Japanese Restaurant

Hanami Japanese restaurant is the best sushi restaurant in town. This restaurant is located at the Campus Village Shopping Center, in front of the building “University View”. The address is 8145-M Baltimore Avenue, College Park, MD 20740. Open seven days a week, Hanami Japanese restaurant is small but lovely and offers home-style Japanese dishes. I first heard about Hanami from my friend who delivers for Hanami. Despite this, my first visit was not until October 11. Judging from the outside, I could immediately tell that this was a fairly small restaurant. The size of the main dining area is around twenty feet times forty-two feet. Upon walking in, customers are greeted with a hallway, where a waiting line can form if there are too many customers. The dining area is located to the right of the hallway. At the end of the hallway, I found the register and sushi bar on the right. Lighting in the restaurant is dark, and with no background music, the only sound comes from the chatter of customers.

The main dining area is filled with a lot of Japanese decorations, giving the restaurant a traditional Asian ambience, though some western influences are also apparent. The hallway and dining area are divided by a Japanese style wall made out of wooden frames with Japanese patterns engraved on the upper segments. All of the tables and chairs in the dining area are also wooden. Cherry blossoms and Japanese dolls hang on the walls. In addition to the Asian dÐ"©cor, it is clear that the decorators included some western traditions as well. The Japanese style lanterns that hang on the ceiling of the sushi bar are joined with Christmas bulbs. Furthermore, Halloween props such as figurines made of straw also decorate the walls.

Hanami primarily offers sushi, sashimi, udon, tempura, hibachi, rolls, and soups. The special rolls such as spider roll, dragon roll, sunny roll, rock’n roll, rainbow roll, crazy roll, and dancing eel roll are named after either their color or shape. Western influences also appear in the special rolls menu for Hanami. Rolls on that menu include the widow roll, raven roll, American dream, terp roll, exotic roll, Hawaiian roll, and diamond roll.

Even though, Hanami incorporates several Japanese traditional into the dÐ"©cor of the restaurant, I still do not think Hanami has enough Japanese atmosphere compared to several Japanese restaurants I have been to in America. There are three reasons to support this point. First, the waitresses did not say “welcome” in Japanese when customers come in. Traditional Japanese restaurants, even in America, typically have hostesses or waitresses greeting customers with a Japanese “welcome.” Second, there are few Japanese people in the restaurant. Often, one can judge the authenticity of an ethnic restaurant by the number of people with that ethnic background that are in the restaurant. The more there are, the more authentic the restaurant is said to be. Third, Hanami did not play Japanese songs as background music, which also contributed to the lack of Japanese influence in the restaurant.

On the surface, Hanami appears to try to incorporate many Japanese elements into its dÐ"©cor. However, taking a closer look, it seems to me that instead of trying to match Japanese traditions perfectly, the restaurant tries to cater to the interests of Americans who are interested in trying Japanese food. Instead of having a calm and relaxed atmosphere, Hanami seemed only liked a very busy restaurant. Even though the day I visited was a weekday, the waitresses were too busy to serve us, and we waited for twenty minutes to get seats.

Hanami is located at University of Maryland College Park area. Therefore, the primary customers (around eighty percent) are students. The other twenty percent are comprised of the residents around this area. The fire bureau is next door, so some of the police are Hanami’s customers. Even though Hanami is a Japanese restaurant, Americans instead of Asians are their main customers. Hanami generates a lot of business. The day I visited was full and on a typical weekday, the restaurant is usually at least eighty percent full. Weekends are even busier, with the line extending out the front door. In addition to being able to eat in the restaurant, customers can also call ahead for carry out, which many end up doing because Hanami gets full easily. Furthermore, Hanami also has free delivery with the minimum purchase of $15, available for ordering either by phone or online at the website www.campusfood.com. In addition to advertising on the web, Hanami also purchases space in school newspapers such as “BlackDiamond.”

Until