Matsuri Sushi

Three things matter to me about a sushi bar.
1 — quality. This place has good quality sushi.
2 — rice. The backbone, get it right or don’t do it. Good rice here.
3 — quantity vs. price. They were really skimpy on the fish. Hamachi sushi was sliced so thin that you could actually see the rice thru it. And they are a bit on the pricey end as well.
I doubt I’ll go back here, too many other ones to explore out there.

Very good sushi and a delish Korean BBQ

Okay my husband and I gave this place another try. However the service is so horrible that I never will come back. They take forever to bring your food, and forget what you order! Go to main street Jpan (lwr) or utarmaro (sarasota) instead.

Hands down my favorite sushi spot in Sarasota. Sushi is always super fresh and delicious. A great little Mom & Pop shop. (PS– I want their «wood» tile floors!)

This is another best kept secret in sarasota/​bradenton area. Part of me wants to keep this a secret, so it doesn’t get too busy… A Must try is the shrimp avocado salad, there is no going back to the regular salad after you have tried this. This is a husband and wife team. And their son have a play room in the back… which is a great bonus when you go with kids and they disappears into the playroom and the adults can have a quiet dinner with adult conversation! That alone is worth every penny!!!

When I lived in Florida, this was such a great place to visit for sushi. If it was for the service alone, I’d give it 5 stars but the sushi was decent too. Everything on the menu is fresh. We frequented so often that we got our own metal chopsticks. When I told the owner I was moving back home to Virginia, she gave me my chopsticks to keep. She always gave our lunch or dinner parties something complimentary from the menu such as the moshi dessert or the soups, etc. She was very friendly which made the atmosphere inviting and vibrant.
I haven’t been back to the area in 1.5 years so this review is a bit dated but the service was so amazing that I promised that once I did have time to do a review, that I’d do it on this place.

There is nothing really wrong with this place, but nothing really outstanding either. I was in the area and some sushi sounded good and this was a place I had always meant to try. The yellow tail was good and one interesting thing was how they served the shrimp heads that go with the amaebi shrimp (sweet shrimp). With this you get raw tail that only works if supper fresh, but I really like the heads that are traditional with this dish. They are deep friend crispy and yummy. They had drizzled some sort of sweet/​brown sugar/​maple sauce on them. The salty sweet thing was good. But odd.
I also go some mausago, which wasn’t up to snuff, and the special role of the night. Now I know the sushi in the lakewood ranch area seems to be heavy on rolls, but this was just a bit of a mess with way too much on it and the spicy tuna just wasn’t. I should know better, but I figured got to try a few different things. Just didn’t work. The place was mostly empty on a Friday evening so not sure if that bodes well. Service was nice, but I guess what I can say is ok, but nothing special to run to. I would go again if I had a reason to be there but wouldn’t go out of my way.

On a quest to find out if there’s anywhere else worthwhile, (aside from Ichiban’s awesome all-​you-​can-​eat sushi for $ 20) Gabriel and I decided to have dinner at Matsuri a few nights ago. It’s literally one mile from our condo– which is pretty darn convenient, and because of that, paired with the fact that there were lots of good reviews online, we thought we’d check it out. I should mention that we’d stopped in once before when we were heading to a wine tasting across from the restaurant, but we left because it had a very off-​putting smell of sulphur. Staying true to my «I’ll try anything twice» motto, we gave it a second chance and were pleased to walk in this time and find no such returning offensive odor.
We sat immediately in a comfortable booth and the waitress brought our menus and water. We ordered a salad to share, a steamed gyoza appetizer, some assorted rolls and my standard, tamago sushi. In a sushi class I took a long time ago, I was taught that one of the true marks of a good sushi chef is well-​cooked tamago. This basically means that there are no brown striations through it, and that it is fluffy and seasoned just right. In the same way that I choose a plain slice of pizza when I sample a new pizza place, or a pad thai when I try a new Thai place, I always get tamago when I go for sushi.
The salad and gyoza were both about average. The salad was not just a pile of boring iceberg lettuce, but actually nice dark mixed greens and other veggies. The dressing was not the classic ginger/​carrot one that usually comes at Japanese restaurants, but a more unusual sweet and tangy vinegar based one. The gyoza was super fresh and really delicious, filled with fresh meat and veggies– it was different than what restaurants often serve, presumably right out of the freezer.
The rolls were pretty good but nothing to write home about. While the ingredients did seem fresh, the seaweed didn’t have the tell-​tale fresh snap to it, and the rice seemed a bit too compressed and overcooked. The tamago, however, was awesome and done perfectly. I could have eaten about 4 more of those.
This was a decent amount of food for a decent price– but when it comes down to it, unless it’s blow-​me-​away good quality, I will have a hard time letting anything win out over Ichiban’s amazing deal. $ 20 for all you can eat AND the choices are creative, varied and numerous. Yup. That’s still the local winner for me.

One of my friends from work recommended this place to me. It is only convenient for someone living in Lakewood Ranch area. It is not the best sushi in Bradenton, I like Sam Oh Jung more, but it is definitely runner up. Since this was our first time eating here, maybe I just did not know the right items to order.
I was lured by their one page of Korean food items. Which did not end up tasting very Korean at all. They put nutmeg or cinnamon into all of the spicy sauces here and it just tastes wrong. Plus, I do not think that they are using the correct style of pepper powder. The Spicy Pork $ 16.99 was not spicy and they do not give you ssamjang or lettuce wraps for the BBQ. It came with a choice of miso shoup or chicken broth soup with tempura (which I had and it was decent). Also came with a ginger salad that was lettuce, cucumber, carrot, and purple onion– the dressing was sweet and had lots of black pepper.
However, for sushi it is really tasty. I ordered the Matsuri Roll ($ 14.95) because it said that it had lobster tempura inside. It definitely did not taste like lobster, but more like friend fish cake. It was covered in the strange nutmeg spicy sauce with a combination of ingredients that made the entire roll taste like celery with sugar syrup.
Their Alaskan Roll and Tuna Roll were good, but the sushi rice here is not seasoned. However, the rolls are larger than at most places. Based on this being my first time here, it was ok. My favorite item here was the appetizer Chi Ku Wa Isobe ($ 7.94), which is two fried fish cakes stuffed with spicy tuna. I could just eat that with steamed rice and kimchi for a meal. We ordered the Crème Nigori ($ 16.99/bottle) and it was quite good.
My friend just told me that Thursday night is their Korean food night, so maybe they use the correct ingredients then.

Always perfect, this best keep secret is well worth the trip. I can’t say enough nice things about this restaurant. With as many sushi lover’s in the area. There should be a line out the door and down the block.

I was an out-​of-​towner looking for some good sushi. I found this place in a very nice and clean towne center. Looked like it was brand new, or either very well kept.
Came in and was greeted immediately. Furniture was contemporary and there was the sushi bar in the left hand corner. Prices were reasonable and the presentation was great– I loved the plates that the food was served on also. Service was amazing; the waitress was very sweet and knew exactly what to recommend.