H.A. Cafe

On Mondays the mini bowls are on special so I ordered a base of spring greens with w spicy salmon and shrimp tempura. It was good and considering the price I paid, I was satisfied for the portion (small but filling). I also ordered a ice thai bubble tea and it was good as well. I will definitely go back when I’m in town.

I am so addicted to the sushi and my boyfriend can’t get enough of their bowls with rice! In all honesty I go here at least 2 to 3 times a week. The sushi is so fresh, I watch them make it right in front of me. I usually get the California roll and spicy tuna roll! I ALWAYS get a matcha bubble tea with tapioca bits, and it is DELICIOUS. (On Tuesdays they have $ 2 bubble teas, so you should definitely get in there and try them!) I have heard great things about the husky bowls that are filled with sushi ingredients, I have yet to try them but I do plan on it! My friend got the crab ragoon and it was so delicious.
The vibes… they always seem to have the best music playing and it is filled with UCONN students. It is usually crowded; I have gone there as early as noon and as late as 11 pm and there still seems to other people inside.
The one thing they could work on is the pace of the workers. They are all working their hardest but I usually expect my food to be at least 10 – 15 minutes depending on how many people are in the café.
Overall, great place for sushi and other asian food!

Used to love this place. Like go every week love it. But it seems like they alter the ingredients in their dishes way too much. I used to love their bowls with noodles, Katsu chicken, and some sort of sauce (I think it was ponzu) when they first opened. Then, six months later, the sauce was gone. After experimenting with all the other sauces (some soooo disappointing) I finally found a white, creamy (maybe garlic?) sauce that I liked equally as much as the previous topping. Then, I came back to school last fall to find they had changed the noodles AND gotten rid of the sauce. I tried a couple sauces again but nothing was nearly as good as the two they got rid of. I was tired of wasting money on tasteless food, so I stopped going regularly. Now, I’ll stop in every once in a while (read:once this semester so far) to get a sushi roll but even those are just eh. I go to a sushi restaurant (much fancier) back home and it is cheaper and better tasting. Overall really sad because this place used to be a favorite.
Update—
Updating Review because we just received the worst service. Never eating from there again. My boyfriend placed an order online and we received a text telling us the food was being prepped. From that same number we have received order confirmations AND texts telling us when our food was ready and to come pick it up. An hour later we still didn’t have a text, so I called to check and see what the status of our order was. I was put on hold for 5+ minutes, and then hung up on. They’re lucky I wasn’t calling to place an order, because I would’ve gone somewhere else. I called back. The girl laughed and told me «oh we don’t do text reminders here.» So I asked, «how are customers supposed to know their order is ready??» She said, «oh they just show up in like 20 minutes.» Okay. Because that makes sense.
Then she asked for our name, and when I gave it to her, she laughed and said «oh yeah, your orders been here for a long time.» Because it’s funny to have cold food. Sure, I understand we ASSUMED your company used the same method it had previously used for food pickup, and that’s on me. But you don’t think to call a customer when their food has been siting there for forty minutes? And you don’t apologize, either? When my boyfriend went to pick it up they couldn’t believe that we had gotten texts before until he showed them. And she laughed again.
When you have zero consistency and bad customer service, you lose customers.

Sometimes this place is amazing, sometimes its awful. I love coming here with my friends for their weekly specials ($ 2 tea Tuesday and $ 7 Husky Bowl Thursday)! If you go at night, it is more consistent than during the day. I went for a bowl during the day once and the rice was super hot and the girl that was working completely drenched the rice in their vinegar/​sugar syrup. There was so much syrup in the rice that I was literally able to pour it into my ginger cup and have it fill the entire thing. Unfortunately, my bowl was still ruined because all I could taste was vinegar :(. Their raw salmon could be a lot better, it’s not as buttery and rich as most places. Overall this is a great place to eat, just be careful when you go.

do not come here. i ordered a bubble tea and there was an insect in the tea. disgusting. please do not give your business to this store.

I live right upstairs and I’m Asian so this place is my go to corner when I want a milk tea. Everyone in the restaurant is nice and overall I’m enjoying things here. 10 minutes ago I went downstairs to grab a milk tea. I ordered my regular large ice milk tea no ice half sweetness extra tapioca and I literally saw this dude putting one cup of syrup into the tea… The tea comes out really bitter. I don’t want to argue with him so I left the place and threw away the milk tea. Then I went inside again and ordered the exact same thing except having regular sweetness. Now my tea taste somewhat like normal half sweet… However, he only put in one portion of tapioca :(I found it tiresome to repeat what I’ve done a few minutes ago so I just left… I mean I really like you guys but this dude just drags down my awesome experience!

order cannot be picked up at once，and the coupon at the Unilocal is unclear on how to use them. Not very happy purchasing today in
Ha café

I want to start of by saying that I love this place. I always get their husky bowls and they have a variety of bubble tea to choose from. I went there today after my night class so I was pretty hungry. After waiting for 20 mins, I noticed that people who ordered after me were getting their food. I waited another 10 – 15 mins and still no food and no else was ordering. I asked the cashier and he couldn’t find my ticket, and so they rewrote my order and made it fairly quickly. I had it to-​go, and when I got back to my dorm, I saw it was haphazardly put together and it was overall mediocre. Kinda disappointed that I waited that long for so-​so husky bowl.

I really want to like this place more, but there are a few things holding me back.
1) The entire place needs a serious cleaning — every surface from the floor to the communal tabletops were sticky. Gross. You expect that in a dive bar, not in a restaurant.
2) North Shore (shrimp) Dumplings are weirdly sticky inside and undercooked, so the wrappers were soft and flabby instead of crisp on the fried side. Unappetizing.
I do like the place — love the grapefruit iced tea in the summer — but there seems to be a decline in motivation to keep things really up to par. Might be time for a serious retraining and more management oversight.

As far as sushi goes, this place is awful. Everything smelled and tasted as if it were at least two days old.
Their bubble tea seems to be adequate, just don’t come here expecting ajything more than cheap sushi.

Friendly staff, good food, but probably stay away from the sushi, it’s not rolled to any particularly skilled degree nor does it seem particularly fresh. Also beware the soup, when I had the miso soup it was literally all broth, I had to go back and ask for the tofu and herbs to be found in the pot to be added. It was an odd experience.

The staff prepare hot tea inconsistently. Sometimes it’s with tepid water, other times with loose dry leaves scattered in the water. Please fill a bag with the dry leaves and staple it to the side of a cup, which is the preferred way one of the staff member readies it. The sushi is pretty good. Wish they automatically placed ginger on the side. Even when I request it, sometimes they forget to put it on the order. The $ 4 chicken katsu box is a good option. They don’t seem to advertise foods on sale for late nite anymore. Highly recommend the taro boba. Generally at least a 10 – 15 min wait for meal orders

It’s bad when cheap food is overpriced.
Pad Thai noodle thing wasn’t peanut anything, tasted like citrus! Weird tasting noodles. Chicken that tasted like it came out of the microwave.
Sushi bowl (sashimi maybe) was cheap fish that was hacked up for a spicy tuna roll type preparation.
Neither of us finished our meals, no way this place is a legit 3.5 stars.

Got the worst noodles I have ever had here. Not enough veggies or sauce and I paid 10.00 for it! At least they had a tofu option…

First time here was a good experience. Not happy with my latest visit. Pad Thai chicken bowl was not tasty at all.
I really want to like this place so please work on your food quality!
Thanks

My boyfriend was craving sushi for lunch so we decided to stop here for lunch on our day trip to Storrs. We got in shortly after they opened and took a couple minutes to decide on what to order. The menu looked quite large for such a tiny place, and it confused me at first; however, I was very impressed at the variety of bubble tea flavors.
I decided on a chicken terriyaki bowl and a taro bubble tea and my boyfriend got three sushi rolls: spicy tuna, unagi, and tuna/​avocado. We also got a side order of chicken gyoza to share. The dumplings were quite tasty, and my bowl was very filling. My bubble tea was delicious; however, I was disappointed at how small it was compared to the price (over $ 4 with tax). I didn’t try my boyfriend’s sushi, but he thoroughly enjoyed it.
I would certainly like to come back the next time I’m in the area to try their sushi and lunch boxes. If they upgraded their bubble tea sizes, it’d be a definite home run.

Overpriced, cheap-​tasting americanized, food.
Stopped by for a quick lunch expecting better considered we payed almost 30 $ for three cheap-​tasting dishes. As my mom stated in chinese: «Tricking college students into paying because it’s the only available asian food around»
What we ordered:
Okonomiyaki (Beef):
To sum it up, a slab of fried dough with a few pieces of beef and cabbage, drenched with soy sauce and mayo on top. We scraped the sauce off because it was too much.
Veggie Udon:
Probably the worst out of the three. It looked like it came straight out of instant food packaging and also drenched with soy sauce.
Chicken Katsu w/​Katsu sauce over white rice:
Probably the better of the three however, for some reason the Katsu sauce was really sour and the cabbage was also drenched in sauce. The chicken was okay but also seemed kind of dry on the inside. The best part about this dish was tbh the white rice.
Haven’t tried their bubble teas, but I probably won’t be coming back.

A gem indeed. A hip and modern place with awesome bubble tea and Japanese food. I heard a lot of good reviews about this place as it was fairly new. This place got me right from the start and I can’t help myself but come back every time.
From all my visits so far I highly recommend:
–Okonomiyaki (Japanese cabbage pancake topped with sweet soy glaze and tangy mayo) You can choose your filling– vegetarian, shrimp, chicken, bacon, beef. I got chicken. This Yoko Ono whatever it’s called has become one of my favorites!
–Build a Bowl (Choose a base, protein, and sauce)
I got the white rice with Katsu (Japanese Fried Chicken), topped with teriyaki. Pretty good, the teriyaki sauce was alright but I’ll go with a different sauce next time. Perhaps the honey cream. *drools*
Last but not least…
–Taro bubble tea! This has got to be one of the best bubble teas I’ve had. WHY?! You know you have a winner when the boba tapioca is a certain consistency (soft but not too soft, chewy but not too chewy) You will know when you try it! So go do it now.
Other winners:
–White peach iced tea
Very sweet but I personally liked it. Depends on your personal preference.
–Sweet Fiery Shrimp Rangoons
Get these please oh please they are so bangin’
Water pitchers are available on the counter as well to quench your thirst after eating those sweet fiery shrimp rangoons.

I had read so many mediocre reviews about this place that I guess I was expecting the worst when I met up with a friend here. Luckily, I was pleasantly surprised. I ordered the lunch special bento box, which came with teriyaki beef and vegetables over rice, two gyoza, and three pieces of a spicy tuna roll. The whole thing came out to be $ 6 – 7, which is not bad for lunch and on par with the prices of most of the places in Storrs Center.
All the food tasted fresh and well-​prepared. I wish they hadn’t cut the slices of beef for the teriyaki beef so thinly (it was the same thinly cut beef that you find on Philly cheesesteaks), and I would’ve liked a little bit more of it, but there was plenty of veggies and the teriyaki sauce wasn’t too sweet. I probably would’ve given that 3.5 stars if I had ordered that on its own, but I liked the sides enough to bump it up to 4 stars. The gyoza were yummy and nicely fried without being too greasy. The spicy tuna roll was my favorite part, and I don’t normally eat sushi with raw fish (I usually find it flavorless and dislike the texture). The spicy tuna was plentiful, tasted decently fresh, and had just the right kick. I could actually see myself ordering a full spicy tuna roll in the future, that’s how much I liked it. After eating everything included in my bento box, I was full but not stuffed. I thought the portion size was fine, considering I was starving when I got there, but maybe some of the past reviewers have larger appetites than me.
My friend opted for the buildabowl option and ordered a rice bowl with spicy tuna, imitation crab, and some kind of spicy mayo-​like sauce on top. I didn’t taste any of it, but it looked amazing, and as a regular, she swears by it. She also got a bubble tea that she says is a lot better than the bubble teas at Chang’s. Her meal was definitely on the pricier side, well over $ 10.
In general, most of the full meals here are in the $ 8 – 11 price range, which is unfortunate since Moe’s and Mooyah are cheaper, have the benefit of being closer to campus, and probably appeal to a broader demographic. In addition, Oriental Café and I think Chang’s as well offer lunch specials that are cheaper with bigger portions. When I was at H.A., it looked deserted, and that’s unfortunate, since I think this is the kind of place we need here at UConn, and I really want them to succeed. Hopefully, they can work on their pricing and stay competitive.
As it is, I like H.A. Café and would come back again to try more of their sushi and bowls. The prices make it more of a once-​in-​a-​while treat rather than somewhere I’d eat all the time though.

The food here is fairly tasty, though maybe a bit too Americanized for my taste. And the portion sizes are disappointingly small, given the price you pay.
As for the bubble tea, if you want true bubble tea, you’re going to have to specifically ask (and pay) for the tapioca boba (it doesn’t come standard). Overall, the tea is pretty good. On the sweet side, but manageable.
The décor is nice (I think these days it’s called modern minimalist?), and the staff is pretty friendly and prompt.
As I mentioned earlier, the prices here are a bit more expensive than the arguably «fair» price, but I’d much rather spend my hard earned money at this place than continue to fund the awful management at Chang’s Garden down the street.