SushiSan

I’m actually quite sad that this place closed down.
I originally came here when they had their AYCE sushi dinner buffet– quality was great, but you know, there is only so much sushi I can eat. When they decided to make it $ 1 a plate, I was thrilled. In fact, the quality was comparable to their AYCE though portions were smaller, business was booming, and I stopped by MANY times. Hamachi, ikura, salmon, scallop mayo were all my must-​orders.
Then, I got busier so I came by less frequently. One day, I noticed the price went up to $ 1.25. Quality was a bit lower, but no bother… still better than the other conveyor belt places.
I too also read the reviews on Unilocal about roaches that appeared when I started going there less frequently but figured, «Ah, no biggie.» That is, until one night when I saw a roach with my own eyes crawling on the wall of the conveyor.
So then I figured I would stop by in a few months, hopefully, giving SushiSan ample time to sort out their roach problem.
After a 3 – 4 month hiatus, I went back when it was a $ 1.50/plate. This was probably around March; I ordered a few dishes and was very disappointed. For instance, the spicy tuna was full of the inedible stringy cuts of fish. There was no way for me to notice this until I actually ate one myself due to the heavy spicy mayo sauce. I really wanted to believe it was a fluke, so I ordered another and… it was also full of stringy parts.
I never returned after that experience and a few months afterwards, Sushi San closed down.
I wish I knew the reasons why SushiSan deteriorated to this level and why they didn’t have the roach problem professionally treated BEFORE everyone started noticing… sadly, these are are questions I’ll probably never hear the answer to.

Somewhere between «A-​OK» and «Yay! I’m a fan lies SushiSan.
Food: ³⁄₅
The value is pretty much up to you. At $ 1.50 a plate, that might mean a cookie, tamago, some orange slices or… a shrimp tempura roll topped with crispy cucumber, cream cheese and a slice of ahi drizzled with a sweet glaze. Right, because those are all the same value. Also, the tea is free and you can refill it right at your table, unlike at Kuru Kuru where I am sometimes dying to get a refill.
Service: ³⁄₅
While that one guy Rafael is a total jerk, the rest of the staff are friendly and generally attentive. Actually, last time they were TOO attentive, then not attentive at all. While my date and I were eating, a staff member came by to ask us how we were doing five (count them: 5) separate times in less than 5 minutes. Yes, we are fine, thanks (again)! When we’d finished eating, we didn’t see anyone nearby to count our plates for a good 15 minutes and had to flag someone down, twice, to get their attention.
Convenience: ⁵⁄₅
If I’m looking to spend about $ 12 on a meal for two people, am craving raw fish and only have a half hour, I can dine here totally satisfied with a minutes to spare (unless I am flagging down the waitstaff for the check).
Bonus:
They’ve gotten their liquor license, at last. Pretty cheap drinks and a narrow selection of beer and sake for the perfect complement to their cheap sushi. They also have a happy hour going on now apparently, but I haven’t been back for it yet.

Immediately upon craving sushi, I decided to try out SushiSan for the first time last weekend. The food and service were decent, but for the suggestions by my friends, I was hoping for a bit more.
To begin with, what’s up with the parking lot for this place? Super tiny, located behind their building, shared with about 6 – 10 other businesses; the parking lot is so full at times that they have a parking attendant (who is actually VERY nice).
My mother and I came in around lunch time, but it was surprisingly empty in this highly recommended restaurant. I started to question whether or not I made the right choice? I’ve been wanting to try out the renovated Genki in Ala Moana for ages!
Anyways, as for the drinks, we just ordered hot tea and water. The hot water dispenser was probably the most unexpected thing when I came to SushiSan as it is a serve-​yourself dispenser at an arm’s reach! A little lever at the table will get you your hot (more like very warm) water in a jiff!
The food was what made my experience just «A-​OK». A few items we ordered were pretty good, such as the tempura-​fried asparagus, the ebi (which you really can’t go wrong with unless it’s spoiled), and the Crab Spicy Ebi Roll; my mom wasn’t really thrilled about the Spicy Tuna Taco, the crispy shell was a bit too oily to be likable. The spicy ahi I ate off the top of them were good though.
Overall, my experience here was not bad if you’re looking for cheap sushi, but as someone who would pay more to eat better quality food, I will not be returning.

OMG! $ 1.25 for any plate of premium sushi? I thought that was too good to be true but after we sat down, I could slowly see why. Plates typically only have 1 piece of nigiri sushi vs two at other competitors. The real test was the spicy tuna so I ordered a spicy tuna bowl. The large bowl gets **** for quantity at $ 5.00 but the sauce tasted like watered down mayo. auwe… that was bad. everything was just mediocre. Service was great and the wait staff to the guys making the sushi were really nice to us. Too bad the food cant keep up. Place looks dirty and doesnt appear to be cleaned on a regular basis. Floors are oily and dirty.
I guess if you have a strong stomach and only $ 20 buck to spend… go for it. Otherwise stick to Genki or even convience store sushi!

Date of Visit: sometime in August 2013
*Note: been procrastinating on my reviews since moving from the Bay Area back home to Hawaii because I can never find the time, but took notes on my phone to help me write my reviews today =)
Not sure how we ended up here, but it was a day that I woke up hungover and probably was still drunk. We were up early that morning because we had to bring my car in for service at BMW and had asked to be shuttled over to Ala Moana because it would take a couple hours for the service to finish. I was super starving and as we were being dropped off I saw the Sushi San sign. I said what the heck, doesn’t hurt to try it.
Each play was $ 1.25 and I read that at one point each plate was $ 1.00. I would have to say that the portions weren’t the largest but I think you get what you pay for. The warm dishes didn’t seem to have been freshly cooked even when ordered from the waiter and not from the moving belt. I was pretty satisfied with my early lunch meal and it did the job on making my stomach happy.
However, when I did go home and read some of the reviews from the past, I saw some horrendous stories and it just wanted to make me barf… I’m hoping the time I went, things have improved and it seemed pretty clean to me. Crossing my fingers!
Will I be back? Hmmmm maybe…

Haven’t been here for months now, When I went in the place was very empty. As I started to look at the menu I wanted to try varies type if items. It was $ 1.25 per plate so why not.
I ordered:
Spicy ahi
Scallop mayo
Garlic ebi
Cream cheese ebi roll
Cream cheese salmon roll
Onion salmon
First of all the mayo that they put on the sushi is very wet like they put mayo and water together. It was very gross. He food was very small portion but of course you get what you pay for. I did not see any cockroaches but when I sat down and ate I felt very dirty because of the bad reviews people gave this place.

Sushi San sure has gone through many changes since they first open.
A few years back when they first opened it was like Genki Sushi style, where each sushi price was based on the color of the plate. I feel this was the best time for them. The fish was fresh and nice portions. The prices were just like everywhere else. The selection of sushi was much better too. They also had a hot water spout for you to make your own hot tea at the table. That was awesome in my opinion.
Then they changed it to all you can eat sushi for $ 20. I think I came here twice when it was all you can eat. It wasn’t too bad, but you can tell the quality of the sushi was starting to decline.
Then it changed to any sushi for $ 1. Now it’s $ 1.25 any sushi plates. The portions got thinner and smaller. The freshness was not like it used to be. Keep in mind, if you want to get sushi for cheap, your going to get cheap results. The prices are great if you’re on a budget and want some sushi. However the quality of the fish is not great and of course you get small portions.

New business hour starting
November 1^st 2013

I really don’t get the negative reviews. Thankfully, I looked past them and trusted my fellow Elite Emi’s review and decided to give it a try.
We came here later on a Sunday night, not too busy, definitely an «off hour» but we we had a great experience. The sushi variety was plenty, and the turnover of the sushi was quite quick, which meant fresh pieces were readily available. We ordered some stuff off the menu that was not on the conveyer belt and we got them in warp speed. Service was impeccable. The quality of the sushi is great for the price you’re paying. I mean really, how can you beat $ 1.25/plate.
The servings are definitely smaller than Genki’s or Kuru Kuru, but you know what I like the fact that there’s not tons of rice with each sushi. My favorite from tonight’s meal was the brisket… nom nom. Will definitely be back!

How can you go wrong with $ 1.25 plates? I have always driven by this place, not giving a second thought because the sign was really cheesy. It looks like something you’d see in an episode of Spongebob, but don’t let the sign fool you. Although our generation tends to «judge a book by it’s cover,» this is not the place to do it.
The food quality is probably at par or a little under other «popular» sushi places, but you can’t really complain when you’re getting two spicy ahis for the price of one, okay? I had 5 plates of that sucker and the interesting thing was, they stacked all 10 on one plate, and handed it on top of 5 plates so they were counted properly. Genius, I say.
I wouldn’t mind coming back, just cuz. But some of the stuff on their belt, I really don’t understand. Sometimes they have a single cookie or a mini cupcake on the plate and I’m thinking, «what if you made a SUPERSIZED cookie and put it on the plate? I bet people would get that one and it’s not like it’s expensive to make a big cookie either.» — Take my advice SushiSan. Jimmy knows food. He knows it well.
I’m just docking points for portion size? I felt like the portions were small. Though I’m giving 5 starts for the service and there were no roaches to be seen as stated from another review my brother was reading while we were there lol Give this place a shot. I’m sure you won’t be raving about how you love it, but you shouldn’t be raging about how you hate it either.

They definitely have gotten better on their quality since I had last visited. When I had gone in previously, the fish was of poor quality and absolutely tiny. They have raised the price to $ 1.25 per plate instead of the previous $ 1 per plate, which I don’t mind since the food had gotten substantially better. Their service is always superb, and that is one of the reasons I gave them 4 stars. They always make sure my water glass is full and if I would like to order anything off the menu. I always order the scallop mayo and the garlic salmon and the scallop is super fresh and delicious. If you like scallops more on the cooked side, I recommend getting the scallop dynamite donburi. It is super delicious and hits the scallop craving spot!
You definitely get a bang for your buck. I only eat between 8– 10 plates on average and I am absolutely stuffed. At only $ 1.25 per plate, my wallet is happy too. So if you are in the area and want some cheap, decent sushi, make your way to sushi san!

Everyone has been saying you have to go here, it’s way cheaper than «the other guys» for conveyer belt sushi.
The parking lot is small and located behind the restaurant. The parking entrance is on Kona Street. I will say they do have quite an extensive $ 1 menu.
I wasn’t very hungry so only got a few things to try…
spicy ahi– not a fan, more of a sriracha spicy than the local spicy ahi variation.
garlic ebi– tasted more like fire torch than ebi and couldn’t taste any garlic.
tobiko– this was good and wasn’t the really salty tasting type.
fried calamari– this was ok and wasn’t overly breaded.
fried breaded fish-​the fish was tasteless and you could just taste batter.
The service was ok, but they weren’t very attentive or frienly. What impressed me was that there were water spickets that dispensed hot water and the waitresses provided tea bags. Cool concept, but my water wasn’t hot enough to seep the tea. Budget friendly, yes. But I think I’ll spend a little more and go to «the other guys».

$ 1.00/plate?!
What could go wrong, right?
Oh, I know. Finding a ROACH skedaddling on the conveyor belt.
The bf and I decided to eat here and everything was going great – got our orders in, started to eat and chit chat…
Then he appeared. In broad daylight (we ate lunch at around 12) crawling off the conveyor belt, around the cups, and around my plates. I know this is Hawaii and roaches are prevalent, I get it. But they shouldn’t be by food!
I hate roaches – hate is actually a weak term. I absolutely and completely with my heart and soul despise and am frightened of roaches. Thankfully (yes, thankfully) it was a small one. I think I would’ve screamed bloody hell had it been a B-​52. So I kept my cool and notified my bf. He told the waiter and the waiter apologized and coyly attempted to grab it, but the roach escaped to live another day.
Can you say appetite lost? I mean if they come out in broad daylight where humans are, that is not a good sign.
With our stomachs suddenly full, we went up to pay. We discreetly let the owner? or manager know about our finding and all he could say (verbatim) was «Sorry, we are doing pest control.»
I wasn’t expecting a free meal, but at least be remorseful about it.
NEVER returning on the basis that there are roach/​es prevalent in the a.m. and service sucks a big, fat, hairy one.

Why the rating when the sushi is just ok? Did I go mad in rating Genki Sushi lower than Sushi San? It’s the $ 1 per plate sushi which is an amazing deal, I couldn’t believe it! The size of the sushi is small, but is justified for the price. For this price, I would suggest focusing on the following sushi:
Flying fish eggs, ahi, spicy tuna, salmon, garlic salmon, seafood salad.
This is a much better setup than the buffet. The sushi comes out quickly and they are very quick with your requests.

Eh, GROSS! I came here tonight around 8:20 pm (3÷22÷13). There was around a 20 minute wait, so during that time I went to try out Taste Tea.
Anyway, I don’t think I’ve ever had a worse quality sushi meal in my life before tonight. Right now everything is $ 1 per plate which is what I think attracts people here.
1. The rice was falling apart in the dishes.
2. Everything was basically bite sized.
3. The fish was sliced so thinly that it was almost as thin as the ginger they served. Even the spam sushi was really thin and split in half (come on, how expensive can spam be?)
4. Some sushi, such as tako (octopus) and cuttlefish only came in singles instead of the traditional pairs you see at other restaurants.
5. The spicy ahi tasted fishy despite of the spicy ahi sauce it was drenched in which made me scared to death of contracting food poisoning of some sort. THANK THE FOOD GODS that I haven’t yet, AND I hope I don’t jinx myself!
6. The garlic salmon was good, but vaguely tasted like butane because as the chefs prepared it (torched it), the whole restaurant smelt of a Bunsen burner. It might just be in my head but when I ate the garlic salmon, I swear there was an ever so slight hint of gas…
7. There were no wasabi or soy sauce dispensers in sight, and when we flagged down the waiter, he said we could have reached over to the couple next to us to grab it (um, awkward much?)
8. When asking for the check, we asked 2 waiters and waited over 15 minutes but still no one came… In the end, the guy who rang us up apologized and gave us a $ 4 discount. My party of 2 only ate 14 plates, so with the discount the bill was $ 10.
Honestly, I don’t think the $ 10 was worth it, I’d rather take it and invest it towards a better quality meal. The most memorable part of the dining experience was sitting, waiting, and hoping for something appetizing to come by on the conveyor belt, and eventually, not wanting to eat anything.
Seriously, you get full just by looking at the fish that seem terribly stale, dried out, and unappealing in general.

I’m super sensitive to bugs (in that I FREAK anytime I see one), so I kept a good eye out when I visited here after reading so many reviews about this place having bugs. And even with my super watchful eye, I didn’t see any! Phew.
The allure of the $ 1 plates drew me to dine here this past week.
Their dollar menu (har har):
It’s also BYOB! Although unfortunately, I didn’t know this and thus wasn’t able to take advantage.
Their menu is actually very extensive, with a wide variety of nigiri, rolls, and other Asian dishes, all for $ 1/​plate. I actually thoroughly enjoyed their nice selection of tasty rolls (the crab spicy ebi roll and the salmon cream cheese roll are winners)!
Salmon cream cheese roll —
HOWEVER, I was very disappointed in:
1) the rice
2) the nigiri
In general, the rice was overly-​vinegary. I’m not very fond of sushi rice as is, so to make it overly vinegary was very unpleasant for me. The rice on the rolls were okay, but somehow the rice on the nigiri were hard and dry in some areas, as if they’d been sitting on the conveyor belt too long. And I can see why…
The nigiri usually comes 2 pieces per plate, and some premium items like hamachi or ika were 1 piece per plate. But the pieces are TINY! See photo:
Seared salmon nigiri —
Maybe it’s difficult to see from that picture, but the slices of fish were like slivers (in some areas I could see the rice through the not-​very-​transluscent fish)! The rice to fish ratio was definitely off, as there was way more rice than fish (to save on cost I presume). As the rice itself was already a disappointment, I decided to save myself from any future nigiri dishes (albeit taste-​wise, the seared salmon was pretty decent).
Overall, it’s forgettable. However, this place might be a good pit stop for a few dollars of cheap sushi if you don’t want to wait in line at Genki and/​or commit to a higher price scale. Yet, still weary about the bugs…

I’ve been to Sushi San a few times and I’ve never bothered to review it since I always thought I already did. I’ve been here and each time I have the format was different. When they first opened they had that same price format as a Genki or Kuru Kuru with the different plate colors indicating different price tiers. This is when they first opened back in 2011 and I thought it was pretty good. They had dishes that were similar to Genki and Kuru Kuru but they also had dishes that those other eateries didn’t have like Clam, Hotate, Awabi and other higher end dishes.
Then there was a time when it changed to a $ 20 all-​you-​can-​eat buffet and I completely ignored this place. Not because of the variety of dishes or the quality of the food they had but the fact of the matter is as I get older, I can’t eat as much as I use to. To be honest when I go to Genki or Kuru Kuru I’m pretty good at about $ 12-​$ 14 worth of dishes which means this was no longer worth it for me.
So for the longest time I didn’t go back to SushiSan but then last weekend the gf and i felt like eating some sushi for lunch but didn’t feel like waiting 40 minutes at Genki. Since we were on that side of the mall I suggested we check out SushiSan. Much to my surprise they changed their format again. It’s basically $ 1 a dish. For the premium dishes like hokkigai, hamachi, saba or chubugai you get one piece of nigiri. For the things like maguro or salmon it’s 2 pieces. Because of the new pricing model they give you a little less rice, the nori is probably half the size then most gunkan sushi and the cuts are thinner but for $ 1? Heck 2 pieces easily makes up for it. You probably pay close to $ 3-​$ 4 for 2 regular pieces of nigiri when you can have 4 pieces of something just a tad smaller… the best thing is it allows you to have more variety to taste more things and not worrying about breaking the bank.
I read a lot about people experiencing roaches here which left me a bit weary but when we were there, I saw none at all which was a good sign. Maybe they finally fixed that? Not sure but for the most part at this price I’d come back again. I probably wouldn’t go out of my way to come here but if I was at Ala Moana it’s an option.

Recently, SushiSan went from an all you can eat sushi buffet for $ 20 to a $ 1 per plate system. This represents their second change of pricing levels as they used to have from tiered color plates kaiten style, to buffet, to today’s $ 1 per plate.
I’ve dined here all three different times and was extremely surprised that sushi quality has got much better than the previous times. The sole reason I gave this place 3 stars instead of 4 or 5 stars is because the lack of service.
The quality of sushi, like I’ve stated above, is much better than the previous two iterations of SushiSan. The more expensive sushi will only have one piece per plate, while the less expensive sushi will have two pieces. The pieces have understandably gotten smaller than before and you will find it is about 25% smaller than comparable Kaiten spots. The notable sushi pieces here will be their ikura (1pc), salmon (2pc), maguro (2pc), garlic salmon (2pc), garlic maguro (2pc), brisket (2pc), and hamachi (1pc).
Service is where they lacked. The sole problem stems from the fact they are understaffed. My girlfriend and I spent 2 hours there eating and all we both ate less than 30 plates (plates are smaller than before). We didn’t want to over order so we went with orders of 5 at a time, but that was a huge mistake. There were orders that were forgotten twice and also partially filled orders. We had one order take over 30 minutes. When you look at the belt, all there were was fried cheaper items like jin dui (who the hell eats that there?) and edaname. It does seem to me that their mentality is still stuck in the buffet style where they want to overload the belt with fried cheaper items to get you stuffed, which makes no sense now because if yo have more sushi on the belt, people will eat more and more equals more profit.
So do yourself a favor when you try here. Follow these simple rules:
1) Look at the menu picture on Unilocal.Write down what you want so you can just put in that order when you sit because it will be at least 10 minutes before you can see your order come in.
2) Sit near the door and don’t see near the corners. We sat at the rear booth and since that was the end of the chain, we hardly saw any good sushi on the belt. By sitting near the door, you are sitting where the sashimi guy cuts his fish and drops the plates. Get it before anyone else does.
3) Don’t even look at the fried stuff. The only decent thing was the deep fried salmon collars and tails and try them only if you are just sitting there waiting for your order to come and are hungry. Make sure they are also hot.

Better than average All You Can Eat Kaiten (conveyor belt) Sushi with ample free parking.
Did anyone eat more than 20 plates? I did! I ate 22 plates! See picture!

Whoa people are way harsh on you SushiSan! What have you done to deserve this other than deliver mediocre sushi on a conveyor belt? I’ve never been to Kuru Kuru so maybe that’s why I can be more forgiving? That and the servers we had were really wonderful!
SushiSan is a good option if you’re at the mall with your baby. Just go down the Nordstrom’s elevator to street level and walk across the street. My BF & I dined here with another couple who have a baby about the same age as my @thebabyisabel (Yes she has a Twitter handle), so it was nice to be able to go in somewhere that was big enough to be stroller friendly. That’s sometimes very hard to come by at busy Ala Moana Shopping Center. We certainly would not have been able to have had two strollers at Genki Sushi upstairs. There just isn’t any room. I also adore the hot water spouts which make your hot tea self serve. That my friends is ingenious! I’m sure my fellow Mommy friends who have to heat up formula will be pleased.
I’m probably not going to wake up one and say «Hey you know what, let’s eat at SushiSan!» It’ll certainly be a choice made out of pure convenience as it’s in the center of town and I don’t have to wait half an hour to be seated. Lower your expectations, it’s not fancy schmancy sushi, but for the price point, it’ll do!
Unilocal 365 Challenge: #47/​365 (The Hot Water Spout)