SuBe Sushi

This is the best sushi spot I have been to since moving to Portland. Hungry at work one Friday, I was scouring Unilocal!for good sushi places and came across Sube. The reviews, prices, and close proximity to my work were enough for me to give it a try!
My boyfriend and I arrived around 6:00 on a Friday night, and the restaurant was pretty empty, which was a pleasant surprise! It is a dimly lit lounge style, with TVs above the fully stocked bar. We were seated right away, and our waitress was extremely nice and knowledgable. She gave us many recommendations, and we ended up ordering the miso soup to start, and for the rolls we ordered the akira, crazy spice, and sake bang bang. The Akira was probably our favorite, the shallots gave it a nice, interesting flavor that I’d never had on sushi before! The Sake Bang Bang was amazing, the mango and avocado made it extremely fresh and it was baked to perfection. The Crazy Spice was a little underwhelming, but still tasty.
Overall, our experience was 5-​stars based on the atmosphere, great waitress, and best of all delicious sushi! I definitely want to try their famous tokyo tower when I come back next time.

High quality food in a cozy, swanky spot. This place will always satisfy your sushi cravings :)
It’s located just off of Burnside, it’s a great location and pretty easy to get to. You enter through the front to an elongated restaurant with seating on the right and the bar area on the left. There’s also an upstairs straight ahead overlooking the whole spot. We usually like to cozy up to the bar area!
It has really great $ 4 sushi rolls for happy hour 4−6pm! I have to admit I’m not a coconut fan (nor would I think of putting it on sushi), but try out the coco tofu roll — worth it! You also can’t go wrong with pretty much any of their rolls or sashimi here. Not only are the food ingredients of really high quality, the presentation is also equally impressive — with various colored sauces, accents, and garnishes — they are as pretty to look at as they are tasty to eat!
The staff are very friendly and helpful too. One of the managers, Viet, took extra time to explain some of the different sake options and recommend some new rolls to try. so, a plate full of sushi paired with a good glass (or bottle!) of sake, you’re good to go! I can’t wait to go back and continue to discover new items on the menu!
Pro-​tip: 10% off speciality sushi when you check in on the app! Enjoy!

Really good sushi! We loved the Tokyo Tower and the Sake Bang Bang… 4pm — 6pm happy hour is a great deal too.

Meh… staff is very personable but the meal itself lacked luster. I HATE soy sauce as I’m a purest when it comes to sushi yet I was forced to dip into this sauce in order to taste anything. Goes to show that each reviewer experiences differently.

If you know good sushi, this is your spot. Hamachi sashimi to die for, the Beautiful roll is easily in the top 5 rolls I’ve ever had in my life. The fish is fresh and full of flavor. The service? Impeccable. Our server was well versed on guiding us through the menu and provided honest feedback on each item we were considering. To top it off, NOT EXPENSIVE! Oh PS– voodoo donuts is literally next door, so you could swoop in there for a night cap

My Wife and I were wondering around Downtown Portland when we felt like getting some cocktails. We spotted SuBe Sushi and thought we’d check it out.
In Short:
Cool Sushi bar with a relaxing looking lounge upstairs. Great cocktails and a very nice bartender.
The Drinks were great, strong (as it seems is usual in Portland), and very tasty.
We will have to try the food here time! I hope the food is as good as the drinks and friendly staff!

Life changing. I would make this my traditional spot to hit up every time I visit Portland (from SF area). The food is superb, the service is great, and I have zero regrets by coming here.
Unfortunately I finished this review after the fact so I can’t remember what I ordered, but there was a hamachi sampler, a baked salmon roll, and I can’t remember the last. But they were all amazing. The prices were great, the value was there (good size cuts of fish), but the flavors were exactly what you hope all sushi spots would have.
I hope you’re a drinker because you need to order the «Jiro dreams of whiskey» drink… wait… I’m afraid you’ll take that an hyperbole… I literally mean, you NEED to order that drink. Just do it. Whether you’re a whiskey aficionado or not. So good.
I’m from the SF bay area and I will be making this my first place to eat when I go back to Portland to visit. Not even slightly exaggerating

A-​Ok!
This place is a Bar first then Sushi restaurant.
Walking into this place gives you a dance club vibe. Bar stools, dark, blue flashing lights, two screen televisions. And at the end of the bar is the sushi chef.
I find it interesting that people describe sushi as fresh. I think that it is standard and even a regulatory requirement that fish is fresh. Sushi grade fish is actually fish that is caught then deep frozen to kill the potential bacteria or any food-​borne parasites that could be living in the fish.
I met the restaurant manager Ricky. I asked him where they got the name SuBe. He said its short for ‘Sushi Beats’. The restaurant owner is a dj.
The sushi menu was short, which I like. I think that restaurants that have a long sushi menu has a higher potential to make low quality sushi. For example, Jiro’s Sushi restaurant, has a very short menu. And they only make sushi, no appetizers, no fancy deserts or drinks.
I think this is a great place to come for drinks. I didn’t sample any of the drinks but the Sake menu and the full bar looked appetizing. If I come back, I would potential award another star.
I ordered the Rip City Roll, a scallop nigiri, and a tobiko/​shirmp appetizer. $ 22. It was ok. I would potentially award another roll, if I come back and try their more popular rolls and try their sashimi.
So for now on this trip I awared three stars. When I return I could potentially award 2 more stars after I order their drinks and sashimi and popular rolls.

This was hands down the best sushi I’ve ever eaten. So crazy fresh. We came in on a Sunday during a championship Portland soccer game and the place was dead. A-​Ok by me! The menu immediately caught my eye, «Jiro Dreams of Whiskey»… ARE YOU KIDDING ME? I love that documentary! We had to order it.
I’m not a huge Whiskey fan, but when it came (with the giant whiskey ice ball) I drank it up. My husband was impressed (since I never drink it) and let me have at it. We ended up ordering another to share.
We come to Portland a few times a year and we’ll certainly be coming back to this place.

We popped in just for a salmon skin hand roll. They were gracious, the décor was minimal but elegant, and the handle itself was very well done. The rice had good texture, the vegetables included some oshinko, and there was a vibe of caring. We will return and try them out for fooled me or based on the strength of this one item.

Life chang

Good happy hour specials and delicious, well-​priced sushi– what more could you want from a downtown restaurant? We tried the jalapeño popper, electric banana, spicy salmon and philly roll– all were delicious, though the jalapeño roll could’ve had more crunch to it. We saw the people next to us get the Sube ball and it looked delicious. Service was fast and friendly and the food was enjoyable. The only downsides to this place are that tables are small and close together (as they are in many downtown locations though) and it can get warm in the tight quarters. It’s definitely worth squeezing in though to get some of their delicious sushi.

We went to SuBe for a last dinner in Portland before heading to the airport. We had a bunch of things to do during our last day in Portland, but ended up finishing early and decided to have a super early dinner, i.e. 3:30pm. I was hoping to order off the happy hour menu, which starts at 4pm, but they were pretty inflexible about that request, even though we were only 30 minutes away. When we sat down, the restaurant was half empty, but it filled up very quick and they had to turn at least 3 – 4 tables away while we ate. The restaurant has the enviable position of being right next to the extremely popular Voodoo Doughnuts, and I have a feeling that a number of people came in because they were starving after waiting in line for more than an hour for those doughnuts.
Unfortunately, the plan ran out of SuBe Ball, which is an item that most reviewers recommended. Instead we ordered the following dishes:
Tokyo Tower — this was a huge dish, with nearly equal ratio of rice vs. toppings, which consisted of tuna, crab salad, avocado and egg. The sauces that accompanied the dish were so good, and went so well with the sushi rice.
Magic Mushroom — seriously do not understand why people love this dish, I guess if you are a vegetarian, this is a nice option for you. I thought the mushroom was too sweet and they could’ve made the roll with more filling
Volcano — I only got the roll because it was torched and I have been obsessed with the technique of torching sushi rolls during this trip. I couldn’t really tell the roll was torched, but I loved the crunchy spicy scallop topping. The filling was a bit small though.
Crazy Spice Roll — another good roll, loved the tobiko and spicy aioli topping.
This place is similar to Umi Sake House in Seattle, i.e. they have great inventive rolls, but I am not quiet sure about the quality of the seafood on its own. It is quiet easy to hide mediocre seafood with tons of sauce, but I don’t mind if the end result is delicious, as long as the fish has not gone bad. It all depends on what you are looking for. I personally don’t think this is a high-​end amazing sushi bar, but I really like their fun/​yummy rolls.

It was 2 pm, on a Sunday. Most sushi places were either closed or opening later. The craving for sushi was great. This place was open since noon, and had good reviews so we decided to head there.
It was pretty busy but we were seated right away. I kind of didn’t like how the tables were so close to each other, meaning no privacy.
We ordered the volcano and jalapeño popper rolls and cucumber salad.
Everything came after a short wait and looked delicious! The portions were a little small– at other places you would get more for a $ 10 roll.
Everything tastes yummy and fresh, so overall I enjoyed this place and will be returning to try more items on the menu!

I wish this place was open for lunch (although they are on Fridays)! The sushi is fantastic, the service amazing, and happy hour is great!
I had been eyeing this place for a while, just a block away from Big Pink and mere inches from VooDoo, it’s in a great location. After a long day I needed some sushi! I ordered a Philly Roll and Spicy Tuna, both were absolutely perfect.

Definitely a sushi bar I will return to here in PDX. The owner is very personable and on a constant watch for customers, partially due to its location next to Voodoo Doughnuts. As a single woman hanging out, that is nice.
The rolls I ordered off the happy hour menu had a great fish v. rice ratio, one that allowed you to taste the actual fish. And I do so like to actually be able to taste the main ingredients; however, as I did not try any fancy roll, I will be back to try (and judge ;0) those.
One thing: Of my salmon roll, the fish itself was totally at room temperature, which I want to eat again to see if that is their standard – way better than too cold, like at some of these other places.