Sushi Maru

I had lunch here with a friend on a Saturday…
They were not as busy as thought they would be given all the rave reviews that I’ve read and heard through the grapevine…
As for the food, the rolls were loose… so that when I dipped it soy sauce it fell apart, but the rolls tasted great…

I am a picky sushi eater and I love this place.
Why:
1) It has excellent quality and price combination.
2) Sushi is fresh. But there is a trick. Order from the sushi chef. Not the «stuff» on the boat.
3) There are off menu or sushi boat items. You need to ask the chef for recommendations … if you just go for what is in the menu or sushi boat … you just get some very common sushi that you can eat anywhere.
4) Nothing too exotic though. No Shimaji. Sometimes, they may have Kanpachi
5) My recommendations? hmmm … chopped scallop sushi, Escolar (spelling may be wrong), Atlantic Salmon is usually excellent. There is a half cooked version. It is called fire salmon in some jap restaurants … For cooked food, their clam miso soup is good too.

I actually really like this place a a lunch spot. It is super casual, yet nice, and the food is super cheap and really good– what more could I possibly ask for? My favorite, strangely enough, is the avocado roll. It basically just consists of avocado, seaweed and rice so it’s very plain, but the proportions are perfect. The dragon roll is pretty decent and so is the unagi nigiri. They have sushi boats, with everything from super cheap, pretty good sushi, to croquettes to oysters.
The service is a little slow, but this place has such awesome prices that I just honestly can’t complain.

Sigh. When it was in T&C in Sunnyvale, Sushi Maru was my stand-​by for cheap but reasonably high-​quality fish. We finally made it over to the new Milpitas place. I don’t think we’ll be back. The fish was warm and not as firm as we expected. We ordered toro and got maguro. The Uni tasted like low-​tide.
As my friend Hank likes to say, a complete «Charlie Foxtrot».
I give them two stars because the new location is a nicer space, and their california rolls are still ok.

Been here twice since the move and it’s consistent with their old location. The place is just much smaller. I miss the old soft lounge seating. I like their portions and the way they cut their fish. Definitely one of the more agreeable places for me.
Mikey Roll — You must get this if you come here. Super Yummy!
Menu with prices is online here:

This restaurant is where Sushi Lovers use to be. If you lived here all your life like I have, you know about Sushi Lovers. They did some remolding and the place looks a little better.
My husband and I ate at the sushi bar and surprising enough, the sushi was actually fresh! We tried a few items that we never tried before because the fish looked THAT fresh. The only sushi we didn’t like, was the spider roll. It was soggy and tasteless. We also shared a bento box and the portions were generous, but nothing special about it. It was just your typical bento box.
The service was oookay, it looked like they were still getting use to flow so hopefully their service will get better!

For the price range, it is about what I expect. Which to me means — it’s decent sushi for a decent price. Which really means that I can have it often. If I want some really good sushi, this would not top my list, but it’s good for the price category it’s in.
On the most recent visit (been there twice now), one diner got the lunch sushi box, and that looked pretty good. I’ll give that one a whirl next time.
Stay away from the spider roll. Not crunchy, not hot, just not that good.
Spicy tuna roll is indeed very spicy.
The maguro and unagi nigiri were both ok the times I got them.

Boo! I was looking foward to this place opening but I was so dissapointed!
We ordered from the roll list and they just grabbed crap off the boats that have been sitting there forever! We also got the calamari… which sucked! So sad because sushi lovers had the best calamari! SO SADDD, bring sushi lovers back!!!
Watch out. the spicy rolls are SUPER spicy!!! If you like spicy, you might like these.

There’s isn’t a whole lot I can add to the discussion as I have reviewed the same place before when it was still in Sunnyvale
but it is quite interesting to see a range of reviews since the move.
Sushi Maru occupies the space that was once Sushi Lovers, Milpitas’s former «best» sushi game in town at the time and I still remember coming here during my college days back when Nobu K’s term Jive Ass Rolls (JAR) just meant a simple ebi tempura uramaki, and a California roll cut up like a tramezzini trianglular sandwich, instead of the hip hoprisy and Iron Chef creations you see these days (don’t forget to add Rocket Sauce!)
This new space is signficantly and noticeably smaller than its old Sunnyvale location. It was not crowded nor packed at noon today, but there were quite a few people, with at least two tables of Japanese patrons enjoying their time off from work and chatting with the Japanese chef (who was just one guy and a non Japanese assistant).
As I was super hungry, I grabbed 2 random plates from the boats.
Maguro — ok but not great
Mussels grilled/​baked with mayo and some other stuff — wow it was still a wee bit warm, luckily this was cooked recently. Not bad. This is as Jive as I will go today.
No longer wanting to risk a risky «fresh off the boat» offering, I took matters into my own hands and ordered directly from the itamae.
Hirame — decent piece. Best version for kaitenzushi
Tai — I got the salt and lemon wedge squeeze of juice treatment on this!
Mirugai — ok
Uni — very very good fresh uni, solid lobes, not mushy or watery or rusted colored. Cheapest gonad’s in a Japanese run kaitenzushi!
Saba — don’t know if the saba is pre-​marinated from a supplier or done in house or elsewhere, but it was PERFECT. Moist, with a good amount of fatty oil, excellent marination that’s not too sour, and with a single dip in shoyu fish side down, and adequately vinegared sushi rice, it had a nice bit of sweetness altogether.
Aji — same comments as before. Mediocre probably prepackaged half bodies, but $ 1 ish cheaper than a typical sushi place that has it.
Katsuo — Not the best quality katsuo, but very decent for a kaiten place.
Aburi Saba (for a lack of better definition) — I was nearing the end and trying to figure out what to get. I got up and scanned the fish counter, and the itamae kindly informed me that they had a seared version of saba and said that if I like this fish I might like this prep. Well sure enough this tasted even a bit fattier than I had expected, very nice texture. Unfortunately this was seared ahead of time so the fish was a tad bit on the cold side. A tip to my readers, if you really really love well prepared shime-​saba, next time you go to your favorite sushi-​ya, ask for a seared saba nigiri (see if the chef understands aburi saba). Take two slices of saba, and burn that sucka with a blowtorch, but only enough that the skin and surface are seared. A freshly prepared one is very nice, almost like a wonderful saba shioyaki but without the salt on the outside (shime saba is marinated with salt and vinegar btw). It is also no wonder that Inoue-​san of Ino Sushi enjoys a similar prep himself, when he grills his own shimesaba and preps it as a temaki for customers in the know (including the nori for the extra crunch).
3.5 stars because I can tell this place will have off-​days, and I’m glad that I went at a time when performance was decent (Tuesday after all). Rounding to 4 stars because the itamae hooked me up with a free side of grilled salmon, the meat near the bones was über fatty and tasty.

There isn’t a lot of variety, but it’s more traditional than the other sushi restaurants in Milpitas. It’s pretty cheap, but that’s because the portions are small. A roll only consists of three pieces at most unless you get than «cucumber roll» which really should not constitute as sushi. They’ve been nice to me most of the times I have dined there. but today my friend and I had to wait 10 minutes to sit at the bar. And the waitress let this white couple who JUST got there, sit before us. The chefs seems nice and experiences but the waitresses are clearly scrambling. It also bothers me that they give the grand opening coupons sporadically. Either give them to everyone or no one! The only consistant thing is the few, but good rolls.

They have cute liltte flags that say «Spicy» stuck into the plates filled with spicy pieces of sushi.
My coworker grabs the spicy tuna which was red in color. Not the red that tells us this is a good piece of fresh tuna, the other kind of red, you know, like fire hot red. He takes a bite and was like «whoa that’s hot» and I’m sitting her thinking «no s**t Sherlock, look at how freakin’ red it is.»
So naturally, I grab another plate with the «Spicy» flag in it. It was a fried roll, the fish meat completely cooked, and not at all red. I figured, this one shouldn’t be as hot, I mean, there isn’t even an inkling of red in it… instead there were sliced up pieces of jalepenos that looked like cucumbers. My mouth was on fire.
I’m not knocking this place for having spicy sushi, I actually kinda liked it. I’m knocking the stars off this place because:
1) Not much variety on the boats ~ this was lunch time
2) Sushi plates that should have been warm, like fried stuff, were extremely cold
3) Unagi was dry
I’m bumping this up a star only because they have all the wasabi and ginger at the table side in jars. No need to ask for more.

Heard about it — so we decided to go and try the restaurant that took over the old site for Sushi Lovers one night after a long day and didn’t feel like cooking. I decided to just go for the sushi. I liked the fact that my b/​f and I got to sit in a booth next to the sushi instead of having to sit at the bar. I could pick things off the boats, sit across from my b/​f, have a conversation and still keep an eye on what other yummy items were going by. My b/​f likes to order from the menu — he ordered the grilled teriyaki salmon. The salmon was tasty — but the rice that he was given as part of the entrée was dry and chewy. It’s not the type of rice we’re accustomed to in a Japanese restaurant, so he asked for another bowl. Same stuff — just as dry. Isn’t Japanese rice supposed to be a little more moist and sticky? The waitress didn’t seem to comprehend what we were trying to say to her and I guess she decided to not deal with us anymore that evening as we had to get our check from the host so that we could pay our bill. I’ve heard good things about this place and we’ll probably give it one more try to see if they were just having an off night that evening.
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Update 8÷20÷07
I talked my b/​f to visit Sushi Maru again — he was hesitant since on our last visit he wasn’t happy about the rice being so dry. I wanted to go because I wanted a light dinner and sushi was the most appealing to me — plus, it was late, conveniently located across the street from my studio and I could get my sushi craving satisfied right away!
I settled down to eat sushi from the boats that went by — but unfortunately, there wasn’t a whole lot. I did get a small tasting of tuna tataki — which was really good! The soft shell crab roll was ok. He ordered the beef teriyaki and asked the waitress to have it prepared medium rare. When he received his order, the meat was over cooked and chewy. He asked the waitress to take it back — which she did very graciously and took the item off our bill. He didn’t want a replacement, but she came back shortly with a freshly made plate of beef teriyaki cooked medium rate. He had to admit that it did taste better.
I’m bringing my star rating up to 4 stars from my original 3 because of our waitress making the effort to make our dining experience more positive.

Very disappointed. :-(We were frequent customers of the Sunnyvale Sushi Maru and also go to the San Jose Japan Town Sushi Maru often. We ordered Chirashi Sushi and several plates of rolls. Something seemed to be missing, but we were not sure at first. Then we figured it out, the sushi rice was missing vinegar!
WTF?!
I hope this is a one time fluke and I hope the owners read this.
Meanwhile, we’re going to stay away from this Sushi Maru.

This review is for the newly opened Sushi Maru in the newly renovated Milpitas Town Center.
Went there on Friday night. the restaurant is nicely decorated with dark wood themes. We were seated in a booth right at the curve of the boat bar. Seating was readily available.
Website is here
First thing we noticed was that there weren’t any «special rolls» listed on the menu (although we really didn’t try to order any). We pulled everything off the bar.
Dishes range from 3 – 5 dollars, light to dark plates.
What was kind of cool was that they had combo-​type dishes with more than one type of sushi. (eg. rainbow roll served with california roll, spicy tuna roll served with another roll, 2 types of nigiri on one dish, etc.) I favored the nigiri and one rainbow roll, and also one dish of fried calamari.
The sushi was ok, it didn’t blow me away. Perhaps it was because we had dinner close to closing time, but it didn’t seem fresh to me. But what can you expect of freshness from a boat bar. I may try to order directly from the sushi chef’s next time.
A family near us ordered bento boxes that looked very good. They were all over $ 10 on the menu.
I would much prefer sushi Kai nearby (
) but I would come back to Sushi Maru.
If you go, do not order the mochi ice cream, it was 2 balls of the same stuff you can get at the local asian grocer.

–cozy
–i like floating boats
–more came floating by when more people came in
–ordered off menu and it came fast
–mixed workers
–mixed crowd
–just opened friday
–great hot green tea
–actually ¾ stars since i did not see the restroom:(
–not as bomb as cherry sushi
–service was good
–prices were low, 3 young beautiful (?) girls plus baby (had booster seat and all for car seat)= less than 60 bucks and we can fuckin eat…
–nice location round new shopping complex
=DIDN’T GO CACA TILL THE MORNING cuz it was good sheiyt

disclaimer: if you get offended easily, please do not read on
thank you, drive thru, and please call again: D
Moving on…
I was dragged to the last day of operation at the Sunnyvale’s Sushi Maru with NO expectations. Hell, all the odds were against it. When I peeked in…
1. it was a sushi go round on boats. BOATS!
um NO
2. it’s in Sunnyvale
what??? Sunnyvale’s not a known sushi mecca
and 3. the clientele was mainly Chinese
no offense but I don’t eat sushi in non Japanese establishments
BUT!
Once I got inside, I was PLEASANTLY surprised.
a. There were Japanese people waiting for seats at the counter.
b. The sushi chefs were Japanese (!!!)
So we sat at the counter and I started ordering away. in Japanese of course. Man, I was shocked! On top of freshly made sushi, the pieces were thinly cut, the rice not over loaded, and the itamae-​san (sushi chef) even specially made me tai (snapper I believe???) seasoned with only salt and lemon. read: do not eat with soy sauce.
WOW ! I can’t WAIT till they open the Milpitas location since I’m temporarily staying in Cupertino… which means I don’t have to go ALLL the way up to the city for some decent sushi.
DON’T SLEEP!