Diosa on the River

Who knew dining on the Chicago River could be so delicious? Sometimes you’re just craving a rice bowl that’s different from what you can get from all of these Asian fast food and carry-​out places. The steak teriyaki bowl is amazing with generous portions of veggies and sliced steak. It may be a bit pricey, but it’s definitely worth it. I’m just glad that the weather is still nice, which means they’ll stay open through this week. Can’t wait to go back!

Went at 3:30 and got my rolls half-​off… no advertisement for this though so not sure if there is a happy hour or what, but if I were you I would ask.
Roll was good… can’t remember the name of it… sorry. It was delivered fast to the table.
The service… below average… I mean he had to be flagged down for everything… water was empty at middle of the meal and wasn’t refilled… food was done and I had to let him know I needed the check. The poor older gentleman next to me needed his check too and the guy took forever to get for him…
Then again it was good sushi for less than 8 bucks… for the sitch and atmosphere that was worth it…

Really average, but on the high side of average. The sushi is good and the fish is definitely fresh. However, the rolls can be overly rice-​filled. Good for lunch but a little pricey for dinner. The wait staff is thoughtful and they really do the best they can with the location they have. And just FYI: no, it’s not you. The water really does taste kind of funny at that place.

The sushi was good… nothing to really complaim about, but I think I have had better… Unilocaler Sarah A. and I had lunch here today and shared 3 rolls. Service wasn’t great. The guy seated us, took our order, delivered 2 of our 3 rolls… we finished the 2 rolls waitied about 10 minutes for our 3^rd roll, but i didn’t know if he forgot to put that order in or if in fact they were taking that long to make our last roll and i couldn’t get his attn so I had to chase him down. He delivered our last roll a minute later. He didn’t ask how everything was or refill Sarah’s water. I guess its a cute place to have lunch with a friend during your lunch break because you get to sit next to the river on nice days… but I’m not sure if I would come back. I almost preferred the little sushi boxes you get at Jewel for 7.95 it’s a lot cheaper and tastes the same…

It’s an OK sushi place. The location gives it an extra star. It was nice to sit at river level and see all the boats cruise on by. My lunch pal Sharon C. and I just had lunch here. We split 3 rolls. Well, our last roll, the green dragon didn’t come out with our spicy tuna and Philly roll. Our waiter didn’t explain what was going on. Can 2 hungry working girls really just split 2 small rolls? Come on!
Sharon got up and flagged our waiter down. We want that roll! When it arrived it was so cute with spicy mayo eyes and a shrimp tail. We threw that puppy down and it was so good! Definitely get the green dragon if you try out Diosa! Side note… it was quite noisy from the traffic on lower Wacker!

I echo the «its ok» sort of review. On the plus side, its was fairly empty and nice to be able to sit on the river without paying the prices like those at Smith & Wollensky, Flatwater and Fulton’s on the River (although I’m slowly becoming a fan of the Flatwater sandwich/​salad lunch deal). The seating is pretty cute with the umbrellas and flower boxes, and being right on water level makes you feel a little bit like you’ve escaped. The food was better than you might expect from a hole-​in-​the-​side-​of-​Lower-​Wacker establishment. We tried the garlic chicken (thought it best to have at least one cooked entrée in case the sushi was bizarre) and the spicy super white tuna roll. They were both good, but not great. I was nervous about the roll since tuna is a scary thing to get unless I trust the sushi joint, and thought it might end up tasting more like exhaust fumes than tuna, but it tasted pretty good (and I didn’t notice the rice being warm, so perhaps they fixed that since Carolyn T’s visit– that had made me nervous!).
The bad– well it gets pretty darned loud with the traffic right behind you. They’ve blocked it off visually with some kind of blinds, but it hasn’t helped the sound. Now it wasn’t unbearable by any means, but for better ambiance you’d have to go across the river. I was also annoyed with the table– because its not a solid top, if anything drips off the side of a plate or whatever, it ends up on your leg (ok maybe I’m just klutzy). I also thought for $ 2, the sodas should be refills instead of from a can. (they charge you $ 3.50 for a bottled starbucks frappucino too, calling it «iced coffee» so beware that). I also expected the rolls to be less expensive than they were, but you’d think you were in any regular sushi restaurant to see the prices– for that much money you might as well go grab some food court sushi, which will get you a bigger roll. The chicken was $ 10 (one of the cheapest entrees if I’m remembering right), and wasn’t that large of a portion in my opinion– I was splitting it with someone, but still– it was basically a small chicken breast plus some rice and over-​done veggies.
All in all, I think its a nice occasional lunch option on this side of the Loop– I don’t think anyone would severely regret coming here but it wouldn’t occur to me to come back if I didn’t work closeby. I was actually hoping it was more of a take-​out style with tables you could seat yourself at, because then I could see myself coming down alone to read over a roll for lunch. No reason why you can’t, but I just don’t need a waitress in this setting.

Just had lunch here with a friend of mine, the location-​to-​price ratio is unbeatable if you work in River North or the Loop. (Well, then again, if you are in the mood for ribs, the Robinson’s BBQ is one trailer over… I’ll try that next week). However, the food is… eh, so so. Could use improvement.
I had the Dynamite Roll ($ 10.95), which was a mixed, chopped filling of tako (octopus), kani kama (imitation crab), shrimp, masago and spicy mayo. The filling was pretty good, but the rice was a little too warm. As a result, the nori wasn’t crunchy. The rolls were also too large to fit into my mouth all at once, at least in polite company. So when I tried to bite into it, the nori stretched and the entire piece unrolled into a glop-​ular mess of sadness on my paper plate. Yes, that’s right. Real silverware, but disposable plates and cups. Understandable as I doubt they have access to a dishwasher.
Sandra had one of the day’s specials, which was grilled salmon with a side salad and soup ($ 10.95). She fared much, much, much better. The soup was a chilled cucumber, tomato, cilantro mixture… which was light and refreshing. Though maybe a little too close to watered down salsa. However, the salad and the salmon were great. The dressing on the salad, in fact, was really, really tasty and the greens were fresh. The salmon was perfectly cooked. Moist. Not smothered. A nice healthy serving. I’d eat it.
Service was friendly if a little confused, but I’m sure that’ll pass with experience.
All in all, I’d go back and maybe just have the salad and a glass of iced tea. Now that would pair perfectly with the view.