California Rollin’

My latest experience was with a party take out order. The person who took my order was less than friendly and the sushi was even less fresh. This will be my last visit.

Stopped in for dinner tonight. I wasn’t expecting it to be particularly busy based on other weeknight visits. We had the option to wait 15 or 20 minutes for a table or we could sit at the bar, which we did. It was definitely interesting to see the sushi being prepared. We ordered the moo moo platter to start, which was delicious. My boyfriend decided to order a drink, which you might normally think the server would have asked if I wanted one too. When she came back, I ordered one. When she brought it over to me, she slammed it onto the table without saying anything. Our sushi rolls weren’t very flavorful and a little disappointing. Our server brought our heck over even before we were done eating. Definitely a very welcoming invitation to stay… The service left a lot to be desired and the sushi was okay at best. We had a groupon, which cut cost down, but I’m not dying to go back.

Their service is as bad as their food.
My wife ordered takeout and when she got there they tried to charge her $ 50 when it was around $ 20. And then when they fixed the amount it turns out they made the wrong order. So she had to seat there and wait for them the make the «Sushi Burrito» which was THE LAMEST sushi burrito I’ve seen in my life. Literally a couple of SUPER THIN rolls wrapped in nori. Not worth $ 10 at all. I’ve tried the rest of their food and it’s just not good.

I went to CR on a Tuesday with my girlfriend for dinner. They had Tuesday specials of buy 2 rolls get 1 free and house wine was $ 2.50 all night. Definitely check the site before you go– they had lots of great specials! We loved the sushi and enjoyed the atmosphere. I will say the service was not great. 45 mins after ordering, a different server came up to us asking what we ordered and they had to put it in again. Even though the service was bad I’d go back again.

Mediocre sushi. Americanized sushi. I’d only go back if I was trying to introduce a friend to sushi who is afraid of the fish taste. Then they could have bacon and fried and well, an American interpretation of sushi.
They had no bar tender on a Thursday night. The staff behaved like I was inconveniencing them. I called in (twice) to pre-​order my take-​out and no one answered. So I had to wait 40 minutes to get my food.
It isn’t an awful place, and if you don’t know sushi, you’ll probably like the ambiance, assuming you get a good server. But there are many much better places for sushi in Rochester, with much more pleasant staff.

Food is good, and they have some inventive rolls. The reason I give one start is because the wait is too long. I went for lunch, and given that Village Gate is busy at lunch, you would think they would have additional staff. We waited 45 minutes for our food and the waitress never came back after dropping off our drinks. If I could guess there were maybe 6 tables being used in the entire restaurant.

Will never go back. I’m sure that the food is great but we didn’t get the chance to find out.
We waited for 45min-​1hr when I noticed 2 other tables that sat down 30min after us get their food and start eating. We then asked the waitress how long it would be and she said they are just about to start making it! That’s when we decided to leave.
She even forgot our seaweed salad.
They must have either lost, or completely ignored our order ticket.
Oh. And I don’t have a problem with the staff eating on the job, but at least put the food in the back where the customers can’t see you stuffing your face with sushi.

I came here to meet my friends for dinner, because one of my friends said it’s her favorite place to get sushi in the area. If this place is the good place to get sushi, I do not want to try anywhere else… For bad reasons.
The interior design looks nothing of asian decent. It actually looks like a school cafeteria. No, I am not overly exaggerating. The waitresses were eh. They were friendly because they had to be. They did not seem genuine.
One waitress sat us down, and gave us menus and a paper on the table. After 2 minutes, we still did not know what we wanted and asked the waitress to give us more time. She gave us plenty of time. She gave us a good 10 minutes before we had to call her over to order. When she came, she just looked at us for an awkward amount of time. She then told us we need to write down our order on the paper she gave us. Call me arrogant, but shouldn’t she have told us in the beginning? Or even ask us if we’ve been there before? So we wrote down our order, and called her over after 2 minutes.
The thing I thought was cool about this place were the «plates» they gave us. They looked like authentic Japanese trays for sushi. However, maybe it’s because I live in Queens (where they’re are sushi places every mile apart), but the sushi is not that good. Edible, but not good. I had the rainbow roll.
After we finished, the waitress gave us the check. When we all had our payments together, we were going to give the waitress our check. She then says we need to pay at the register… Again, she should have told us since we never been here before. I went to go pay, and told her to put $ 16 on the credit card, and for her to keep the rest of the remaining cash as payment and tip. She counted the cash and said I only had to charge $ 7.11. I then told her to charge $ 16 on the card, and to keep the rest of the cash for the check and tip. She was not comprehending. So, I broke it down for her: Please charge $ 16 on the card, and $# will go toward the check, and $# will go toward tip. I guess she had a blonde moment, because she then said «OHHHH, sorry! I am usually not this dump.» It’s alright. Must have been a long day for you. She then told me she will charge $ 7.11 on the credit card so it isn’t confusing. The original payment was too complicated for her I guess, so she charged $ 7.11 to my card, and I wrote $ 8.89 as tip.
I’m either guessing the waitresses were having a real bad day, because they were not that friendly. Service is not great, and the food is below mediocre. Half a star for effort, 1 star for the cool food trays, and another half a star for not giving me food poison.

The service is the worst I have ever had. Sushi isn’t nearly as good as it used to be. It’s no wonder they are selling Groupons at 60% off. They simply do not care about the business they are running. We would have spent more if we didn’t spend so much time waiting for things– such as chop sticks and soy sauce bowls. Just look at the horrible reviews on Facebook. I have been going here for 15 years and have watched the service decline consistently. This was the last straw tonight. Never again.

My daughter and I tried out this place today and we loved it! Neither of us are crazy about fish, so if we can get a solid vegetarian sushi, we are super happy! Today we did!
We had some trouble figuring out how to order at first (they have pieces of paper that you fill out) & the waitress went to some people who came in after we did which irked me (and why they got 4 stars — if it were just about the food I would have given 5) but the rest of our experience as grand.
We started our meal with a vegetable bowl with rice because we didn’t see vegetable tempura on the menu. To our surprise, that vegetable bowl actually was vegetable tempura and it was delicious! A lot of veggies and the rice was a perfect share appetizer.
Next we ordered our sushi rolls — I got the weekly special of three vegetarian rolls for 13.49 and my daughter got two Tofuuty rolls — sushi with vegetables and tofu covered in a sweet and sour sauce with red chili’s. Holy hell they were awesome!
The sushi was served on wooden boards that added to the whole Asian moment. We tried the vegetarian roles — they were delish but I’m not gonna lie, they tasted similar to Wegmans veggie sushi. Nothing special but good. The Tofuuty rolls though were DIVINE! I was fighting my daughter over the pieces! The sushi was fried in tempura batter and smothered with the sauce and when you bit into it, it tasted like a healthy version of a McDonald’s chicken nugget in sweet and sour sauce. Only more flavorful and delicious! Our minds were blown! Next time we go back we are only ordering the tofutty rolls!
We skipped desert because we were stuffed! Nice place. Good sushi. A little on the pricey side for lunch but we’d totally do it again!
+

This is not the place in Rochester to get authentic sushi. It is very ‘Americanized’ and the raw rolls are minimal and the fried, ‘unique’ (unique being there is Chicken Fingers and BBQ sauce in them) are plenty. They also have very few non-​seafood rolls (which is not a bad thing, but if you are with someone that prefers Veggie rolls, there are few). There are better places for authentic sushi…
However, that being said, I have never had an issue with service, considering it is usually very busy, the wait isnt too long (they will however not seat you until your entire party is there due to this), and the restaurant is clean and friendly. It was perfect to bring my boyfriend who was ‘new’ to sushi and never tried it and to give him a taste.

Disclaimer: I have never been to the actual restaurant, but they cater their sushi rolls at the University of Rochester. Being a student there with a required dining plan, I’m embarrassed to say I’ve tried just about every roll — salmon avocado, eel, spicy tuna, tuna avocado, crab, california, and stinger roll — and I hesitate to call it sushi.
The quality of fish is the worst I’ve ever had. Not just Rochester. I think you’d find better sushi in Africa. Seriously, if you’re reading this now, go somewhere else! If you’re about to walk in the restaurant, turn around! Shiki, plum house, bubble fusion tea, and Osaka are all far better places I’ve been in Rochester.
Now, let’s keep this between us. I have a reputation to uphold and people will laugh at me if they know I’ve eaten this stuff. If you decide to continue on your venture into California Rollin, may god be with you.
PS — I’m from California and a «sushi» place like this wouldn’t roll in my town.

it surprises me that I haven’t reviewed this place before, it’s the first place I ever tried sushi and one of the only places I’ll go in Rochester if I have a craving.
I’d like to give it five stars, if it were just about the food, I would. As so many other people have commented, it is not really the place to go if you want authentic sushi, there are better places for that, with much smaller menus and much more attention to authenticity than here if that’s what you’re after. However, after one particularly graphic (albeit suspiciously over-​dramatic) lecture in a nutrition class about raw fish and worms a few years ago, I will likely never touch raw sushi again. Therefore, this place is perfect for me. Their American fusion-​style rolls (clams casino, crab rangoon, dancing diablo, Louisiana, D-​lightful, etc…) are absolutely delicious. Occasionally I will get a craving for one or more of these rolls that will hit me like a tsunami, and there’s just nothing to do about it except come down and get my fix.
Now, the reason I can’t give it five stars is service. I read a few other reviews that mirror my opinion, although a couple of them sounded like straight up horror stories. I have not had *that* bad of a time here. However, I can’t eat here if I have time constraints, as the service and the food are very slow. The food is more understandable, since it’s made to order, but no excuse whatsoever for the consistently slow, meandering, distracted service that you can count on having at Cali Rollin. One time, after they neglected to come back and refill my water or offer another drink until after I was done and wanted to leave, and then after waiting what seemed like an eternity for the box and check I asked for, the server dropped off the slip for me to sign and left me sitting there for another 20 minutes, oblivious to the fact that she’d accidentally kept my credit card in her pocket. Needless to say I was mildly perturbed by this.
In addition to the poor service, they are one of those restaurants that closes betwixt ye olde lunch time and ye olde dinner time, and while (in theory) I understand the reasoning behind this, I also work in the service industry, and have always had to remain on my shifts during that time and I promise, it’s never killed or even maimed me to do so. No, you will not see a lot of volume and your servers will not make the bulk of their income during those two hours, but you will lose out on any business you could have had by doing this. As someone who has to shift their whole eating schedule back a few hours to (ironically) accommodate the service industry life, this means I very rarely end up coming here unless I purposely skip a meal to do so. They’re simply not open during the time I eat lunch, so I don’t eat sushi as often as I’d like these days.
But if I want my clams casino roll, i guess I’ve got to suffer through having an early meal and poor service, as they’ve never bothered to change those things before and it doesn’t seem likely they’ll do so any time soon.

Horrible service — decent food. We called asking if they take reservations. The hostess laughed at us stating they have never taken reservations. like we were supposed to know eh?
Should have taken this as a sign but we tried anyways. Wait was long (would have been nice to have a reservation…). Service was slow and sushi was ok.
Much better places to go a short walk away.

I have been here once but when I was here it was a quick in and out lunch. It was the middle of the week so it was dead when I went in with a friend. Maybe one other person at the bar. Since it wasn’t busy obviously the service was quick. I didn’t have any issues with that…
As for the food, the sushi was fine by me but there was not a lot (compared to other sushi places I have been too). The rolls were some what smaller. Not small enough for me to complain about though. They have a lot to choose from on the menu which is nice. I enjoyed the Valerie Roll, myself.
I recommend trying California Rollin’ out for yourself to create your own judgement, because I did not have a bad experience myself!

We’ve been here to satisfy a couple of sushi cravings in the past year. I find their rolls are quite small and they aren’t really generous when it comes to the filling in the roll itself. What makes us come back is their groupons (which are available frequently) and their variety. Their sushi rolls contain combinations you’ve never seen and are fun to try.
My recommendations are the deluxe spicy tuna (spicy tuna, onion crunches, cream cheese, jalapeño, bacon, garlic) and the mistletoe roll (salmon, avocado, honey, sesame seeds).
Two roIls I would suggest staying away from are the spank me roll which has too much wasabi in it. It makes your eyes pop out of your head with every bite — not pleasant. The other is the crab rangoon roll which is one of their tempura rolls. It comes warm which I find is a little awkward for sushi.
Try their house beers though! Their plum brew and wasabi brew are pretty good and interesting to try out.

The food is great here but the service is ridiculous.
Very slow to get your food. And they always put the chairs up 45 minutes before the restaurant stops serving. Really feels like they want you out of there. Cold service as well. I’ve seen them turn away 15 people with less than 75% capacity in chairs. Not sure how they make money.

California Rollin’ is the go to place for affordable sushi, and great cocktails. The interior of the restaurant has this cool blue surfing theme, I am guessing to correlate with «sushi rolls». It is a little bit of a disappointment not to see an outside patio area being utilized for guests who want to eat out on a nice day. Service for me was always great, where the host always seats me at my usual bar stool over-​looking the sushi bar. Speaking of the Sushi Bar, I like watching the sushi chefs make everyone’s food. Plus there is a TV next me that zooms in on the table the chefs are rolling the Sushi with. The server was always proactive to all my needs. As soon as my last cocktail was finished, the server would bring me my new one without having to ask. Everyday of the week there is a new special going on. I usually go on Friday’s where they make there free cup of delicious lobster bisque soup. Now i have to tell you, this is NOT the place to get HIGH QUALITY sushi. Your not going to find huge rolls, or nice cuts. The motto is your going to get quantity over quality. For the price you pay for everything, at the end of the day I can’t complain about it.
BAR DRINKS: What an array of well executed cocktail drinks. This place has probably some of the best affordable cocktails in the Village Gate area. My top faves are the Asian Pear Martini. This includes Grey Goose Le’Poire, Domaine De Canton Ginger Liqueur, and pear juice. The pear and ginger go so well together, I always end up having 2! The Sushi Ho will really make you get loose. This includes Bacardi Superior Rum, Three Olives Cherry Vodka, pineapple, cranberry, and OJ. As you can tell from these examples, the combinations are creative and endless.
APPETIZER: The Edamame was overly salted. I needed more of that buttery taste inside my green bean. I kept having to drink more of my cocktail to get through it.
SOUP AND SALAD: The homemade Lobster Bisque really is a treat on a Friday night. The manager made sure to get me a fresh cup of it. I saw the on-​going process of the staff preparing this soup for the evening. The bisque itself was thick, and the lobster meat was hearty. I couldn’t believe this was FREE. The Miso soup is not that great, very watery and bland. In fact I tried real hard to always find actual pieces of Tofu in there. The Ginger Salad always tasted like a regular salad with no dressing on it. I barely tasted any ginger or rice vinegar in the dressing.
SUSHI: Alright there is HIDDEN SECRET to at least getting the BEST sushi there. Order the Emperors Fest!!! This will give you the ability to pick your choice of over 20 pieces of sushi which includes 2 Maki Rolls. The platter itself is HUGE. For $ 22.00 I got over 20 pieces of sushi, 2 soups, and a salad. My top sushi pics for the Nigiri Rolls: THE WASABI BOMBER!!! Fresh salmon roe (fish eggs) doused in Wasbi rolled up tightly in this HUGE roll. When you order this, the whole staff will cheer «Wasabi Bomb» till you finish it. I ate TWO like a champion, and finished the CHALLENGE. The Yellow Tail, and the Squid were chewy, but where the top rolls as far as quality there. The Smoked Eel tasted the BEST, with the Eel sauce drizzle on top. WARNING: make sure to specify to your server NOT to have the sushi chefs FRY any of your Sushi. Sometimes they will do this AUTOMATICALLY as a cop-​out to rolling it fully for you. As per the other reviews, there right on. The cuts are horrible, and uneven. The sushi is never rolled properly, and can fall apart if not picked up carefully. The rice to roll them with is never sticky enough to attach the fish properly to the roll. The fish quality is cheap if you want the basic fishes. Still this place is PACKED, and why? Cause people in Rochester are more forgiving when it comes to food, drinks, and sushi when the quantity is HIGH, and the PRICE is low.
Overall: Great Service (Sorry guys, I always did get treated good here), Amazing Unique Cocktails, Asian Pear Martini, Lobster Bisque, Emperors Fest, High Quantity, Below Average Quality, Affordable Prices, Poor Uneven Cuts, Eel, and the Wasabi Bomb Challenge… I will be back.

We really like the food here since we are not hard core sushi people. The tempura rolls like the Liberty or the Baconator are great. Really creative.

We used to come here often but the service was a real turnoff. I think when they moved to this bigger space a few years ago they not only lost the quaintness of their old dumpy place but their seating outstripped their «kitchens» ability to serve the number of patrons. So every time we show up there are plenty of open seats especially at the Sushi bar (which we like) but it is always at least a 20 minute wait. Perhaps they just want to make more money on drinks. Though last night after we did get seated it took 40 mins to get our food once ordered and it really wasn’t that crowded.
This situation gets worse when they offer Groupons and the crowds get bigger. That is why we had not been here in over a year… but we took a chance that it would not be too crowded even though they did just recently offer a Groupon. Not sure what the answer is but we like the food but hate the service…

I’d really say this place deserves about 1.5 stars, but it just couldn’t get the benefit of the doubt. Ordered takeout for lunch while working nearby, and 20 minutes later swung by very excited by the menu descriptions and keen to sample some of the unique flavour combinations. Well… the difference between expectation and execution ended up being a massive gulf.
The spicy shrimp pizza… great concept. Upon opening the box, it looked a little… overdone, but I figured I’d give it a shot. Stale and over-​toasted bread covered with pureed shrimp and cream cheese and «hot» sauce drizzled on top. Not great, but maybe the best part of the meal.
The pisces roll and deluxe spicy tuna (bacon, cream cheese, jalapeño, and garlic just sounded like a cool idea) were the real letdown. The inside-​out rolls were squashed in the box and wound up clumped together, and the rice didn’t seem of great quality. Each bite just exuded a metallic taste that I couldn’t pin down, and the fish had this just-​above-​room-​temperature warmth that lent a strange consistency to the rolls. This was definitely how the kitchen put them out, as I arrived well before my order was ready to be picked up. Had it not been take-​out, I’d have demanded new food. As it was, I dejectedly considered it a step towards dieting.
Maybe I’ve been spoiled by amazing sushi in NYC, LA, and elsewhere. Maybe the quality of the fish and the preparation here just left a LOT to be desired. In either case, I cannot imagine ever going back.