Tanoshii

Who doesn’t crave the perfect combination of fresh seafood, a lively BYOB environment and stellar service from a local Chicago restaurant? I was so impressed by my experience while dining at Tanoshii Sushi in Andersonville, and I encourage you to visit the best sushi place in Chicago.
It’s worth the trip out to Andersonville, and I am very much looking forward to visiting the other location in the West Loop. The ingredients selected for Sushi Mike’s custom rolls are the freshest I have ever tasted compared to other sushi restaurants in Chicago. Tanoshii has designed a hidden menu where you can tell your waiter the type of roll you prefer and the chefs will use their expertise to put together the perfect combination for you. The maki selection is not worth looking at, although it is a more affordable option and their usual maki are cheaper than any other sushi place I have seen in the city. Two chefs crank out sushi for the entire restaurant, and it’s fun to sit at the bar and watch the magic happen.
They have a smart system going at this place by convincing you to go with the Mike’s roll. It’s a little bit more pricey, but you can BYOB.
I told the chef I wanted to have scallop on top and veggies in the middle. He put together a mushroom roll with avocado and crab topped with a 14 year aged sweet balsamic sauce. It was a more high maintenance request and took a little bit of time to work out with my waiter, but it was worth the wait! The chef came to greet us at the end of our meal, and I am so excited to go back and try something new.
It’s smart to make a reservation here and head out for a sushi night like never before!
On the blog:

Sushi Mike is phenomenal. The sushi was to die for. And the service was amazing. Despite it being busy, Mike and our waitress made us feel like we were the only ones there.

Once you have had sushi here, you will never want it anywhere else. Each bite is heaven. The service is impeccable… efficient but non-​obtrusive. The quality of the fish is something I have never tasted before and each plate is a work of art.

Officially my most favorite sushi place now in Chicago!
Top quality ingredients and delicious combinations!
The staff was so polite and Sushi Mike and the other Sushi Chef put together amazing sushi masterpieces.
I shared 6 customized rolls with my friend. I believe it was called the: Sushi Chef Special. We described what kind of flavors and ingredients we liked and the Chefs put together amazing dishes.
Very impressed & definitely coming back again!

I decided to try something new. I’m the kind of person that once I find a good place I stick with it. But I’ve been trying to explore different places throughout the city. I came here and ordered edamame, it was $ 5 and was the smallest portion I’ve ever had, was probably only about 20 pieces… that’s just sad. My food comes out and the rolls where much smaller then most sushi places I’ve gone to and yet was still the same price as other places. The servers never once checked on me during my Meal. I asked for eel sauce and it tasted like watered down teriyaki sauce. I do not recommend this place to anyone nor will I return. I will bring my business to a place that I will get my money’s worth.

Great food and service. The place is small but nicely arranged. My husband and I usually order for carry out because it’s so close to home. We usually order the Dragon roll which is our favorite. The chicken teriyaki is also great.

I had Sushi for the first time last night at Tanoshii and it was life-​changing!!! The staff was very attentive and make sure my first sushi experience was amazing. I love that it’s BYOB. I can see why this place is so crowded. You are hooked by the first bite. I tried three rolls including one of Mike’s special made cooked rolls. And this best part about it is I only live about 5 minutes away. I will be back, a lot!

Tanoshii was a tough one to rank. On the one hand, the chef knows what he is doing … the flavors were complementary in a really good, tasty way. On the other hand, the fish was a little buried in sauces that were a little heavy and sweet. We decided to trust the chef (Omakase) which I always like to do. Both of us were disappointed that both of our selections already had sauce. We were both looking forward to soy sauce and wasabi. I’d call this modern sushi rather than traditional sushi. I’ll definitely be back but with different expectations. One more thing … it’s a tad pricey (notice the $$$). On your way over, I recommend picking up a black bottle TY KU sake from the Jewel across the street.

We elected to allow Sushi Mike to make our sushi choices.
It was thoroughly enjoyable. We started with something they called «Fish and Chips», which was tuna tartare in a beautiful layered tower, then whipped together by our waitress, and packed tightly onto a large warm triangular chip.
Our meal was followed by three different selections of maki-​mono, each better than the last. Sushi Mike’s choices of ingredients were inspired, but his presentation was somewhat less than exciting. The rolls were delicious and cleanly and politely presented. But they were less than exciting, and surprisingly each roll looked much like the last.
Still the flavours were excellent, and because of that, I’m still giving them 4 stars.

Good dinner and fun experience. Try the special and let your server know if there is anything you don’t eat. The only con to doing the special is that it does not include any any sashimi (my favorite). As much as I like to be adventurous I also enjoy sticking to what I know I enjoy! Check it out!

For the real thing with a twist that actually works order the Mike special unbelievably good. This place never disappoints, with service to boot. One couldn’t ask for more

Phenomenal sushi restaurant… Visited while in Chicago in May 2015.
Mike was an absolute pleasure to watch and speak with. I would strongly suggest against ordering from the menu. Let him know what you’re in the mood for and let him take the wheel from there. If you manage to get on his good side, he may even pour you a complementary shot of Knob Creek!
Cheers!

Fresh sushi, good service … Nice ambience. Our second time to this place. Byob… And if you forgot to bring wine, jewel osco is just across the street … Servers are friendly … Good for groups. The master chef owns the place …

Tanoshii is the only place in Chicago that I will go for sushi!
Just as many other reviewers have said, sit at the sushi bar and let Chef Mike work his magic! He will ask about preferences and food allergies, and go from there. Every time I go to Tanoshii, Chef Mike makes something new and delicious that I have never had before.
For reference, Chef Mike also loves Miller Lite. So if you are stopping by and planning on sitting at the sushi bar, bring him a 6 pack.

Decent sushi, albeit American style which translates into way too much sauce and rolled with a lot of rice so it can only be fit in the typical American’s mouth.
Over priced, which is again standard for the clientele in the city. Friendly staff and clean establishment. I am still in search of a nice reasonally priced place in area.

The sushi here is great. It’s fresh and well executed.
The service here is AWFUL! Our waitress never came back to ask if everything was fine and if we wanted anything else (even though I kept a menu and told her I’d be ordering more food). After having her avoid eye contact for a good twenty minutes, I had to hunt her down to order more food. I didn’t want to do it again, so I ended up going home and having the rest of my dinner. She totally avoided any niceties overall and was generally worthless. Need. New. Staff. This is why people hate tipping. I had to tip this girl for being awful at her job. That’s ridiculous.

Some of the best/​most fresh sushi I have had! Great service and enjoyable atmosphere.
I would definitely recommend doing Mike’s Special where they bring out food for you. The one «special» roll we got was out of this world– wasabi purée with super white tuna and regular tuna. The Kamikaze roll was very good as well.
The pieces were SO fresh. Melted in your mouth. Loved the mochi at the end of the meal :)

The sushi here is some of the best I’ve had. If you’re going to eat at Sushi Mike’s, here are three recommendations to get the most out of your experience:
1) don’t come here with a party of more than 4 people. 2 is ideal. this is because…
2) sit at the bar. it’s cozy and you get to watch them make your food; it’s a great show
3) order The Special. the rolls are a little pricey, but you won’t be disappointed
Sushi Mike clearly has a following and it’s easy to see why. Unfortunately, I don’t think I’ll be rushing to come back any time soon. About 3 rolls into our amazing dinner, Sushi Mike pulled our waiter aside behind the register (in front of all the customers and other staff) and started reaming him. It went on for what felt like ages. I don’t know whether the guy deserved it or not, but it made us feel really uncomfortable. I kept worrying if it was something we’d done that had gotten this poor guy in trouble.
It left a bad taste in my mouth that lasted far longer than any of the tasty food they served us.
There are lots of places in this city that serve amazing food. The next time I want great sushi, I’m going to a place that treats their staff with dignity.

Okay so this place really annoyed me and I hardly get annoyed and I hardly give out two stars. A few weeks ago I made reservations at Tannoshi but to my own mistake I made it for the wrong location and really wanted it to be here. We arrived at 6:30 and the place was practically empty. The guy told me Made the reservation at his partner location and told me to head over there. That’s at least a half hour away with little traffic and obviously we would have been late over there. What really pissed me off is that they could have made an exception even though it was my fault since the place was empty. He kept saying those are for future reserved spots like for 7:30 and 8:00 which was more than an hour away. I begged him asking him if we could sit at the bar or anywhere really and that we eat super quick and would be out before those times guaranteed. He said sorry no. I’ve never been turned down like that especially since there were a plethora of empty tables. He didn’t care that we drove over an hour from the burbs to get here, just plain rude and lacked all customer service.
Being the kind of person who believes in second chances I decided to give them another shot last weekend and made another reservation, this time at this place. We arrived and were sat in their back room which felt very desolated and I would have preferred to be where the action was at. Oh and the room was also more than 70% empty on a Saturday night waiting for future reservations. Our hostess had that «I’m too cool for school attitude» about her the entire meal. She didn’t really offer any recommendations and I had to really ask her what she would suggest. She felt too busy to give us any ideas. We decided to order a few simple rules to taste the quality of the fish and a few of their renowned specials. The simple rolls weren’t expensive but lacked a lot of fish and were oh so blah. The specials we tried were the salmon special and the soft shell crab special, only thanks to the Unilocal pics on here. They were $ 20 and $ 22 and I felt extremely ripped off. Were they decent rolls? Yes absolutely. Anything out of the extraordinary? Nope. I mean that salmon roll had a few pieces of salmon, some drizzled honey and what looked like imitation crab inside. Yes you get like 9 – 10 pieces but for $ 22? I mean this isn’t Sunda or any special downtown place so where do they get off charging such prices for such mediocre, lacking tons of fish, rolls. You can easily spend way too much here and I’m glad we didn’t do too many other rolls. Toro and coast are way better in my opinion and wayyy cheaper. This is not Morimoto, it’s a little edge water place charging way too much. I won’t be back, and not only due to the sushi but mostly, how I felt I was treated which wasn’t very nice. Maybe the Randolph location is nicer on the inside which a much nicer staff and I should have ended up their after all.

My husband and I came here for our anniversary dinner. I was in the mood for sushi so we decided to check out this place. They also have another location on Randolph. He got the Tanoshii Special and I the Chirashi. They have thick cuts of sashimi here which it nice, but I do prefer it sliced thinner. The meal came with miso soup and salad. The miso soup was good, not too salty.
The Tanoshi Special came with the fried shrimp head, my husband’s fav! Overall, the quality of the fish is fresh. However, the prices are a bit more steep than the other places around here. I could only imagine how expensive it would be for the specials.
We have only tried Ora and Tanoshii on Clark, but between the two, I would choose Ora over Tanoshii. This place is bigger though so you might not have to wait during peak hours.