Ichiban Japanese Restaurant

So I've always enjoyed eating at the Ichiban chain so I was pleasantly surprised to see that they were close in an area I was visiting. The Tampa location on Fowler was amazing! I got the Yaki Soba, I believe it was, and it was fantastic. A delightful mix of vegetables and thin noodles cooked to perfection in a savory sauce. So when I visited the St. Petersburg location several weeks later I was excited to have the same dish for lunch again. Well let me tell you, it was nowhere close to being as good. The noodles were a different noodle that was very overcooked and soggy (like overcooked Ramen yuck!) And there was egg thrown in which I did not expect or would have opted out. The shrimp seemed like it was cooked separately and thrown in last minute, and there were seeds sprinkled about in it. It was like I had a completely different dish and the only thing I ordered different was the shrimp instead of chicken. I tried eating it anyway because I was so hungry, but after a few bites I just couldn't do it. I will say that the staff was very friendly! They do Take-out only at this location in St. Pete so I didn't realize any of this until getting home. They were also being inspected at the time I walked in so I guess I will chalk it up to the chef being nervous. I attached 2 pics to show the difference in quality. The dish on the white plate in the second pic was from the Tampa location, which was much better.

Been going here for a few weeks. Always order salmon avocado roll. Which is 5.75. The lunch special was 11 dollars last week. Which means I was saving a bit of money getting two of those rolls. Even though they won’t give you miso soup since they are still “take out only” for no reason. Today we get the same lunch special order and now suddenly it’s 12 dollars (so worse deal than regularly ordering the rolls) and now suddenly the regular sushi menu disappears entirely off their website. They now only have a menu for specialty rolls and you can’t order regular rolls at night apparently? They have clearly upped all their prices overnight without mentioning it and it’s a huge disappointment. Taking my business elsewhere.