u-sushi

U-​sushi is just down the block so it was definitely very convenient for me. I honestly think this ‘build your own sushi’ brings far more complexity in comparison to your typical sushi joint.
I ordered shrimp tempura sushi. Instead of hand cutting the roll, they used this machine and somehow they got stucked in there so they had to redo them so it was another 15 minutes of waiting for a simple roll. For a $ 10 worth of roll, i’d expect a decent chunk and quality, but what i got was a C grade sushi roll. The nori used was so soggy you cant even chew it.
The potato croquette was good, hence the 2 stars for the croquette.

I really enjoyed this place. Food is great. I wish they gave me more tempura crunch, but next time I will have to ask for more or something. Everything I had was good and the fish was fresh. I know some people may not like the assembly line style for sake of the art form, but if you are in a hurry on the go it is very handy, plus being able to make your own roll is awesome and unique! The seaweed salad is sooo good too!

u-​sushi rocks. You get to create your own sushi roll. it is like Subway, but for great sushi rolls. so, you walk in and you are greeted with a choice of soy paper or seaweed paper. then you pick your rice (white or brown) and then you pick your roll – tuna, salmon, crab and so on. then you pick veggies/​egg and sauces. then they roll it all up for you. the choosing is fun (at least for someone like me who likes making decisions…) the sushi comes out wonderfully. I recommend having them add egg («tamago») and mushrooms to your sushi, and going with multiple sauces.
Pros: sushi tastes great, and is fun to have custom made
Cons: they should open one on the Westside!

Love this original concept. As a huge fan of sashimi and sushi, I was definitely skeptical of this «fast food sushi» café. I do have to admit – it was pretty good.
You instantly feel at ease when you walk into the café. It is well maintained, bright, clean and the staff is very friendly and accommodating. The process of creating your own sushi is fun and adds to the appeal of this concept. The ingredients are fresh and you can watch how your roll is made every step of the way.

Great concept! Nothing says original like ‘do it your way’ Sushi.
I enjoyed a roll made my way (white, seaweed, two fish; tuna & spicy tuna, veggies) and a side of edamame. The young guy behind the counter assisting me was very patient as I took my time choosing my ingredients. Over all a pleasant, healthy, inexpensive lunch made exactly the way I like it.
I’m obsessed with your sushi rice machine!!! Way cool and I totally want one!

If you have watched «Jiro Dreams of Sushi» or have any illusions that sushi is an art form, then do not go here. You will be disillusioned by the Subway-​ization of sushi.
That said, the food was edible and I didn’t get sick from it.
When you order, you decide first on what kind of rice you want, and whether you prefer seaweed or soy paper wrap. The «sushi artist» then puts the rice & seaweed into a machine that flattens the rice into a uniform (albeit rather thick) layer. They then ask you what toppings you want — first the fish, then the veggies, finally the condiments. After quickly wrapping it, it goes into another machine where it’s sliced into uniform pieces.
I opted for spicy tuna with avocado, spicy mayo, and tomago and a second avocado/​tomago roll. Both were decent. The space is sparse but clean and they offer fountain lemonade and ice tea.
I still like to think, though, of sushi as an art form, and at $ 7.75/roll, I’d rather save up and go to a real sushi place. But otherwise it’s a-​ok.

This place is so fun!
I work down the street and came here for lunch with a co-​worker. For $ 7.50, I made a bomb-​ass spicy tuna, avocado, asparagus, cucumber roll with tempura flakes, brown rice, and wasabi soy sauce. Plus you can upgrade to a bento box with edamame and a little salad for $ 2.
Yeah the concept is different. It is sort of like Subway and may downplay the expertise that goes into making sushi, but it was really freaking good, quick, healthy, and everyone that works there was so helpful and beaming.
All the ingredients they give you to choose from seemed pretty standard as far as fish, veggies, and sauces. I think they should’ve gone further with the concept of designing your own roll and added in some items that are a little more experimental as well, like different types of fruits or new sauces.
Overall, good stuff!

Being sushi obsessed, I can’t help but love the concept of DIY sushi, and $ 7.50 for a monster sized roll custom designed by yours truly is always a win.
Staff was surprisingly helpful and friendly and were super patient with me as I struggled to make up my mind. So many options!
The roll itself was good (as it should have been considering I designed it!) but the construction of it was a bit compromised and my fillings kept falling out. It was also a little tough to eat such giant pieces, but I managed and left full and happy.
3.5 stars rounded up to 4. Definitely a good and inexpensive lunch in BH

The Concept:
A relatively new casual restaurant to join the slew of others located on South Bev. It’s a create your own sushi roll concept where you are greeted by a bubbly High Schooler/​College Freshman whom roll you a customized sushi roll upon leading you through a line of various sushi ingredient options, with everything from white to brown rice, many different types of fish, and many different sauces and garnishes to chose from.
The Food:
I made a white rice roll with shrimp, salmon, spicy mayo, and some garnishes. With a soda, it come out to around $ 12 and was reasonably tasty. I thought the quality of fish, rice, and toppings were fresh… but nothing spectacular.
Thoughts Overall :
Service was good and the concept sounds great, but my biggest problem with U-​Sushi is no matter how much you dress it up it’s still kind of like the Subway or Chipotle of sushi and being as such it should have comparable prices. It was good but when I left still somewhat hungry after paying $ 12 I couldn’t help but think I should have just gone to a real sushi restaurant. To me this place is great If you want sushi but need it fast and affordable, as U-​Sushi is a good step above food court sushi .If you have time to spare though, you would do far better at a real sushi restaurant.

I felt dirty after eating at this place. Like I had betrayed Japan and their beautiful invention of sushi.
This place introduced itself as «the subway of sushi», as in, you point at the meat, the high school student behind the counter rolls and voila: Your sushi sandwich is done.
Though the quality of the fish is good, the taste of this place is betrayal.

Restaurants like U-​Sushi present a dilemma. How do you rate a place where the food is good (in light of the decent price and one’s expectation of a fast-​food sushi joint), but you fundamentally abhor everything it stands for?
Dead sushi chefs must be turning over in their graves right now. U-​Sushi basically took out the skills, tradition, and culture of sushi and made it into an assembly line of workers putting fish on rice. Even the cheapest of to-​go sushi joints (admittedly, I have a weak spot for cheap sushi) give a little more credence to the art of making sushi than U-​Sushi does with its automatic rice & seaweed roller.
My bohemian-​esq rant aside, the food is [ugh, I hate having to admit this] good and, putting my prejudice aside, I’d give it 3 stars. Its decently priced for Beverly Hills, given the big chunks of fish and healthy portions of crab they add to your roll. Their crab mix is delicious — really makes for a good california roll. The vegetable and sides are very fresh. However, and this is a big downer, their rolls are particularly chewy — and that’s not how rice and nori should be in sushi.
Parking — during lunch time, you’re best parking in the public lot on Beverly about a block from the restaurant or spent hours driving around looking for a meter or trying to figure out all the different signs and restrictions in the surrounding neighborhoods.
All in all, I’ll probably be back again to eat here since I work close by. I’ll just hate myself the entire time while I’m there.

Not sure it’s really necessary for me to review both the SF and Beverly Hills branches of this restaurant, but I feel like the Beverly one is a little better. The fish was quite fresh, and they had a good variety of dressings/​toppings, veggies and other items to include in your roll. The prices were OK, and they had a good offer for a combo including miso/​sides and a drink.
We arrived a bit late in the evening, and they clearly wanted to close while we were still eating, but they didn’t really rush us. That was nice.
My only complaint is that the rolls are not rolled tightly enough, so eating was a bit sloppy.

I was very excited when I saw that a new sushi spot was coming to Beverly Drive, as I live about a block away and if required to I could eat sushi every day for the rest of my life. I decided to try it out last night, and I am so happy I did it was so yummy!
U-​Sushi is kind of like the Chipotle of Sushi, with a variety of fresh ingredients, it allows you to create your personal «perfect» roll. It starts with the rice you can choose from white or brown, knowing brown was better for me I went that route then you can choose from soy paper or seaweed, choose your fish (if any) I decided to go the Veggie roll route and then choose up to 4 veggies to put in your roll. If you don’t want to limit yourself you can go over the 4 for fifty cents more per veggie.
My roll was comprised of Avocado, Sprouts, Cucumber, Tofu. Now I’m a sauce kind of girl myself so this was crucial, I choose to go with the spicy mayo sauce with tempura flakes and sesame seeds! You can choose to cut your roll, or dominate it burrito style… that my friend is up to you. I’m a messy eater, some may compare eating with me to eating with a 4 year old so I chose to have the nice people at U-​Sushi cut it up for me!
I made my meal a combo, I paired with with a cucumber and seaweed salad and mushroom miso soup. The meal was around eight dollars, and they even gave me a 10% discount for living in the neighborhood!
If you love sushi as much as I do, and don’t want to pay $ 30-​$ 50 bucks a pop every time you have it, please give this place a try, you wont be sorry.

There are some mornings where I wake up and say to myself, «Why do I always have to choose from the same pairs of pants every day? Wouldn’t it be great if I could just take one pant leg from these amazing pants, and combine them with a pant leg from another pair of amazing pants to create a super pair of pants?!»
To which I respond, «Deviled eggs and lawn furniture.»
U-​Sushi takes the Subway /​The Counter /​Pieology concept and applies it to sushi. And you know what– it works! Choose your base (brown or white rice), choose your wrapping (nori or sesame), choose your filling (tuna, eel, snow crab, salmon, etc), and then choose from a variety of toppings to make it your own. They also have a mélange of sauces as well as tempura flakes, and a sesame /​seaweed blend that are both welcome additions. I would have liked some furitake, but you can’t have it all.
Service here is a little shaky, but they haven’t quite gotten… ON A ROLL. I had actually read about this spot in my Thrillest newsletter, and they had mentioned robots making my sushi, but as I found nothing of the sort, I now have to assume it was simply hyperbole.
I went with one of the standard one fish rolls ($ 7.50) with Tuna, and then added my three toppings as; jalapeño, avocado, and cucumber with some Japanese Teriyaki– sweet and spicy FTW. The tuna was fresh enough for such a place, and the portion size (considering what most restaurants would charge) was quite filling. Though I did have 2 just because.
Beverage selection here was minimal; only bottled drink sold out of a refrigerator. Would have liked to see at least some green tea, or an attempt to add a little J-​flavor to the spot. Seating is limited, and very intimate without feeling cozy– I felt like I was at a high school lunch table smashed in with others uncomfortably. At least no one pours milk on my head now.
All in all, for Beverley Hills this is an affordable, quick, and tasty spot (if you have the skillz). 3.5 Stars

Okay, concept pretty cool. Our normal place is on La Cienega and the one time we made custom rolls one was $ 28 and the other was almost $ 40. So to ME $ 8 for a custom roll is a bargain! Granted its not as good as our local, but it’s fast and fresh. The fresh part being incredibly important.
The roll was huge and VERY filling. My husband got himself two and didn’t finish the second. We can normally throw down six rolls at other places between the two of us.
I didn’t like seeing the spicy tuna come out of a squeeze tube like the thing they use to decorate a cake. That was gross to me and it was done in front of me. Ick. That being said it tasted decent and wasn’t a gooey mess as it appeared.
I got the soy paper wrap and it was a strange yellow color. That weirded me out too, but it was surprisingly good. My filling was with the max of three veggies (avocado, jalapeño and cucumber) tempura flakes (which were inside so that was cool for a nice crunch) and spicy mayo.
I was impressed by the flavor when I was watching these non-​sushi chefs making it. I think I made a really decent roll and would suggest it to be a flavor suggestion on the menu if they someone wants to have a good easy roll.
The edamame was a bummer. Cold from the fridge. I’ve never had cold edamame and I hope not to have it again.
Another weird thing was that there was only one trash can in the whole place. It was placed behind a chair by the door. As I showed in a picture, we literally had to wait for this lady to finish her meal so that we could avoid asking her to move so we could throw our trash away behind her head.
In any case this is a good option for a quick lunch for a decent price, especially if you work in the area.
We will be back again, although it would be more likely as a family dinner rather than my husband and I going out for a dinner together. Definitely not a date spot, but there were many kids, so it would be more of a change up from constant CPK family meals.

I’m giving 4 stars to welcome a good new business on S. Beverly that is an interesting concept and also has some room for improvement. All the descriptions below are accurate in regards to the process at U-​Sushi.
The sushi tastes good overall, they make it quickly right in front of you, and the customer service is great.
If you are a sushi connoisseur, so to speak, U-​Sushi might not be for you. The people behind the counter are not sushi chefs by any means. They’ve tailored this place for the busy crowd coming from the local agencies and production companies, the people who might want a quick roll to go (you can even take to go and eat like a burrito).
I found my initial go here to be a bit overwhelming — I never thought of sushi as something I would want to craft myself. I generally enjoy the «mystique» of sushi, which I suppose sounds a bit corny.
They certainly made me feel welcome and were very friendly, so that left me with a positive impression. It was a quick, filling bite (I had two rolls).
If there’s any specific thing I would improve, I guess it would be labeling things a little clearer (I don’t remember seeing labels on the fish through the window, although the person behind the counter was verbally telling me what they all were) and perhaps providing some kind of user-​friendly map for building a nice sushi roll. For instance, if I start with Tuna, what kind of rolls can I build from there (or should I build, for that matter)? The bottom line is I just felt a little overwhelmed with all the options!
Also, once we built the rolls, it was a little strange to see them use a machine to cut them into even pieces and wrap them in paper. Knives too dangerous? And it would be great to have platters, especially to eat there!
Good concept though, and I hope to see U-​Sushi do well!

I work down the street from this place, so I’m always looking for new places to have lunch (though I do miss the location’s old tenant, Famous Cupcakes who, despite the gross Kardashian presence, had better cupcakes than Sprinkles) .
I don’t eat seafood, but I enjoy a good veggie roll. I really enjoyed that I was able to mix and match different veggies into my roll, and look forward to trying different combinations in the future. I saw some people on Unilocal say the rolls are skimpy and overpriced, but I left feeling full and spending under $ 10.
We also got two orders of the breaded balls (can’t remember what they’re called on the menu), and they were good, but I would suggest they start serving them with a sauce since on their own, there’s not much to them (we did ask for a side of sauce which they happily provided). Also, the edamame was pretty plain and could’ve used some seasoning or sauce to go with it as well. Despite those two small things, I will definitely be going back.

It is clear to me that the u-​sushi team cares about your sushi experience. Don’t worry, this place isn’t the mcdonalds of fast food, they don’t skimp on quality. One roll makes 8 piece, I got spicy tuna with tempura for $ 9.50 and it was filling. If you don’t check this place out you will regret it. Delicious.

Meh!
I just got back to my desk after trying U-​Sushi for the first time, and I currently have mixed emotions about the place.
It kind of like the Subway of sushi. You walk in. They make sure to great you loudly. everything is separated into stations. Fist you pick the type of rice. Brown or white. Next, seaweed or soy paper. Then your fish; tuna, yellowtail, crab (it looked real), shrimp, eel (probably from the sea), salmon, and/​or spicy tuna.
1 fish = $ 7.50
2 fish = $ 9.50
On the next station you are able to choose from about 15 different items to put in our roll ranging from avocado, spinach, regular and pickled carrots, tofu, pineapple, and jalapenos to name a few of them.
roll comes with 3 add-​ins
every one after that is $ 0.50 extra
Next you can you choose a sauce. Eel sauce, spicy and regular mayo, a mixture of soy sauce and wasabi, but they did not have any ponzu sauce yet. You can also choose from toppings of sesame seeds, salt and pepper, or tempura flakes.
They give you the option of eating your roll like a burrito (why) or for them to put the roll in a machine to cut it into 8 pieces.
On the next station they had a whole bunch of warm sides: potato kokkete, beef kokkete, sweet potato kokkete, eel salad, fried chicken, and shrimp tempura is what I saw under the heat lamps. They also had cold salad sides.
All sides ranging from $ 1.00 to $ 3.00
What I got:
Seaweed
Brown rice
Yellowtail
Tuna
Cucumber
Pickled carrots
Jalapenos (six to be exact!)
No ponzu sauce *sad-​face
and Sesame seeds all cut into 8 pieces
Side:
Sweet potato kokkete
Verdict:
All were good…
The jalapenos were hot, fish was smallish but fresh, vegies were also fresh, I was sad that they didn’t have ponzu sauce but they will, they also did not have a soda fountain and I’m not sure if they will put one in. They did have bottled beverages and water. The reason why I am only giving U-​Sushi 3 stars is because the whole place was a bit awkward and over priced. I understand that for fresh good food you usually have to pay more for it, and I do not mind paying for good food, but I’ve had great lunch specials at a sit down sushi restaurant that came with miso soup, side salad, a sushi roll, teriyaki meat and rice for less than what I paid for my lunch today. My fav part of the meal was the sweet potato kokketes, and they were only $ 2.00. Woot!!!
I would come again, but not be a regular.

Comments from U-Sushi’s grand opening.
Concept:
Customizable sushi meets fast service meets FRESH ingredients… I can’t stress how awesome it is that they use fresh ingredients. They use 100% real crab meat no imitation non-​sense. If I were sushi bar nearby I would be shaking in my butsu,
I absolutely love the concept behind U-​Sushi. It is basic and in turn genius. I am very surprised that I haven’t seen other sushi bars with a similar concept.
Food:
When it comes to sushi one, if not the most important factor is quality (fresh) ingredients. Although I only had an unagi roll and spicy tuna roll, looking through the glass I could tell that the other options were just as fresh.
I was surprised at the different options available! They had interesting ingredients that I don’t normally see at sushi bars including brown rice and soy paper alternatives. I also found interesting the appetizers on their menu, normally you don’t see appetizers like potato crochet or little unagi bits.
Pros:
Customizable rolls
FRESH ingredients
Fast service (assembly line)
Large selection (brown vs. white rice etc)
Spot-​on Décor (Creative slogan)
Extremely competitive prices
Cons:
Not available in San Francisco (TBD?)