Beluga Japanese

I used to eat here regularly when I lived in Round Rock. I haven’t visited this restaurant in about 4 years. I’m sad to say that Beluga sushi has gone downhill. The restaurant was completely empty during happy hour, which is never good. The menu is pretty extensive, in fact a bit to extensive. To many sushi rolls with quality I remember the sushi being fresh, this wasn’t the case. As I mentioned before, it’s been a while since I’ve visited this restaurant… not impressed. The «happy hour» prices weren’t the best either was the freshness/​quality of fish served.

I used to really like this place for sushi as they had a large variety of rolls, but after eating there more often I realized how unsatisfactory they are. The biggest complaint is they are entirely inconsistent. Sometimes the tempura oil/​batter will be old and have a very off taste and sometimes it will be fresh. The chefs aren’t consistent with the rolls on the menu at all. There’s been many times where I ordered rolls I’ve had several times before, but they were made completely different. I had to ultimately give up on this place due to this.

The sushi here is really good, fresh. I give the chefs 5 stars! The service and management is lacking however! There is one female server that is amazingly attentive and great service. The others not so much. Last time I was there I had to wait over 15 min just for my drinks, when I asked for the drinks again the server was quite rude. I do keep going back because I love the sushi!

No. Just no. Typing this after gazing around at ANYBODY for a refill… anybody as I gave up on my server, even the manager in glasses and aqua button down sees my desperation. I have burned a hole into his soul by now, surely! Now onto the food, just stick to the rolls, this hibachi seafood rice sucks, my son’s chicken terryaki tastes like something from Applebee’s and my wife’s crab salad is watery, lacking in flavor. Thanks for nothing Beluga. we have been loyal to you for over 5 years but we must part ways now. Very disappointed.
UPDATE, went against the norm and spoke to said manager in blue button down, our bill was pushing $ 100 for my wife, myself and 2 kids– he comped us the poor meals and gave us card for 50% service for 2. This speaks volumes!

I was very happy with the service. Nolan was our server. I took a friend’s son out for a good time, and he wanted to comer to Beluga. He liked the shrimp Tempora. Our server, Nolan, was very attentive. The sushi was excellent as well. Thank you Nolan for making our experience a good one.

I went during happy hour and sat at the bar. I got salmon nigiri which was 2 for 1 during happy and the lobster dynamite roll. The salmon nigiri was melt in your mouth good. But wow! The lobster dynamite roll was sooo worth the money! It was delicious and I’ll definitely be back.
Ask for Ethan at the bar. Very personable and recommended a great roll.

Fabulous! I am not a sushi expert, by any means. But, I know good service and fresh, fresh sushi. And lemme tell ya… the Round Rock roll was the best thing I ever ate! So good. Perfect service by An.
Took my 83 year old sushi novice Mom, and she LOVED it. Yes, she used a knife and fork (she’s English! LOL), and we did not use chopsticks, but An did not make us feel like the sushi novices we are. :-) Yum… so good… can’t wait to come back!

Great place, so brave the strip mall surrounding! We started with the ahi tuna tower– just the right amount of mayo blended with tuna. The chirashi was so fresh. Shrimp tempura had the right kind of crisp. We topped it off with white chocolate green tea cake. The list of sushi rolls was intimidating, but if you can make a decision, you won’t regret it

NEVER GET THE «ALL YOU CAN EAT» option! Don’t even waste the money. Take the money and go to a Brazilian steak house (SAME PRICE)!!! 2 stars because there were actually SOME good food like the Korean ribs and the tuna tower were good but everything else was meh! the sushi was not fresh and the service took forever. If you want amazing sushi, the sushi nini nearby is SO MUCH BETTER

Not anything to write home about. The food was mediocre at best. I tried as an alternative to Kobe Steakhouse and am now sorry I did. There was 3 in our party and the third person didn’t receive their food until we were almost done. Definitely won’t be returning.

Ordered the chicken pad Thai and literally felt like I tried my dog’s dry food. Horrible horrible taste. My wife was happy with his steak plate order though.

I’m writing the review while sitting in the restaurant so that should say something. The reason for three stars is because the food tastes good but the preparation is terrible.
However, I am currently breathing the horrible smell of burnt food and smoke. A table across the restaurant ordered food that was served on a hot skillet and it was charred.
We ordered the garlic edamame and fried calamari for starters. The edamame was fine but for $ 9 you expect more than 9 small rings of calamari, freaking ridiculous.
We ordered a few rolls for entrees along with 6 pieces of sake toro (fatty salmon) and 5 additional pieces on rice. The salmon tasted wonderful and fresh but the cuts were HORRIBLE! Out of the 11 pieces 8 or so had tough pieces of fat/​tendon, 3 or so I had to literally spit out (picture attached.)
We ended up spending $ 112, without tip and the shitty cuts and small portion size made it not worth it.
I do not mind paying a lot for high quality sushi, but not for this.

Heard Beluga started Ramen from one of my friend so decided to stop by and give it a try.
To be honest, I didn’t expect much but the Tonkotsu Ramen was actually very good!!! Next time, I will try their Spicy Miso Ramen.

Great place for happy hour i can only speak for. First time a a sushi bar restaurant and the waitress was all but helpful and my meal selections thatbthe waitress helped me out on was excellent.
As i mentioned Happy Hour period. The prices were right on target that i will make me return again and again.
You will enjoy yourself.

Whoa… The bartender was so friendly and had some really good dinner ideas for me. Nice clean bar and it seemed like everyone around me was enjoying dinner as well. Happy hour prices are very reasonable. Clean bathrooms and the music that was playing reminded me of café style European chill music.

This place is half traditional Japanese restaurant and half local cook goes nuts.
It is also half amazing and half meh.
This goes for each half the menu.
The traditional dishes are half awesome half meh.
The innovative dishes are half awesome half meh.
So roll your dice and see if you come out a winner!
The headline star of the show was on the innovative side.
This was a plate of grilled salmon skin.
No, I did not say salmon, I said salmon skin.
Grilled salmon skin is fishes’ answer to pork belly.
Pure fatty tasty meaty wonderfulness.
Grilling brings it out to its strongest effect.
It comes with the «traditional» (cough cough) accompaniments of
avocados,
jalapenos
pickled carrots,
raw cucumber,
and white rice with roe on top.
Kinda takes you back to old Kyoto, doesn’t it? :.)
But the choices of sides was excellent and each of these flavors perfectly cut or complemented the rich fatty taste of the salmon skin.
Ten points to the chef here.
The other big successes of the night were traditional japanese dishes.
Udon which is pure dullness at most places was wonderful here.
One of my table accompanists was Japanese, and this person swore this was the best textured udon she had had in the US.
I have had more than my bad share of mediocre udon elsewhere in the US too.
Beluga is clearly on top of the udon game.
The straight up Miso soup was also a winner. A lot of places blow this off. (Dump Miso in water and serve.) But if you put in really good Miso and season well, it makes a difference. Beluga does that.
Other dishes on the innovative side were «that’s nice dear».
They have a mushroom medley which means take your pick of one of four mushroom soups.
Few thrills among the four.
They have a white chocolate green tea cake. Matcha powder is sprinkled over the white chocolate cake. The flavor idea sounds good in theory, but matcha powder by itself does not add that much taste.
White chocolate is one of the great politician’s promises of food. Despite one’s hopes, white chocolate never tastes like much.
I keep driving home reminding myself «you want to get the BROWN chocolate, you want to get the BROWN chocolate. BROWN chocolate, goddamit!»
The whipped cream had more punch than the cake did.
Still, the worst day of eating chocolate is better than the best day of doing anything else — so I learned to overcome my hardship and appreciate life.
The Beluga ceviche is a Brazilian-​style fusion of raw fish and various fruits. Brazilian-​Japanese restaurants do a lot of this — and when you have amazing local fruit and amazing local fish, the results can be amazing.
Beluga’s fish is not the highest quality Sushi fish in Austin. (You will have to go to Mushashino for that.) The fish is fresh but it is not the most flavorful you will ever get.
So the cook has to doctor it a lot to make it special.
The menu has about 60 000 000 000 highly elaborate sushi roll options to allow the cook to add some flavor to the otherwise bland fish.
The fruit you get in Texas is not that flavorful either. The mango was fine. The avocado and other fruits were more boring.
So a dish that depends on average fish and commercial fruit could be boring — and this was.
The low point of the dinner was the tempura. Several people had the «pull out all the stops’ tempura option, where they tempura everything in the house, down to the door handles.
The broccoli tempura was really good. The other vegetable tempura were ho hum. The seafood tempura were fair, at best.
Servings were generous, which was good. But still much of my meal was spent stuffing my face with uninspired fried food and wishing I had gotten something different off the menu.
So at Beluga, you takes your chances and you gets what you get.
If I ate here regularly, I would soon decode the menu and figure out which are the stars and which are the bombs.
If you get lucky on the first draw, or you do enough research to winnow out the losers, you can get some spectacular meals here.

Love this place! I’ve mostly been for lunch, and their lunch specials are great. The magnolia, kiss of fire, and TNT roll are all delish! The smoked tuna with goat cheese and honey wasabi appetizer is also amazing!!! My fave. The banana tempura dessert is good but I have had better elsewhere.

Amazing. We went during happy hour and got the sexy roll, spicy Jen-​Jen and black widow. They were all amazing and for being rolls on the happy hour menu they were not skimpy! The nigeri and sashimi were also top notch!
Service was also great! Our water was never less than half full :)

Well. We went here last night at like 6:15.
The parking was fine, there were maybe about 20 people there total, and service was slow.
This was our first time, so I had no clue what to expect.
I was shocked to read that EVERYONE at the table that you sit at (everyone in your party) MUST order similar things, meaning, if the buffet is on during the weekends for $ 40 per person, then EVERYONE at the table must get that buffet. They also state they will charge extra for rice waste which is understandable but wow. They only offer 22 of the rolls on the buffet out of like the 70 that they offer. The buffet is not really worth it, in my opinion. I find this place very akward with the pricing and how you have to order, but whatever works, I guess.
We did not want to order much. The food was fine. The prices are too high. You can find better deals…
The Ceviche was $ 12 and it was served to us in a cracked white bowl where someone got creative and put a big live leaf over the bowl where the crack was. The ceviche was bland and just okay.
We probably won’t be going back. There was just not that much going on and it was costly.

Love love love their happy hour!
Check out their prices and what they have to offer on their website!
Their special rolls is still expensive though, but their regular rolls were really good and the prices with happy hours are about $ 5 – 7!
They even had these $ 4 SAKETINIS that were fun an full of flavor! I tried the Mango and Strawberry ones!