With my cousin in town, I decided to bring her to my favorite restaurant. Upon entering, we were seated promptly. Our waiter was friendly and was always checking up on us. We ordered a lot of sushi between the three of us, as well as a few rounds of drinks. The service was a nice improvement from my last visit there and the sushi was great. She seemed to to enjoy the food and drinks, especially one of Kona Grill’s custom rolls, the shrimp tempura naruto roll. The naruto roll is composed of shrimp tempura and crab, wrapped in cucumber and topped with sprouts and a mild wasabi sauce.

We stuck around for one more round of drinks after finishing most of the sushi and walked off our meal around the mall for a bit after. Overall it was a fun night.

Yet again, I made my weekly pilgrimage to Kona grill. Just stopped by to have lunch and some drinks. Although the sushi was very good as usual the service was not as pleasing this time. The waiter seemed new and asked if I had ever been there before. I wanted to ask him the same question! He was hard to track down and didn’t even serve us our food. We basically had to flag him down to get us refills from the bar.

Besides the crappy waiter, the sushi rolls were awesome and I tried a roll I never had there before; a spider roll. The spider roll is basically a softshell crab roll. The batter used to fry the crab was very light and crunchy. Other rolls orderd were the crab crunch roll and the shrimp tempura naruto roll. Both were very good and were just enough to fill me up for lunch. On top of that we ordered some of their margaritas and custom drinks from the bar. Considering it was lunch on a sunday, the restaurant was pretty busy and we had to wait about 15 minutes to be seated. I hope the next time we don’t get stuck with the same waiter!

Of their five locations in Arizona I usually hit up the Chandler location right around the corner from my apartment. I had always passed it before until one day I figured I would try it out. Since then, I usually go there once every couple weeks. They offer several different options from beef and chicken teriyaki bowls to a nice selection of sushi rolls. The portions are very good and the rolls are quality made. Although it is a chain,  the sushi is not as cheap as you would think.

My favorite roll they offer is the crab crunch roll. It comes with crab and avocado, rice and a generous sprinkle of tempura crunch over it. You can even get the roll with shrimp tempura added. One of my friends really likes their Philadelphia roll and Dragon roll. But if your not in the mood for a beef or chicken bowl or even sushi, they also offer other noodle dishes.

You can make your order to stay or go. I usually get it to go, but I have eaten there before. The food is prepared relatively quickly with no loss of quality. Come to think of it, I might just have to stop there tonight for dinner. Overall if your in the mood for good sushi but don’t want to do the whole sit down thing at a restaurant, Yogi’s is definitely the place to go.

Before even moving out to Arizona, I visited a few times. Being that im obsessed with sushi, I researched to see what was the best sushi place out here. Most sites and reviews pointed to Zen 32. After making a necessary reservation, I ended up sitting outside. The inside was full of people and seemed very small. The restaurant was filled with a younger crowd and a lot of college students. After ordering a couple beers and a appetizer I was not impressed. The beers were totally over priced and the appetizer portions were small.

The big test came when I ordered my sushi. Unfortunately, I don’t have many good things to say. Not only was the sushi over priced, but it didn’t seem fresh. I had ordered a shrimp tempura roll amongst other rolls and it was cold and not appetizing. My friend who joined me at the time was not pleased either. The worst part was yet to come. Once we got served with the bill it was a lot more than we had anticipated and definitely not worth it. I would pick a dinner at Kona Grill over Zen 32 any day of the week.

I don’t see myself heading out to Phoenix anytime soon to try their sushi creations again. I still don’t see what the big deal is with Zen 32 besides their catchy name and crummy service.

A couple weeks ago I went to Elephant Bar in Chandler, located across from the Chandler mall. I had heard good things about it so I tried it out.  I wasn’t as impressed as I thought I would be. The interior decor reminded me of an African safari gone bad and was kind of cliche. The place was packed with a lot of families and seniors. It was quite noisy and the service was ok. Me and my friend ordered some simple dishes which seemed to take some time to make. Again it was very loud and crowded and everyone in the restaurant seemed to all know each other, to the point of people having conversations with other tables on the other side of the sitting area. The food was fresh but not memorable, I honestly don’t even remember what I ate.  The best part of the meal was the appetizer; a salmon tempura sushi roll.  For a person who doesn’t like salmon, it was actually very good. I don’t see myself going to this restaurant again in the near future, but it is definitely worth trying.

Zushi… what kind of name is that? Almost like owners couldn’t think of anything else so they just switched out the “S” with a “Z”. Who knows though, if it works, it works!

I, as the rest of the team here, are pretty big fans of sushi so when you take us out to a sushi and/or Japanese restaurant you better know what you are getting yourself into. We’re going to be critics, and rough ones at that. (more…)

“Not only is it sushi…..it’s ZUSHI”

Well we decided to head to Zushi located on Power and Mcdowell in Mesa after I suggested we go there. I went last weekend with my fiance and was impressed. This time we had a party of 11. Things were a bit different this visit. To start we walked in and as we told the hostess we needed to be seated for 11 she gave us a look like she didn’t know what to do. They began moving chairs and we were seated right away.
After looking over the menu I decided to go with the lunch special for the day. A Japanese style beef sandwich with a side salad. The meal was 7 dollars. It took about one hour for us to actually get our food. Luckily there was 11 of us so we were able to chat for a while. We also ordered some california rolls thinking that would be a good appetizer. Those came out the exact same time as the food. And I am not kidding when I say an hour after we ordered them. The sandwich was actually quite good. The beef was tender and had been marinated in a japanese sauce. Overall the food was good. I liked it the first time and that is why I suggested we go back. Other than that there wasn’t anything good about zushi.

The service was not particularly good. I mean we waited an hour for our food. I forgot to mention that we were the only people in the restaurant. That is besides a heavy built women sitting directly infront of us at the bar who flossed her teeth right infront of us for atleast 20 minutes. I have never seen someone with such bad table manners. She must have been going to the dentist right after because she was determined to get those nasty teeth of hers clean.

The big question……..Do I recommend this restaurant? Well yeah under two conditions. First; you must have a lot of time to sit around and do nothing. More than likely you will be waiting for a while. Second; walk in, look around the bar, and make sure there isn’t a disgusting fat lady who is flossing her teeth. Other than that, sure, go give it a try!!!!

Saturday night I was with my girlfriend looking for a place to eat within walking distance from the Hilton on Drinkwater.  We walked down to Stingray on Scottsdale Rd and the wait looked ridiculous.  I remembered seeing a new Sushi place right across the street from the Hilton so we walked back and checked it out.  “Pearl” is fairly small but comfortable.  The weather outside was beautiful, one of the last days here in Arizona when you can actually stand to be outside so we opted to be seated on the patio.  The hostess was friendly and seated us right away.  Instantly you could tell the place was new.  Our server came to the table and asked us whether we’d been there before.   We replied no and were given the 30 second sales pitch.  We ordered drinks and browsed the menu which has a few interesting items.  Instead of opting for the normal boring sushi we routinely order we tried the “Captain Crunch” which is basically a sweet potato version of california roll (but much better) and the “Tiki Torch” which frankly I wouldn’t recommend.   We didn’t sample all that much food at the restaurant but my girlfriend loved her strawberry-kiwi martini and my impression of the place was very positive and we left thinking we would definitely go back.

P.S. I can’t help but mention that their website is AWFUL. (Pearl if you’re reading this get help!)

Another place we have been visiting quite a bit is Got Sushi. If you read my first review of Got Sushi you will see that I was quite pleased with how our dining experience turned out. I’m happy to say that after going back a few more times now this still stands. The service is fairly decent and the food is good. (more…)

A few weeks back the whole gang headed down to the Tempe Marketplace to check out the new Japanese restaurant Kabuki. I have seem and heard about Kabuki before, in fact one of my good friends even works at the Tempe location. Not to judge a book by its cover but from what I had seen of Kabuki it looked to be pretty dang good. I love sushi and was hoping to add another sushi place to my list. (more…)