Sushi J’s

Low-​key and roomy, with easy on the eyes décor (magenta is a dominant color), and one must remark, languidly served Japanese. You don’t come here with the hope to rush in and out. We’ve all gone to sushi restaurants with 200+ menu items — which I’m very much for under certain qualifiers — but «J’s» in contrast is a very minimalist menu. Thankfully, they get the basics done right. Fish is silky or velvety, always fresh, and they believe in big cuts. Chicken Teriyaki and Gyoza, and whatever else within its slim selections, doesn’t hit the gold standard but nicely done it is.
Across from CBS studios in Studio City, typically lunch hours are busier than dinner time — I like it as a good bet quiet dinner scene. Formerly known as «Acashi Sushi» and I imagine the name change came about because nobody knew offhand what Acashi was. Whatever the case, I eat here on occasion. #questforpeace

My new favorite sushi spot. Great food, so fresh! Love the ambiance and very traditional. J served us and he was very nice and friendly. He offered us some specials that were AMAZING! My husband and I left feeling very full and happy. Definitely will be coming back in the future. Best sushi I’ve had in LA.

This place is amazing. Sat at the bar. The chef was friendly and thorough, offered suggestions and on top of everything… The sushi was amazing! Fresh and appetizing! Yum!
Must try the blue crab handroll!

The crunch roll was pretty decent, though small for the price. Same with the baked salmon hand roll, they charged more for the hand roll due to the baking of the salmon, without telling us it would be an added charge. The sodas/​drinks are very overpriced, an Arnold Palmer was $ 3.75, for canned tea & lemonade to be poured into a cup over ice. The calamari tempura tasted over fried, also seemed that the oil was old or had passed it’s burning point.

Wife and I have been going here for years and we love Sushi J’s. Jay is hilarious and the sushi is top quality. Definitely a hidden gem in Studio City and great for groups to hang out and enjoy a evening.

I’ve now been to this sushi spot 4 times and I’m thoroughly upset that I’ve spent my money here this often for rude and inattentive service. Upon my first visit Jay was a pleasure. He would converse with patrons and never miss a beat while serving a full restaurant. Every time after has not been a worthwhile experience to say the least and those times the restaurant was near empty. On the last two visits and this one he has never completed the first round of orders. As we would begin eating more people would filter in and the wait in between became longer longer. I’m patient and I can see it’s just him but at some point it becomes intentional neglect. Jay is rude and has a real bad attitude problem. He just hands you dishes and doesn’t tell you what the dish is and when asked he acted like I was being a nuisance. We are at least 2 – 3 people. I think it’s entirely appropriate to know what order is which especially when you have a group of differing orders and tastes. I’m also annoyed that my friend would have to by him a drink every time we went to get him to almost be nice. His treatment of loyal paying customers was unacceptable and he is ungrateful. We have always been overly pleasant, complimented the food at every turn, and not only gracias with our words but our wallets. I won’t be eating here nor recommending it to anyone else.

Best sushi in the valley! Jay is the man, food is always fresh and excellently prepared. I can’t recommend this place highly enough.

Sushi Jay is the best sushi around! I’m a huge sushi fan and ever since I started coming here no other sushi place even comes close. Jay always has the freshest fish and his homemade sauces are killer. So many places jerk you around with all you can eat imitation crab BS – this is top quality fish for a great price. With that said, this isn’t the place to go if you’re in a rush. More of a grab a pitcher and enjoy yourself type of joint.
The Ono sashimi IS TO DIE FOR.

So good! I go here all the time, the sushi is extremely fresh. Favorite sushi spot! Get the salmon hand roll.

Run!!! I ate here so you don’t have to. We sat on the patio (which smelled like garbage). It was nearly empty when we got there — like only one other table in the whole place — and STILL it took over an HOUR to get served. Actually, we never did get served. After waiting an hour we decided to get the food to go and it was only AFTER we paid that the food prepared. WTF?! It’s sushi. there’s no actual cooking involved. And there was rudeness on top of it. And the food sucked. I was really hoping that this was the one affordable, cozy neighborhood sushi joint in studio city. But now I’m hoping that they’ll go out of business and a really awesome affordable cozy neighbor joint will buy the place. Oh and there’s no BLUES (except the sadness you will feel in your soul after eating here).

When you see the prices which are exceptionally reasonable, and then compare it to the quality of the fish, which is out of this world amazing you would think there would be a line around the corner. Given it’s locations in a very busy part of Studio City nestled in between streets upon streets of higher end apartment buildings, and of course CBS Radford but, alas it is not. No trouble finding a table, and again, the quality of this moderately priced fare. I would have to say that the service is rather much to be desired. Small family owned, and lacking speedy service. I wonder how they do at lunch with the sparsity of the wait staff. The sashimi is undeniably fresh, and I hear that the owner/​sushi chef personally goes to pick up daily. Ending note if you have the time, come here and treat yourself but, again, if you have the time.

I love Sushi J’s (formerly Acashi). It’s good food at a very reasonable price, the blues music is at once quirky and right up my alley, and J is a great guy. It’s basically a one-​man operation behind the counter, so it can be slow when crowded. And it’s got some real quirks in both service and personality. But rather than taking offense at these quirks, I choose to accept them the way I would accept quirks dropping by a friend’s house unexpectedly for a meal. It’s an unpredictable place, not always open when you’d think, not always at the peak of what one might be used to in terms of professionalism (I’ve had interminably slow meals, witnessed arguments among staff, been given my food and sent on my way without a bill because J was having a bad day and couldn’t be bothered to ring me up.) But I’ve eaten there 3 – 5 times a week for 12 years, and it’s my favorite restaurant in LA. It’s not for everyone, but if you’re open to the unpredictable and a refreshingly amateur business style, as well as excellent food at a great price, this is a great place to try. If you’ve got to have everything just so, there are hundreds of other joints. I really like this one. (Oh, and J is Korean, so it’s no use trying to practice your Japanese.)

Great sushi but when I went there today for lunch after 11:30, they were not open. I wasted my whole break, pretty bummed. If you have posted hours, you should keep them, J!

Always been our go to sushi. simple but good and we love the all you can eat. no time limit and made to order.

My girlfriend is in Austin and I’m here in Studio City for a bit, so oftentimes I’ll spend my evenings just going out by myself to eat like its the last food I’ll ever see. All You Can Eat sushi is a gift from the gods for a guy like me. Until today.
I sit down and get that AYCE menu with the excitement of a much more famished man. I was the only person in the restaurant. LITERALLY THE ONLY PERSON. Nobody goes stag to the AYCE because things are looking great for them. Sushi J’s probably didn’t understand that.
I order my stuff at 6:30, I don’t get anything until about 7:15. And its half of what I ordered (I ordered six rolls, and it was three of them). Weird, I thought. But some AYCE places sometimes just don’t put everything you ordered out for you. Its a dangerous game, but you need to know how to play it.
I wolf it down and go grab another menu, check off what I want, and then come back to sit down. 10 minutes later a sushi chef comes out and launches into a diatribe about how I can’t just order more sushi while I still have some to go out, how my tempura is going to waste, and how «you should never just go take a menu and start ordering something. You just don’t do that.» And then rolls his eyes and storms out. Baring in mind that a) this wasn’t a polite conversation lost in translation, the guy spoke fluent English b) at this point I haven’t said a word to him and c) 10 minutes had past since I finished my first plate and hadn’t heard or seen a thing about the rest of my original order.
15 minutes after that SOME of the rest of my first order (one roll) comes out. And then 15 minutes later the rest (two more).
I honestly thrive on being condescend by sushi chefs. Honestly, I feel like its de rigueur for all good sushi chefs to school the hell out of us less-​seasoned. And I always walk away feeling like I learned something. Not this time. This would have been fine if the sushi was good. A bunch had a rubbery taste and a couple of times I felt like I was going to gag (though that was partially because I was eating fast so I could get the hell out of there). Some of the rolls weren’t bad, but a lot of it was simply not good.
Two hours and thirty some-​odd bucks I’ll never get back.
I really have no interest in bashing a restaurant because I try to err on the side of not-​a-​douchebag, but I had a bad time. Long post, but hey – read the first paragraph.

If there was an option for 0 stars, this would be the perfect example. The food was subpar and the service was slower than molasses. My food came out an hour after everyone else in my party’s and I was admonished when I asked about it. I would never come here again.

Love to try new sushi spots.
I really was looking forward to eating at this spot based on my fellow Unilocalers reviews for an all you can eat extravaganza bonanza, but we can’t get em all right.
I am no sushi snob considering the affordable prices here and obvious expectations of quality here (no condescending analysis or critical dissections of the sushi from me), but I was surprised at some of the tastes. Even more so with MR. J and staff.
THIS WAS SOME VERY ODD SERVICE TO SAY THE LEAST:
I came on a very slow weekday evening with a friend craving AYCE. No one was there when we walked in and eventually after wandering around the restaurant for a minute a waiter came out and sat us down at the sushi bar. Then Mr. J emerged from the kitchen to take some orders. Looked like he was having a bad day, but hey it happens to us all. I got a lot of stuff that was all pretty much forgettable (nothing stood out, nothing was bad) until I got the spanish mackerel sushi. WAY too fishy even for mackeral. I forced one piece down, smelled the second and was over it.
This is where things got upsetting. J or Mr J or whatever tells me I can’t order until I eat the other bite. I thought he was kidding so I laughed and asked again for a different roll. He then asked me again no more til I finish it which I said no t“his is too fishy” (this really took me back and I got offended). I said smell it J, he said that is normal. I looked at him with the WTF look and asked him firmly to make the requested roll. .
He looked down and got to work on my other roll (lol) and handed it to me with a big asshole attitude. I was pretty shocked and gorged the roll, asked for the check. The server then took my check up front to cash register, I said thanks to J who continued to look down and I was out. Douche move J: 0

I will keep this short which is atypical for me.
Great sushi, great music, great chef and staff.
I eat here fairly often. I have posted too many shots on Instagram to upload here but I will post some when I finish writing.
There is little more to say. I think my second line above said it all.
How could this place be better? I don’t think I would change a thing.

I’ve been coming here for over 10 years.
Used to live around the corner, but now stop in every time I’m in the valley.
Jay is great. Drink with him.
You can’t beat the quality for the price, especially on the allyoucaneat.
Handsdown best spicy tuna in town. Never frozen. Always FRESH–
Robust flavor and slightly chunky; it still tastes like you’re eating meat, rather than those lame-​ass fish pastes that crap spots try to pass off as legit. Probably from China.
The Aca roll is incredible, I usually get it with spicy tuna rather than the crab.
AND again, best best spicy tuna crispy rice in town. Some places like to deep fry their crispy rice like it’s some sort of janky stale tater tot. No no, not Jay. Seasoned well and pan-​crisped. Damn legit.
Love how he does the albacore and one of the best veggie rolls in town. Nice variety of fresh and interesting veggies.
The only drawback I’d mention is to be aware that when you go in, if it’s really busy, to make sure he’s got another dedicated sushi chef on staff. Or don’t be in a rush. He makes all the dishes with care, and it ain’t fast food.
Definitely has that great local feel with tons of regulars. Every time I go in there are different folks sitting at the bar who know Jay by name. Which clearly, says a lot.

Some of these other reviews are malicious!
I gave it 4 stars only because the service can be extremely slow! But that is because jay, who is the owner is the chef, his wife serves, and his son, when he isn’t at school, helps as well.
I’ve never had anything less than amazing here, truly! I just recently started really eating fish so I am extremely particular with what I eat and the freshness. Jay can be a lot of fun too, matches the beers we drink, and has comp-​ed up a bottle as well!
Give this place a chance if you like local family owned places.