Ariake Sushi

This is a quaint little sushi bar on Blossom Hill in a small strip away from Oakridge Mall, so it was easy to get to with plenty of parking.
There is a sushi bar, and boats to choose from, or you can order from the menu. The salmon was so fresh it melted in your mouth, and the raw shrimp was succulent and sweet. House dressing on the house salad was perfectly balanced, and service was quick and staff was very welcoming.
Prices were reasonable with a very large selection including unique rolls. Too much to try in just a few visits, so this one is on rotation.

This used to be our go-​to sushi restaurant. The fish was good, the service was good. This last trip though, the meals they served us were completely wrong. We usually don’t complain at restaurants, but they gave us some pretty weird dishes (raw quail eggs?). So, we told the server that they had served us the wrong meals. And she argued with us, and tried to guilt trip us into accepting the meal.
We won’t be going back.

Great service good sushi. I go for the excellent kind waiters. We celebrated my birthday there.

Sushi was ok… food was ok…
The salad looked a little dry, and the dressing was not enough for the portion of lettuce.
They have a sushi buffet, however the process is so complicated, you can order 2 items per round, and you have up to 5 rounds, and if you don’t eat everything, you pay full price per item. I understand each buffet has their own rules, but that was just too absurd for me to even consider it.
Overall, the restaurant is ok for sushi, I’ve definitely had better, but it wasn’t horrible, and everything looked pretty clean, our server was also very attentive, and gave good service so that’s a plus!

My new favorite sushi spot. The waiters aren’t the most attentive and sometimes i wonder if they speak or maybe don’t understand what you’re asking. They speak very little and ask for help from other waiters often. If theres a birthday cover your ears! They bring out a full band with instruments. It’s a bit much!!! The strobe lights and club music is great if you’re in that mood. besides all this, Food is good.

Called and made reservations for dinner tonight. Got their and was immediately seated. However, we waited 45 minutes never saw the server. No water no hi how ya doing I’ll be with you soon. NOTHING!!! Got up and left won’t be back.

We really enjoyed our meal and it was reasonably priced. The staff was friendly, outgoing and attentive.

Suso rolls are great, when’s it’s your bday they make u drink saki n play 50 cent n slap drums, just live spot so energy is good, only bad thing is if the place is packed it could take 20 mins for your order to get through n then you have to wait for food to be made, all u can eat tho so that’s a win n people are awesome there

**Warning: If you’re the delicate sort that requires everything about a Sushi restaurant to be Japanese –from the owners and chefs, to the guy who cleans the toilets– then this place isn’t for you. Stop reading now, and go find a sword to polish (yes, that’s a double entendre).**
Ariake Sushi (AS) is located in a non-​descript strip mall that’s a stone’s throw from Golfland and Oakridge Mall. They feature a Sushi Boat, and serve up the ever-​popular AYCE Sushi that the masses crave. I can’t speak for either of those, as I’ve only placed to-​go orders since they’re just a few miles from my house. AS is not the greatest sushi place I’ve ever been to, but they do a fairly good job on certain things I like – and a not-​so good job on others. It’s been a while, so I thought I’d break out another rendition of my The Good, The Bad & The Ugly:
The Good: My two favorite things to order at a Sushi place are Sashimi and Nigiri. All that other fancy roll nonsense you can keep to yourself. I’m all about the simplicity, and AS does a good job with both. I’m a Sake (Salmon) guy, and theirs is always fresh, fatty and delicious. Their slices are very thick-​cut and generously portioned – which I like. You definitely won’t go hungry ordering their Salmon or Tuna Specials.
The Bad: Their Specials always come with a Spicy Tuna Roll or a Salmon Roll, which are pretty simple rolls as they’re just a small piece of Fish enveloped in Rice and Nori (Seaweed). The rolls are always sloppily put together, and falling apart. Hmmm… maybe there is something to this Japanese chef thing.
The Ugly: I ordered their Sashimi Salad to-​go once, and it consists of various cuts of raw fish placed on top of a bed of rice. I’m not sure if there was a mistake, or if that’s how it’s supposed to be served, but they put the *raw* fish on top of steaming hot rice. Now, it doesn’t take a genius to figure out what happens when you do that, but let’s do the math anyways: raw fish + steaming hot rice + 5 min ride home = ??? Please show your work when you submit your answers, class… #FAIL
Service & Ambiance– Service is always friendly and prompt when I come to pick-​up my order, and this Jedi character everyone talks about is a pretty swell dude. The interior is a pretty standard looking Sushi joint, with all your usual Japanese-​themed décor. The interior always seems to be a bit dark during the day, but that’s just from a quick grab-&-go observation.
Value– Standard sushi pricing, as nothing seems outrageous or super cheap. They do send out coupons if you happen to live close-​by so keep an eye out in your junk mail. I’m not sure what their AYCE pricing is, but several other reviewers mentioned that it’s comparable to Kenzo.
AS is not the greatest sushi spot I’ve been to, but it’s a solid 3-​star joint and gives me my fix for that rare Sashimi Jones I get on occasion. Recommended for their Sashimi and Nigiri, but I’ll pass on everything else. Arigato gozaimasu!

Use to come here quite a bit for lunch with my friend and she no longer wanted to eat here because she said it didn’t taste fresh in her opinion.
I decided to stop here one day because I was in the area and was craving sushi. I got the eel roll, I had it a few times before and didn’t have any issues, but that will be the absolute last time I ever eat here.
About an hour after eating it I had the worse stomach pain ever. Not too long after that I was vomiting non-​stop! That persisted throughout the night and it was absolutely terrible.
That sea food was clearly not fresh, otherwise that wouldn’t have been the case. FOOD POISONING is no joke and never again in life will I eat here.

Nice tvs, sushi boats, staff can be boisterous, cheap wine 4 a glass, but taste like $ 4.
Sushi is good, not great…

3 stars — Lunch bento box is pretty good & decent for the price + food, dinner is a bit higher (still serving the same) so take advantage of lunch hour meal deal.
— 1 star — The sushi boats floating around pretty stale dried out every time we dine here.
–1 another star — They take forever to prep the food always & we usually ended up with grabbing few of those sushi floating around as appetizer despite knowing we will regret later on. — could this be the restaurant scheme to make you hungry to wait out for your food & grab those stale pre-​made sushi during the wait time? Idk
They need to improve on their sushi freshness & speedy food service. Also provide free soup & salad while waiting for the food — not just for the bento box order selection only.
Many sushi places in on Castro St in mt. View provide hot tea, soup & salad at no charge with any order.

Had a craving for late evening sushi and this place was the only one open. On the plus side it’s close to home and we love sushi so it was worth a try. The guy at the front was very welcoming and my first impression of the restaurant was 90’s retro chic. The atmosphere is kind of an episode of Restaurant: Impossible because it looks like it needs much needed cleaning. Carpets are a little dingy. Table tops a little sticky. But the wait staff were all very friendly and I’ll Unilocal about food.
The prices were all reasonable and the sushi was satisfactory. We orders the 007 which had a great blend of sweetness and spicy with the mango and fresh jalapeño. We also ordered the Oh Ariake which was yummy but was a little heavy on the spicy raw onions… unless you’re into that stuff.
Overall we would venture to come back and try other rolls.

Wow. Where to begin.
Unsure if we seat ourself or not, we stood there for quite a while before the young man finally noticed us. After being seated at the bar, our server took about five minutes before even asking what we wanted for drinks. No straws for an additional five minutes.
After what seemed an interminable amount of time expecting to order, we started asking the folks next to us as to how they actually acquired the food in front of them.
Our waiter finally got to us. He asked me first for my order (I was with my wife and ladies order first. This is a thing.). I ordered anyway, my son ordered, then he walked off and ignored my wife. Fortunately she was getting full off of the boats anyway and wasn’t that terribly inconvenienced.
I had a nice eel roll off a boat, but it ended right there really.
A long time later the sushi chefs in the center gave me the spicy roll (can’t remember its name) I had ordered, then the «sashimi dinner» that I had ordered. It was a place of four pieces of salmon. Like a plate the size that comes off the boats. Whatever. I love salmon and I can make the best of this. The salmon was disgusting. It was chewy, stringy, off color and fishy. My wife’s crab roll had a weird texture inside — mealy and crumbly. It’s weird, but even the miso soup was off and the tofu inside was chewy. I didn’t know this was possible.
After 20 solid minutes of trying to eat this, we asked for the bill hoping that they had forgotten about the bento box my son had ordered. I mean, they messed up my dinner, maybe they forgot his and we can leave in peace and go eat something at Oakridge in a minute. Our bill and his bento box arrived simultaneously after dinner was pretty much over. Great. Serve the seven year old last. Thanks. At least his bento box was somewhat tasty.
Paid the bill (fortunately, it was $ 37), went over to Oakridge and salvaged our evening, despite my stomach feeling gross after the terrible salmon sashimi.
Usually good service can salvage a star from mediocre food, or good food can salvage a star from bad service. Tonight it was terrible service and terrible food.
Not going to come back.

This is a solid «go to» place. They have a sushi boat, lunch specials and all you can eat. I had a deluxe bento box with chicken teriyaki, California rolls, tempura, salad, rice, miso, edamame and a 9 Piece sashimi for $ 21. I was pleasantly surprised that the sashimi portions were good and looked fresh. Will return. The sashimi wasn’t the best I’ve ever had but works.

Food is great, and the staff is amazing, prizing isnt SOO bad. and if its your birthday, they treat you like a rock star!

So I’ve been to this restaurant a few times but today I went and I guess they’ve changed up a few things. Now they have an «all you can eat» option, but their service remains on the slow side. I came with a party of 9, and since it was busy we decided to just sit on the sushi bar. It took about 30 – 35 mins for them to bring out my sushi rolls and they took over an hour to bring out my friends sushi rolls. She was so upset she told them to pack it up and she just left. Aside from that they got all our checks messed up. When they knew from the start that we were all on separate checks. And I had to ask 2 different servers for my check because obviously they weren’t paying attention to us.
Their food was ok, it wasn’t terrible but it wasn’t special either. I was much more concerned about their services. They’re friendly yes, but not very efficient. They’re turn over rate was insanely slow. I remember the guest that were sitting to my left side left and it took them over an hour to get rid of dirty plates and wipe down the area. No wonder why it took them forever to find us a table when we got there and why we just decided to opt for the sushi bar instead. *sigh*

Oh man, I don’t know what happened to the service. But today’s service was incredibly slow, bad enough to take away one whole star from my last review.
The food is still good. But the time I had to wait for my food today was ridiculous. I came here for an early dinner with my parents. It was really empty since it was early so I expected service to be pretty quick with only two other occupied tables. Well we ordered our food and 15 min later my parents received their food (bento box and katsu don); however, my two rolls of sushi didn’t come out for another good 10 – 15 minutes after theirs. By this time we were all really hungry and my mom and dad’s food were cold. Sushi tasted good so I let the long wait kind of slip by.
However, at the end we asked for a box. It took about 20 minutes for a box as well as two reminders to our server who kept forgetting about the boxes.
Overall, the food was alright but the amount of time we had to wait was a little too long for me.

This sushi place is average. I been here since high school and I usually come back because my friends like eating here. The staff is nice and service is good, but the sushi is not the best.
I find the sushi here made with too much rice. The rice just makes the sushi rolls fatter and gets you full faster. The more bigger it is doesn’t make it better, I think less rice would make me come here more often.
About a few years ago I took my brother here for his birthday and he wanted to do the sushi boat. It was quite dead because it was a Sunday Night. I was very selective at the time with my sushi and only chose the things I knew was cooked while my bro just picks out anything. At the end of the night, we went home and were deciding to blow out his cake. Before he step foot into the door, he throws up everywhere! DISGUSTING ! Ended up he got food poisoning from bad sushi. Spent the whole rest of the night and morning throwing up. O_​O Felt pretty bad because I suggested that place. Lesson learned was always order sushi, so it could be made fresh instead of getting it off the sushi boat.
One your birthday, they take a Polaroid picture and post it up on the wall. Its quite lovely because these photos up there were kept there for years and overlap each other.

This place is like a tumultuous relationship gone wrong. From the get go, it seems excitingly average. But beneath the surface lies chaos.
With plenty of seating and a very casual environment, it is very unimposing.
The **Gyoza** (potstickers), which we ordered deep-​fried rather than steamed, were lightly battered and crispy. The **Tempura Udon** arrived with only 2 pieces of shrimp tempura, but the soup itself came with 2 pieces of fish cake, veggies, and an even an egg. So although I expected some vegetable tempura, it wasn’t too disappointing since the udon was well-​dressed.
Service was decent, although here’s where it starts to get chaotic. A different person kept checking on us. It felt like the relationship could never be stable, it was disconcerting to always talk to a different person and ask 5 times for a fork, or tell them 5 times we’re fine and don’t need anything else.
Not to mention the crazy birthday band. I get it, birthdays are important. Birthdays are special. Birthdays should even be celebrated. But there is such a thing as too emphatic of a celebration. I never thought I could say such a thing until the drums came out. It was the loudest unmelodious banging in a suddenly-​darkened room I’ve ever heard. Then the yelling of the most emphatic and simultaneously unenthusiastic birthday song ever.
I would come here out of convenience, but wouldn’t seek it out. And I certainly wouldn’t celebrate a birthday here!
TIP: «My birthday? Oh, it’s next year. You missed it!»