Hanamaru

I have not been to the restaurant, but have had delivery from them 3 times, and every time the sushi has been perfect, perfect, perfect! By far, this place has the freshest tasting sushi in the area. They don’t overuse mayo or sweet chili sauces, thank heavens. Only fresh spices, rice vinegar, maybe a touch of fish/​eel sauce. Even the deep-​fried rolls don’t feel as fried/​carby as previous ones I’ve tried. All around, great sushi place. Give them a try!

My husband and I have been coming here for a couple years now! We love Hanumaru it’s like family everybody here is suuuper nice we love the chef Moon!
Thank you for the best sushi ever! ^.^

I don’t usually get sushi as takeout, but I’m glad I gave it a try. Ordered the Rainbow Special Roll, Spicy Red Dragon Special Roll, and XXX Special Roll. All were delicious, the fish was very fresh and the flavor combinations were excellent.
I’m always worried about the box smashing or deforming the rolls, but they did an excellent job packaging them to stay intact on the ride home.

The service is not good at all. The rolls are ok. I ordered lion king roll and it was very sweet! Tofu was very bad. Too big and sweet with a strange batter like a gum. The price is very high for the portion and quality. Won’t come back here again.

Came to try Unagi Don here.
Environment ⁴⁄₅
Service ⁴⁄₅
Unagi Don 3/​5, the taste is just so so and the amount is not large.
Overall 3.5÷5

First time ever coming here — great experience. Restaurant is clean, wait staff was nice. Ordered 5 rolls (Victoria’s Secret, Poki Deluxe, Sun, Lion King, and Tokyo). All were very good and very reasonably priced. And they’re open on Saturday! Will definitely be back!

In short: A few things went poorly and the food was alright.
Long-​ish version:
1. Waitress asked to my friends menu (she hadn’t arrived) to give to someone else even though the stack was the same distance away…
2. Service was a wee bit slow to get water/​order.
3. Despite writing my order down it arrived incorrectly prepared.
4. Took about 15 minutes between the first roll and last roll (granted only one sushi chef but I believe delivering at same time is better).
5. We were very brusquely asked to settle the check when other tables were still present and hadn’t done so.
6. We were kicked out being told «we have to leave at 10». Last I checked servers and staff stay until guests have left, reasonably after closing time should be allowed. This was at about 9:50, I found this quite rude.
That said the sushi was tasty so maybe I’d get takeout? Unlikely since I don’t live nearby. Service is severely lacking.

To paraphrase Thomas Wolfe: «You can’t go home again…»
Just a bit of background here: I lived in Sunnyvale back at the very end of the (pre-​Yelp) dark ages circa 2000 – 2003, which for you younger people was when dinosaurs ruled the earth. Back in the day, Hanamaru was owned and operated by a young couple from the Kansai (Osaka), Keisuke and his sweetheart of a wife Kaoli. Hanamaru was THE sushi spot on ECR in Sunnyvale, with a huge crowd of locals/​regulars on Friday nights enjoying excellent food with super-​attentive service and hospitality, at reasonable prices. Many of us would hang around after closing and drink away as the Hanamaru crew would be cleaning up and merrily scrubbing away on everything that didn’t move out of the way — in other words, the place was spotless. Keisuke and Kaoli later opened the more upscale (and ambitious) Kappo Nami Nami on Castro Street in Mountain View and sold Hanamaru to a personable Korean couple. I dined there a couple of times after that and while it wasn’t quite the same vibe, the new owners were doing their best to keep up the quality and service when I moved out of the area in 2003.
Fast forwards a dozen years to February 2016: I’m in the old neighborhood, getting a bit hungry on a late Saturday afternoon, and thought I would stop in the old haunt for a bite to eat. The staff was nominally pleasant although not especially energetic or attentive, so I sat at the sushi bar so I could survey what was available that day in the Hoshizaki cooler. I noted that with the exception of some of the colorful hand-​made posters by Keisuke’s crew, the décor/​paint was the same as the last time I saw it, although a bit worse for wear. I order a few nigiri (unagi, hamachi, tako) some yakitori from the kitchen, and a beer. The sushi items were served in reasonable time, albeit average to smallish proportions at prices a bit on the high side of average. This however doesn’t bother me as much as what I am seeing inside the Hoshizaki — greenish-​yellow slime growing around the side and lower edges of the glass. I can also see streak-​marks where a not very clean towel (or rag) was used to wipe out the inside — not in an up-​down pattern that would have hit the corners, but in a semicircular sweeping pattern that suggests that there was only a half-​hearted wipe of the inside glass. I also noted a large chunk of tako (octopus tentacle) that was a bit oversized for this cooler, contacting the glass AND the yellow-​green slime on it! Having just consumed some of this, I got a bit of a knot in my stomach. I began looking around and noticing more things: white scale on the sides of the little sushi boat track, dust and oily/​greasy streaks on top of the plexiglass covers where the sushi boats come out from the back of the bar, greasy smears on the countertop. I came to the realization that the place is (or was during my visit) NOT CLEAN. And by «not clean», I don’t mean still a bit dirty after a big lunch or dinner rush (there were only 4 customers in the place at the time), or that the previous night’s closing crew did a rushed job. It has that look like nobody had bothered to do any type of real cleaning for a LONG, long time (weeks? months? years?). I settled my bill quietly and got out of there.
This would be bad enough if this were merely a burger place or taco joint, but Hey Zeus Cristo, it’s supposed to be a SUSHI RESTAURANT, a place that needs a lot higher level of sanitation. The place needs at least at BARE minimum a day of a COMPLETE top-​to-​bottom cleaning, like breaking everything down and taking a steam cleaner to it, and perhaps autoclaving all the kitchen utensils for good measure. I would strongly advise AVOIDING this place until that happens…

It’s not the RItz, but it is clean and the wait staff is attentive — I recommend Hanamaru. The Sushi Chefs are Japanese, and they are Big Japanese guys. They are in charge. The sushi is not the best I have had but it is VERY GOOD for the PRICE.
The Sushi Sashimi combo is Good for $ 26. Comes with Miso Soup and Salad. The Cold Saki was fine at $ 12. There’s a large convivial Dining area and a good bar. A rotatiorCal anymore, but I visit when ly goes by you to catch your eye, but nobody seems to touch the stuff on this track.
The Chefs are good. The Sushi is Good, The atmosphere is Good. Nothing is outstanding, — except the price is GREAT!
I recommend this for casual business, a casual date (if you want to show you are grounded in reality), a SOLO dinner, lunch and Hanamaru is definitely FUN with FRIENDS!

Terrible experience. I went there for the first time to have lunch and my experience wasn’t good for the following reasons:
1. No customer service what so ever. I wasn’t greeted upon coming in.
2. After being seated, I was not provided with any drinks and had to ask for water.
3. Had to keep asking for refills.
4. All tables were set with condiment trays. We weren’t even offered any and had to grab the sauces from another table.
5. Credit machine failed and they ran our card multiple times. They had to void transactions because they didn’t know if we even got charged.
I do not recommend this place. If you want real sushi and real service, go to Kenji sushi in San Jose.
Might be a drive depending on where you live but we’ll worth it.

I’ve been going to this place since they opened. I believe since 2000. It’s definitely a favorite local spot with my family and I. This is the restaurant that I went to when I first started to expand my pallet to eat more than just kappa maki and CA rolls and actually started liking sashimi. Now I can’t seem to get enough of sashimi. JP food has been my number 1 favorite food and lots of credit for that goes to this restaurant. Although they changed owners, I still love going to this place as the food is great and it brings back lots of nostalgia for me.

Overall not bad, but nothing to write home about.
If you live near by it’s worth a try, but don’t go too far out of your way.
Nice staff though!

Hanamaru has been our standard sushi place for over 15 years. Loved it. But have they changed hands recently? We didn’t recognize anyone behind the counter or waiting on tables. Wait staff seemed our of sync with customers. They didn’t seem to know if they charged corkage or not. We had to remind the server that only two of us had ordered beverages. Three of our 4 orders were delivered 15 minutes before the 4^th.
Food was OK — fresh, but not great, not poor. After we finished, we waited 20+ minutes for the check. HArd to get attention of server. Had to ask for that too although many would appreciate not being rushed to leave.

I recently tried the «Spoon Full of Happiness» or something like that. It was soooo delicious. It was one spoon with uni/​quail egg and one spoon with monkfish liver. Both were fresh, sweet, and amazing. I can’t to go back already for more spoons of happiness to eat. Of course, everything else as usual was still great.

Came here for lunch — ordered the spicy sashimi bowl.
This thing is literally MASSIVE. It comes with rice, a ton of lettuce, and 3 types of sashimi chopped up into small pieces. My favorite was definitely the salmon sashimi.
It also came with a spicy sauce on the side, but i opted for the standard soy sauce and wasabi for my meal.
My co-​workers got the bentos, and were happy with their meals!
I would have given this place 4 stars, but I felt really off the rest of the afternoon… and think it was attributed to the sashimi bowl I had :(
Probably will not be back! Momoya in Mountain View is better for lunch!

Salad: The complimentary salad is good. I think it’s the sesame dressing.
Nabeyaki udon (³⁄₅): The noodles are alright, not super super chewy but not overcooked either. The broth was also okay, not the best I’ve had. Maybe it was a bit too salty. The egg was fully cooked (and I prefer soft-​cooked). I asked for the tempura to be put on the side to maintain its crispiness but the server did not remember that request.
Salmon teriyaki /​tempura /​sashimi bento box (²⁄₅): The salmon was overcooked. Not soft and tender at all.
Did not feel like the udon ($ 12)+ bento box ($ 16) was worth ze $$.
Would not recommend this place over the many many japanese restaurants in the south bay.

A-​ok! The staff were pretty friendly an the chefs try to greet everyone on their way in and out. The food was ok.
It was pretty empty on a sunday evening but we saw the floating sushi bar and haaaad to sit there. It’s a great idea actually – we were grabbing plates as they floated by even as we were ordering more apps and rolls. Taste-​wise, it was nothing impressive. The sushi rice was well seasoned but fell apart easily. Hamachi kama was much smaller than usual. Rice to filling ratio was way too much.
The staff are pretty quick and our chefs even quicker. Albeit our waitress was a little forgetful but pleasant overall.
It’s not worth going out of your way to eat here, but if you’re nearby and hungry, it’s not a terrible choice.

This is a great local Japanese restaurant that is not stuffy. Friendly service and good food. Large roll selection and hot food is good. Donburi is good and I like the bento box — good portions. Highly recommend this local casual place. Prices are reasonable — not too pricey.

This place is my new go to for quick and delicious sushi. It seems to be a small family like business, so it’s not fancy or like anything you would expect in downtown Mountain View or Santana Row, but still, the service is very friendly.
So far I’ve tried the spider roll and the midori musi. Both were super yummy, but now I always order the midori musi. Quality I would give a 4/​5, taste I would give a ⁵⁄₅. Overall, I would recommend this place to family and friends!

Interesting hole in the wall. I was reading Lorrie M’s review about the spicy sauce and thought it’s an interesting take for sashimi.
I ordered the spicy sashimi rice bowl. The bowl was the size of a large phở, literally… 16 bucks for that much food is not a bad deal! The spicy sauce is interesting, it tasted like a spicy version of hoi sin sauce *the brown sauce in phở restaurants*

We ordered the agedashi tofu, chicken teriyaki appetizer, and the Harley Davidson roll. This came to a total of the most unsatisfying $ 30 meal I’ve had in the longest time. None of this would’ve been too terrible except when the waitress brought out the chicken teriyaki bento box combination. When we told her we didn’t order the bento box combination – that was where our sunny lunch became our dining doom.
With an incredible scowl on her face, she replied «It’s too late now.»
This followed with numerous attempts and disappointed sighs she made in order to try and guilt us to accept our «mistake». I literally do not see what any waiter can accomplish by making your customers feel miserable about what they ordered. Eventually, she took it back. The rest of our meal was terrible. The end.
All it takes one word or look from a waiter to ruin a meal. Waiters and waitresses, please realize the incredible impact you have on a hungry (wo)man’s meal – and don’t wait until you realize that impact can be incredibly terrible.