridge and the prices are expensive for how good the food is.

Tucked away into a far corner of the UC district in Philadelphia, Ajia definitely delivers some great food, although the experience is tempered by the disappointing service, as remarked by other Unilocalers.
Showed up on a Saturday evening, and it was about three quarters full, with a decent atmosphere around the place. The infamous grumpy waitress was our server, although I have to say that I genuinely did try to give her a chance before coming to my conclusion.
Either way, ignoring the service, the food was great and the prices were really good for the quality. A nice (ethnic) joint in Philly that serves good, authentic food.

At first I empathized with the other Unilocalers who got the infamous grumpy waitress. But after talking it over with my friend, he pointed out that she doesn’t necessarily have a bad attitude; it’s more like she’s stoic-​faced and silent.
There could be many reasons for her disposition:
Maybe she eats ice-​cubes.
Maybe she has painful cavities.
Maybe her English isn’t good.
Maybe her name is Ajia,
you killed her father so prepare to die!
As long as she didn’t spit in my food, I guess I don’t really care.
The main reason you would come here is for the affordable sushi. Lunch menu specials are a steal. $ 9.95 for two rolls and two pieces of sashimi + soup/​salad? I’ll take it.
The quality and freshness of the sushi is fine. It’s higher quality than a lot of cheap sushi buffets and far superior to takeout places. I asked for pretty standard sushi pieces: Salmon + tuna. The idea is that if the salmon + Tuna sucks, everything else is guaranteed to be inferior as well. I was satisfied with my lunch special.
Also got the yellowtail and the fish was fatty (in the right way) and enjoyable.
What really throws me off is that I didn’t know the 15% tip was already included. Damn we double-​tipped the ice-​cube eating girl. Oh well. We live and move on.

you come here for the cheap sushi rolls combo for lunch, you get 18 pieces of sushi roll for 9 dollars. it’s no where near top quality, but its worth the money for the amount they give you. I also come here because i live right next to this restaurant at left bank, so when im lazy to walk too far for meals I come here. these are the 2 positives for me.
the negative: 1. waitress is the worst you will see in philly, maybe top 10 worst in the U.S., extremely bad attitude, I dont get how you can be in that bad of a mood everyday. how can she expects to get tips with that attitude. that leads to 2. there is an mandatory 15% tip already included. they also dont specified what that 15% is, so if you dont look at your bill carefully you wont know. What’s worse, when the bill comes again for you to sign, theres another column empty for tip. It’s a trap for people to pay extra if you didnt notice the 15% tip already included. So if you pay another 15%, you would end up paying a 32% tip for a horrific service. DONT BE FOOLED.

My last experience at Ajia caused me to downgrade them by a star. As previously noted, this isn’t the place you go for a loquacious, friendly waitress – you come here for cheap-​yet-​palatable sushi for lunch. Their lunch offering continues to be a soup or salad with 3 maki rolls for $ 9 – pretty good. But herein lies the problem. I understand that inflation kicks in and sometimes you need to charge higher prices or cut back on what’s included to maintain a profit margin, but I would highly prefer that they add a dollar or so to the price of the meal than to skimp on the quality of the food as they did the last time I was here. The salmon in my Philadelphia roll literally was cut into a julienne. It was juxtaposed with a mini boulder of cream cheese that made me feel like I had purchased the salmon-​flavored cream cheese they sell at the store (not that I would ever do that).
My friend ordered the nigiri special, which looked way better than my maki. So perhaps that’s the way to go.
Anyway, I’ll consider myself lucky that I can opt to walk over to Mizu on 40^th instead when I want reasonably priced sushi.

I’ve long since moved away from college and far far away from Ajia. I understand the service isn’t stellar. But the sushi and BYOB component is amazing, especially after a long week of studying and then bombing (or feeling as if you’ve bombed) an exam.
The quality and freshness of the sushi matches a lot of places that I’ve been, except it is unlimited here. I have never had eel that beats the eel at Ajia. YUM!
Ajia I miss you!

Seriously good sushi at a seriously good price. I’d give it 3 ½ stars really.
I mostly get the lunch special, which beats almost any other sushi place in the city. However, as has been said here already: the service is pretty dismal.
Basically, it comes down to this: if you are someone who doesn’t care about service, this is a five-​star spot. Almost anyone would give it 5-​stars for takeout, I believe. If you are someone who *only* cares about service, and is not interested in food, it is a one-​star place. For everyone else, it falls somewhere in between.

Get over yourself/​shut up and enjoy the sushi.
I moved to West Philly from Seattle in the summer of 2005 and found Ajia my first week there. I proceeded to eat lunch and dinner at Ajia every day for the first month I lived in Philly– then law school started and I ran out of money. For the next 4 years I ate at Ajia about once a week, more if I could afford it.
But what a month that first month was! Their lunch special $ 8.95 for soup, salad, 3 sushi rolls (Spicy Crunchy Tuna x 3 please) — it couldn’t be beat. Many days I walked from UPenn campus past what felt like hundreds of food carts because Ajia was all I wanted. When I started having gluten reaction to the crunchy tempura in the Spicy Crunchy Tuna roll I often would order the sashimi appetizer for lunch– what a treat and what a great price.
The real secret is the $ 23.95 all you can eat made to order sushi dinner. Ajia is a BYO– so bring a bunch of wine and a bunch of friends and stay all night. Every order is made fresh and you can tell. I have never had a «fishy» meal at Ajia– never once.
My first real date with a guy a trillion years ago, we ended up at Ajia and ordered a ton of sushi. That was the one and only time I ever saw this happen there– but they brought our millions of rolls out on a huge wooden ship that was almost too big for the table. So sweet– they must have really wanted us to have a special night.
As the years went by, I brought so many dates to Ajia, the waitress would stop by the table while the boy was in the loo and say «He more handsome, he most handsome, he good one.» Apparently she had a Unilocal review system just for me and my dates.
I became well known by the small staff and they would save 2 dozen surf clam for my birthday– they knew me that well. We celebrated over 40 birthdays, a couple law school graduations, and a bar exam completions at Ajia over the 5 years I was in Philly. They have my own personal wine bottle opener, as theirs kept getting stolen, I brought one in and they would only use it for me, to make sure I was happy– I didn’t care if they used it for everyone– I wanted everyone to enjoy Ajia.
One hot summer day a monsoon came through– they were happy to hand me an umbrella for my walk home, knowing I would be back the next day. If the restaurant was quiet when I arrived the waitress would start up the boyband cd of Blue in short order and the Pavlovian response would begin. Thank god you don’t hear Blue playing on a regular basis– otherwise I would lose my mind thinking about sushi.
The walk home from a long night of binge eating sushi and binge drinking wine to wash it down is one of my most dearly missed past times from Philadelphia. My heart breaks when I think about not being able to run out and just get a decent meal at Ajia now that I’m in Santa Fe.

This review is based on my three visits here from 2008-​09, so my feedback may not be entirely relevant at this time. In any event, here is my overall impression of Ajia:
Each of the three times I ate here, I opted for the $ 22.95 all-​you-​can-​eat sushi offer. It’s not a bad deal, especially if you are like me and can easily put away 40+ pieces of sushi. I tend to stick to the nigiri, as the fish-​to-​rice ratio in maki rolls tends to be worse. The fish here was okay, as would be expected of a restaurant offering AYCE sushi; nothing spectacular, but nothing poor. I noticed that there was a bit too much rice on most of the sushi, which is also to be expected of any AYCE sushi joint but is still a turn-​off nonetheless.
In terms of service, I was put-​off by the surly waitress mentioned by other Unilocalers. She was very unfriendly and seemed at best disinterested and at worst hostile. It’s a good thing (for her) that there is an automatic «service charge» applied to every bill, as that kind of service is not receptive of an 18−20% tip. But again, my experiences at Ajia were from 2008-​09, so maybe she has become friendlier… or maybe not. Also, the sushi took quite a while to be made, even when the restaurant was nearly completely empty. I don’t know if it’s a stall tactic to try getting the AYCE patron to get bored or feel sated quicker, or if it is due to a really slow sushi chef, but the wait time for the sushi to be brought out was excessive.
Overall, Ajia is an okay option for fulfilling a sushi craving, and the fact that it offers made-​to-​order AYCE sushi is a positive attribute, but the subpar service here is a bit of a turnoff. But what basically made me stop eating here was the fact that the restaurant ALWAYS seemed to be empty. The couple of times that I came here happened to be Friday or Saturday nights, and the place was pretty much empty. That definitely made me think twice about coming back here for sushi, as I’m not going to eat raw fish from a place with such a low turnover rate. Also, I’ve heard that they have raised their price for the AYCE sushi deal, which is incomprehensible given their already-​low customer base to begin with. Ultimately, Ajia benefits from the scarcity of Japanese restaurants in University City, as I’m guessing that, given more options, patrons would choose to eat elsewhere.

I used to come into Ajia regularly four or five years ago, and at that time it would have gotten at least three stars. The all you can eat sushi special being my soft spot. But my recent Tuesday night meal had suggested otherwise. Ajia exhibits signs of a dying restaurant and here are my reasons why:
1. We brought a bottle of Riesling to be enjoyed with our food. A corkscrew was slammed on the table for us. Seriously? I’ve never ever been to a BYO where I have to cork my own wine.
2. The wine glasses were VISIBLY dirty, gross.
3. The prices have gone up a lot in recent years. I understand what inflation is, but the fact is you’re paying more money for less food. Rolls used to be larger and not so hurriedly constructed. And the pork katsudon bowl was very small for $ 10. You get almost 25% more at Yakitori Boys – same price, and a lot tastier.
4. Everyone complains about the service of the one waitress. I think she is the owner or part owner. In addition to the wine corking incident, we also weren’t asked if we wanted soup or salad with our food. We were just given soup as a default I guess?
All in all this place has an atmosphere like it just doesn’t care anymore. The all you can eat special isn’t even advertised on the menu anymore, but from what I hear, it’s now $ 24. If you’re really in the mood for sushi or Japanese food, I would advise you to broaden your search radius outside of University City. Definitely think twice about coming here for dinner though.
P. S. — the music playlist here is archaic. I don’t think I’ve heard an Evanescence song since high school.

I don’t believe that I’ve never reviewed AJIA.
OKAY THE FIRST TIME I WOULD HAVE GIVEN IT A 3 AND SAID THE WAITRESS WAS LAME, THE MUSIC WAS HILARIOUSLY BAD, AND THE ALL YOU CAN EAT WAS DIFFICULT FOR ME TO AFFORD.
The second time I would have given 3 stars and said that each time I’ve been here, there’s been a sweet and incredibly charming young waitress who is really quite delightful, fyi. But it’s still hard for me to get my money’s worth, though nice to share the all you can eat with a friend, so you can teamwork into finishing.
OKAY, FLASH FORWARD TO THE PRESENT. IT’S 2010, AND I’M GIVING THEM 4 STARS.
The young waitress has been here all three times, and this time, I paid close attention to the staff after giving my boyfriend the heads up that the one waitress is infamous. But she seems to have been distributed less interactive tasks, like seating and delivering some dishes, while the friendlier waitress takes orders, etc. I strongly believe the era of the bad waitress has ended, because even on a PACKED friday night, she didn’t act rushed, and I caught her laughing with the other staff numerous times, as opposed to scowling and ignoring customers.
It says the all you can eat will charge you for condiments requested, but don’t worry; soy sauce, low sodium soy sauce, wasabi, and ginger come in abundance, free of charge. Also, there is unlimited miso soup or salad.
They didn’t charge me for not finishing two pieces, but I was really afraid they would, so when I had 8 pieces left, I scarfed down 6. This later lead to sickness, but don’t worry, all I lost was my green tea.
THE GREEN TEA– 1.00, a little eggy, but authentically amazing.
THE GYOZA SOUP– A delicious dumpling soup that is a value over the equally priced dumplings themselves, with fantastic broth.
I was a little irritated with my orders in all-​you-​can eat, because, though it’s hard to know what everything is, I purposely order different sushis every plate… but at least 4 pieces were exact repeats, as if they ran out/​didn’t want to make what I ordered and figured I wouldn’t know the difference. Frustrating, because there was a tuna that I really couldn’t handle. The crunchy rolls are intensely crunchy, and there’s too much cucumber in the california roll, making it a little bland.
STILL, I see great hope for AJIA. While I stuffed 28 pieces in me, I could have been done at 18… and 18 pieces come with the 9 dollar lunch special. I have decided to retire from my attempts at all-​you-​can-​eat 24 dollar sushi, and will find piece-​full sushi dining with the affordable lunch special. A new door has opened… let’s hope the nice young waitress works the lunch shift, too.
Oh right, and they’re BYOB.
I don’t recommend large groups, because they can only take so many orders at one time, and large groups slow down service for the entire restaurant, not to mention your own table. And sometimes, the rest of us find your overwhelming presence obnoxious.

I’ve been going to this place for two years when I feel the intense need to satisfy my sushi cravings. All-​you-​can-​eat for $ 22? It’s a definite steal/​bargain for me. The amount of pieces of sushi and maki I can consume can be unsightly at times…
The only thing that prevents me from giving this place the full 5 stars is the service, as the prior reviews have discussed so thoroughly. The waitress is quite rude: never smiles or greets you nicely, and yes, she really does throw down anything she’s about to serve you right on the table without any hesitancy. There are times I empathize with her, as I come from a family-​run restaurant too and understand the stress and energy-​depletion that comes with the job, but then I realize that you’re in this job to support your family, so the least you could do is to keep your customers happy so that they come back and your business is prolonged.
If you’re a big consumer of sushi and aren’t too particular about service like me, then by all means, come here. Another bonus? BYOB.

Pros: the $ 8.99 lunch special!!, parking
Cons: the we-don’t have-​the-​$ 8.99-lunch-special-on-sundays, University City prices
The I don’t know if it’s a pro/​con: the same pop mix, the moody waitress (i’ve come to adore her)
I normally just get take-​out so I don’t have to deal with the waitress who really does throw plates/​menus/​drinks/​whatever she has in her hands. (She can be sweet too sometimes, just FYI!) The lunch special is pretty extensive with hot entrees, 3 rolls + soup/​salad, or 4pcs nigiri + 1 roll + soup/​salad. Pretty good deal. And it’s definitely easier to find parking around this area than down by 40^th Street/​Fresh Grocer area. The sushi is okay, better than Mizu but nothing spectacular. If you’re craving Japanese food and not expecting the best, give it a try.

Endless sushi deal–
twenty five, not bad, not great.
God, this song AGAIN.

I’m not sure why this place has such a low rating, I think it’s one of the best places to get sushi in the city.
They have an excellent lunch deal: 3 rolls for around $ 9 which includes soup or salad. My favorites here are the dragon roll and the crunchy sweet potato roll, which I’ve never seen at any other establishment. They are also pretty quick to serve at the lunch hour: I’ve never waited more than 10 minutes for my rolls and they are always quick to take your order immediately.