Sakura Restaurant

Of course all of the Mexican food establishments were packed on Cinco de Mayo with waiting times of up to 40 minutes. We chose to have Japanese food as our plan B.
We had been at the old Sakura restaurant a few years ago. The old place was in the same location but just half the space.
The new restaurant is clean and more spacious.
There were two sushi chefs and one waitress. I don’t know how many in the kitchen.
The place was not very busy at all.
The food selection was not bad, ramen, sushi, noodles. If you like Japanese comfort food at a fair price, eat here.
I think they have combination plates at lunch.

The Kamikaze Roll is delicious — spicy tuna, asparagus topped with albacore scallions with ponzu. We also had the oyster shooters which were extremely salty, I’ll skip out on those next time. Service is really attentive, our waiter even brought over all their sake bottles for my friend and me to pick from.

We had a great meal. Everything was fresh and flavorful. A family friendly experience.

I absolutely love this place! The service is wonderful and the Unagi donburi meal is my favorite item on the menu!!! It’s in a wonderful area of Alameda and I absolutely recommend checking it out.

Mediocre at best.
My gf and I ate here on a non busy Friday afternoon. It was just my table and two others in the whole place. Still unbelievably bad service.
Inattentive and slow.
I ordered chicken Katsu donburi, smaller portion than I remember, really wish I took a pic. Chicken barely covered the rice. And also got a roll, can’t even remember it. It was okay
My gf got a beef Teri bento with Sashimi. she’s not a big eater and she was still hungry after
Not only did they skimp on food they also skimped on plates, no saucers for soy sauce?
Later, I compared a pic of my Katsu to a pic I found of this place 2 years ago. There was way more before.
Also pretty pricey for the amount of food we received. Plenty of better Japanese/​sushi places around. I won’t be back

Came here today for lunch with my mom, we ordered 2 miso soups, California rolls with real crab meat, seafood udon stir fry and 15 pcs of sashimi which had 5 different kinds of fish. Our waitress was nice and attentive, the fishes were fresh and California rolls were tasty, seafood udon was nicely done. Only let down was the miso soup were tasty a bit less flavor. Overall a good experience and will return.

Always yummy. Been here a handful of times for lunch. Service is quick and fish is fresh. I usually ask what’s fresh and get some various nigiri.

Since been here 10 years, but during their remodeling time. I love this place and much larger space !! Michele and her husband are hard worker and honest .
She remember me that I like Uni.

Wasn’t what I expected for West Coast Sushi. Didn’t taste very good and I’m only used to places in Chicago. Staff was nice, the bill was average.

My family and I came here for dinner on a Monday night. We’ve been here many times so the lady pretty much know what we order. After about 20 min, some of our foods started coming out. Mainly the appetizers like fried squids, raw oysters, and seafood udon. 10 min later, my dad’s sashimi came out. Another 10 min later, my sister’s lion king roll came out. Like I said we’ve been here before and all their sushi rolls does take a little bit longer to arrive. Plus, there were only one server and one chef with a full house. I asked the lady if my roll was still coming and she said yes. Honestly I think she forgot about it, because it’s been over 40 mins. But my family insist I should just wait a couple more minute before cancelling it. YES! My golden roll finally came out, but it wasn’t what I expected and not worth that 40+ min wait.
Now on to the foods:
— Their sashimi’s aren’t the freshest, but OK quality.
— All their sushi rolls are a bit smaller than any sushi place I’ve been too.
— Golden roll was plain.
— Lion king roll was OK, had better ones.
— Avocado bomb was tasty.
— Seafood udon was a bit too salty.
— Raw oysters were to our liking.
— Fried squid tasted like how it’s suppose too.
All in all, I give this place a 3 stars for food, another 1 star for the lady. If you’re looking for a quick sushi fix, then this is your go to spot. Just don’t come when it’s busy, or else you’ll be waiting for a while. I will be back Sakura.

The S.O. and I were in Alameda and went to this sushi place randomly. We ordered a plethora of rolls — none that really stood out, but the sushi lover’s selection was amazing!
The chunks of sashimi were good, fresh, and flavorful.
My personal favorite was the albacore sashimi and nigiri!
I also really enjoyed the salmon carpaccio — definitely recommend!
The oyster shooter was not to my liking either though.
Finally, the waitresses were very attentive as well! :)

Even though the majority of my relatives live in SoCal, we hardly ever see each other. Life and other excuses get in the way. My dad and I have cycled through a couple of new jobs in the past few years, and it never seems like the right time to put in for vacation once it has been accrued, and just head down there. My relatives, though, are really great, and one of my aunts has really been pushing for us to be more intentional about making time for family. During the Memorial Day weekend, a number of relatives made the long drive up to the Bay to see us (lola — Tagalog for grandma — aunt, uncle, younger cousin, older cousin, her husband, and their two dogs — Turbo & Subie).
We met up at their hotel and decided to have lunch. Most people were craving sushi, but I couldn’t for the life of me think of a place that I could recommend (please don’t take my Elite badge, lol). My older cousin ended up finding Sakura and she called to secure a table for 12 (all the LA relatives plus my aunt from my dad’s side, my parents, my two younger brothers, and myself). Once we had our reservation down, we drove over. The thought of searching for parking in/​around Park Street usually gives me chills, but I wasn’t driving this time around, haha. As it turns out, Sakura is located across the street from a parking lot where you can pay ahead with a the parking attendant. It might be kind of confusing because it’s also a Bank of America parking lot, but there are spots there so no need to drive around and around for metered street parking.
This restaurant isn’t that large, and it’s probably a good thing since we only saw one waitress and one sushi chef/​cook. It’s pretty amazing that they can «hold down the fort» — while none of the dishes really wowed any of us, the sushi seemed fresh and the portions were quite generous. They also managed to keep all of the tea and water glasses filled throughout the course of our lunch.
Some Japanese restaurants don’t serve bento boxes during the weekend, but Sakura does. I got one with California rolls (I know, I’m a total Philistine) and beef teriyaki. After partaking of calamari and gyoza appetizers, plus my aunt’s caterpillar roll, I barely made it halfway through my bento.
It was great to catch-​up with my family and share a meal together after such a long time apart. The music isn’t intrusive and the lighting is pretty flattering, too, haha. I whipped out my DSLR and had a chance to practice.
I’m not in Alameda a lot, but at least I now have a go-​to sushi spot!

It’s pretty spacious for a Japanese restaurant.
The charshu ramen was okay. Pork was pretty salty.
Philadelphia roll, spicy scallop roll, golden roll (tempura ship withe fresh salmon on top), Hawaiian roll (tuna and avocado) were all okay. Kind of sloppily put together (bulky, uneven rice). The best of them was the golden roll.
Place was maybe half full with three sushi chefs and our rolls took forever to come out. I wondered if they wanted us to finish each one before bringing the next (which I would not prefer as I like variety), but the last two came out at the same time. Not sure what the deal was.
Many other Japanese options in Alameda so probably won’t be back.

Nice ambiance, good service and food tasted okay, but made me very sick later in the day.
I will never go back. My son had terrible gas and I had to stay home and close to the toilet. Not sure if MSG does this but I’m certain it was this place as it was the only meal my son and I had together and we were both sick.
I gave it three stars cuz of the ambiance and friendly server

I lived in Alameda for most of my life and yet I’ve never heard or came across this place until now. I wasn’t missing out on anything. Didn’t think it was anything amazing.
If you’re just looking for rolls with a ton of sauce this is the place for you. I don’t trust these kind of places to have fresh quality raw fish.

I really wanted to enjoy my dining experience here as it would add to my list of available places to visit in Alameda. However, I was somewhat disappointed. First of all, I will preface by saying that we went on Labor Day Monday and most other restaurants were closed. So this place may have been impacted by this and perhaps the staff was overwhelmed or the regular staff was not available to work that day.
We entered the recently remodeled store and I very much liked the color scheme. Unfortunately, no one greeted us and we stood around waiting for someone to acknowledge our existence to let us know how long the wait would be. After some minutes of standing around, we approached them. (btw, we saw a group of 3 young ladies who seem to have been seated by never got serviced so they left without eating)
Our small group finally got seated and it took at least 10 minutes or more to come take our order. I don’t want to belabor the point but it then took forever for the food to come out in an order. The one salad did come out 1^st but the hot items made it to the table WAY before the sashimi platter. The miso soup was very watered down. The curry for the katsu was really «light» or as my friend said, «bland.» I had to agree with him. My teriyaki salmon was fine.
Other points, on a hot day the position of the store front puts it in directly heat. They changed the windows to be smoked glass but it was still a bit warm inside. This probably works on usual colder days but it would be nice if the instilled better ventilation or ceiling fans.
So the overall dining experience during busy hours was lacking and it may behoove them to hire up during these times. Food wise it was just okay. It may be better at other times when the staff as a whole has more time to devote to patrons.

On a Sunday afternoon with everyone walking around, this restaurant was completely empty! Hmm.
But I thought the sushi was great. I ordered the cherry blossom and the potsickers for an appetizer. It was delicious. I’ll definitely be back. I just wish there was parking! UGH! I hate parking blocks away. Other than that, descent restaurant, good food, and quick service. I’ll be back!

There’s so much Japanese food in Alameda. You’ve got to be doing something special if you want to stand head and shoulders from the rest. Sadly, Sakura tends to just be another face in the crowd. This is one of those situations where I wish I could give a half star and give them a 3.5, but I’m definitely rounding down cause they’re not a 4 star joint.
I got myself their Katsu Donburi bowl. It tasted okay actually, chicken was very well cooked and crispy. It was pretty much just chicken katsu over rice. I got exactly what I expected. Salmon pizza is definitely a pretty novel idea, and I thought it tasted just fine, but it wasn’t anything special. Other than saying, «oh hey I ate sushi pizza», it wasn’t much to write home about.
That’s the main problem with this place though, because everything here is just okay. First bite of the katsu had me thinking, okay. Salmon pizza was, okay with a slight shrug of the shoulders. My friends fried rice was okay with a nod of the head. Like, the whole thing was just okay and my socks were not blown off at all.
Atmosphere was pretty nice actually. Kinda felt like a lounge in there with the mood lighting and the dark windows. Anyways, I probably wouldn’t come back here to be honest. There’s so much better in Alameda, and I’d rather eat at one of the better establishments than just be stuck with A-​OK Sakura.

My go-​to spot for sushi in the Oakland/​Alameda area!
Food: My regular order here is the Wakame salad with tuna and the grilled whole squid. While I really enjoy the Wakame Salad with Tuna (super well made with fresh fish and not dressed in weird dressings like other poke places) the grilled whole squid however, is quite average. I feel like whenever I am craving this dish, I’d come here to satisfy that but overall its very average and I’ve definitely had better elsewhere. Aside from these two regular dishes I find the other dishes here very average and ordinary, there is no one roll or actual sushi that I feel like is extraordinary or worth obsessing over.
Service: I am giving this place 4 stars based solely on the amazing service! The waitress knows me as a regular and is always friendly and acknowledges my friends and I. She is very good about keeping our tea refilled and alway remembers my particular special order requests.
Overall, great place to get your sushi cravings satisfied but definitely not the most amazing in terms of food itself.

They seem to have remodeled inside!
Came here on a friday night and the place was completely empty. Word must not be out they’re back open.
Ordered the chirashi (my staple dish at any sushi restaurant), sakura roll, rock n roll, and tiger roll.
The chirashi comes with miso soup and salad. The sashimi in the dish was good. It also came with alotttt of rice, so it would fill even the hungriest person up if they ate the whole thing. I do wish the sushi rice that came with it was a bit more seasoned though. It tasted close to steamed rice.
The rolls were standard. The Sakura roll was pretty, but I wasn’t a fan of the cilantro in it. It didn’t really add anything to the fish and I thought it over masked the dish. So I picked it out.
Service was friendly and attentive.
I’ll be back to try the sushi pizza!