Taika Sushi

Seems better and better each time. Quality and prices are great. My favorite sushi place in San Diego

I don’t know what happened, but this place has gone downhill in the last year. I used to like coming here once or twice a month, but I haven’t been to Taika since my friend told me it’s now what it used to be. I didn’t want to believer her, but sadly, after dining here the other day, I have to agree.
For starters, who the hell has 80s hair band rock blaring in the background at a restaurant that’s not named House of Blues? It just doesn’t fit the restaurant at all. Japanese synth-​rock would have been a better choice, but only slightly. Perhaps that’s why there was only one other couple eating here for lunch on a weekday. Or perhaps it’s because the fish isn’t impressive and the rolls are overdressed. It seems like they source their fish from a different place now because it used to be excellent.
The only consistent thing here seems to be the extremely friendly and humble owner. I hope he turns Taika around because I want it to succeed.

The food is great and cheap! However, the service really sucks.
There was only a few customers in the restaurant and I still had to get up and tell the waitress I was ready to order. I waited for a good 20min before I had gotten up to let them know I existed. Keep in mind, I didn’t even order my food yet.
Once I did order my food, another 25min later, found out they forgot to put in my order. They offered me an appetizer but I just wanted to leave at that point.

Great sushi! Having gone from Sushiya to Ikiru to Umi over the years, I highly recommend Taika. Cool interior! Good service, great prices and great sushi! My new favorite is the Volcano Roll! And did I mention $ 2 Sapporo and $ 7 sake and beer combos? Plus you get the vibe of Ocean Beach and can have a few drinks before or after at one of the many great bars and other restaurants nearby.

Delicious food. Service was a little bit lacking as our server was paying more attention to the game on TV than asking if we wanted more food. Very clean and comfortable place. Hard to find parking. Cute neighborhood. I would go there again.

Rainbow roll — average
Customer service — very good
Atmosphere — nice
…I’m not sure what else to say… maybe it deserves a second chance

Eager to find my local sushi spot, I’m trying every place in OB. This one is a contender. I had:
Miso soup — standard $ 1.50 miso
Poke salad — flavor was good but I thought the tuna to other stuff ratio was a bit skewed for the $ 8, especially considering how inexpensive everything else on the menu was
Ring of fire roll — take note that this whole roll is deep fried. I missed that in the description but it was delicious nonetheless. One suggestion would be to plate it differently, yeah it’s in a ring but it looks pretty lame.
Overall I will definitely be going back! The food was good, prices are right, and the service was friendly.

OMG! This is hands down the best sushi place in ocean beach. Every thing we had was the the freshest and tastiest fish we ever had. I can’t wait to come back and try more. Seriously it doesn’t matter what you order you will be in heaven !!!

This is an extremely delayed review since I have been coming here countless times since I had that bad experience with that waitress here. Speaking of, I have not seen that waitress since. This restaurant definitely gets better each time I go here. I think I’ve gotten the owner as my waiter each and everytime since, which is a really nice guy. He recognizes me by now and is always happy. The food is really good, portions are large, sushi is well prepared, vibe is neat, and prices are definitely worth it. This is definitely my go to spot now. I will be back very soon!

This place is awesome. Great food, excellent service and not expensive. Food came fast. The snowball appetizer was delicious, and the noodle and ramen were yummy too, and had just the right amount of spice. Definitely recommend.

Best sushi in OB. They have delicious food and all of our favorite rolls. The owner is so nice and always makes sure we have everything we need/​want. I also like how they don’t nickle and dime you and charge you extra for sauces.

Had good experiences here in the past but a few weeks ago my husband and I came in for a quiet sushi dinner. Everything was OK — not great. A lot of the rolls were over dressed, hiding the taste of the fish. The shrimp stuffed jalapeños tasted weird. Very weird. So disappointing because I usually love that type of dish. We both had upset stomachs that night and next day. Still gave two stars because the employees are very kind; however, I can’t recommend it and we won’t be back.

This place is pretty good. I was walking with a friend looking for dinner and we stumbled upon this place.
They have a happy hour special when appetizers are 30% off around closing time. Not sure about the exact hours since we walked in randomly.
The large sake bomb serves about 4. Not bad for $ 7
Salmon and hamachi kama are amazing. Definitely recommend those.

This is my sushi spot when in OB! Good sushi thats reasonable priced and im about those $ 1 sake bombs!
Located right on Newport Ave. This place is new and very cute on the inside! Ive never seen it extremely busy so its a easy place to get sushi and drinks!
The staff is always very friendly.
The bathrooms could be better.
My favorite rolls include their rainbow roll, ring of fire roll, spicy hamachi roll, and a few others.
i also like their vegetable tempura and seaweed salad!
Go for the drinks and sushi!

Love this place. The interior with neon lights and various seating is great. The bathroom was clean. Best part is they charge a very reasonable amount for veggie sushi favorites of mine like cucumber maki and tempura sweet potato maki. They also had snowball rolls, which my boy friend loves and I can never find anywhere. My only complaint is I asked for a non-​spicy snowball roll to go for him, which they did, but then in the take out container, they put a big scoop of wasabi that was touching the rolls. If we ordered it non-​spicy, why would you do that? Haha I will visit again, though,

Just happened to be in OB for the first time in a ling time. After an awesome hot yoga class at Indie Yoga, I decided to have a late bite here. Not crowded. Old Asian man took my order — house salad and Spanish Roll. I adjusted roll to tuna instead of salmon and added jalapeño. Orher than than the $ 2 extra charge for the tuna, I was elated. Sooooooooooooo good. They need to have this roll on menu. It was rolled tight, with minimal rice, and service was just fine. Woule most def recommend this place and come back again

Great reasonably priced sushi with a ton of options.
Portions were oversized — the seaweed salad was an excellent value and the special rolls rolled right into my belly and took up residence.
Nigiri was nothing special — stick to Ota for the good cuts o’ fish.
We had leftovers — which of course were eaten an hour after getting home.
I liked it here but don’t sit by the door at night as it gets pretty drafty.

First time here, clean open space, sat at the sushi bar. Ordered himachi sashimi, albacore and blue Finn nigiri, Philadelphia roll and eel hand roll.
I like that the rice to fish ratio was good. No too much rice. Delicate fish flavor. The sashimi, hand roll and Philadelphia roll were all very good. I liked the albacore nigiri better than the blue finn.
The chef was very attentive and waited till I was almost done with a plate to bring out the next. I watched most of the Duke vs Michigan game and had an awesome lunch.
The bathroom was also clean and smelled good which is really important to me.

Not a bad place to get some inexpensive regular cut rolls, and an even better place to get $ 2 iced cold pints of Sapporo. Not bad at all. I ordered a tuna at $ 3.50 and hamachi at $ 4 maki rolls, and a salmon skin roll at $ 4, along with a couple of Sapporos.
The tekka maki or tuna cut roll was very good and my favorite. The yellow fin tuna was a bright crimson and had a rich buttery flavor. With a little wasabi and soy, these rolls went perfectly with the ice cold beer. The hamachi Maki were good, but the yellow tail just did not deliver that richness as the yellow fin did. I liked it, it just had an agreeable lighter flavor. The tekka maki was the winner.
The salmon skin roll was good, but it could of used more salmon skin. After all it was suppose to be the star of the show. What little baked salmon skin the roll did have, tasted very good, hence the reason why I wanted more. The avocado, cucumber, daikon, and gobo were all good and added a nice texture to the mix, but I which on the menu they advertise they put eel sauce on the roll. I do not like sweet on my sushi rolls, so I would of axed the sauce during ordering if I knew.
Service was a little slow when I first arrive, but as employees started to arrive, it picked up and became appropriately attentive. I am not going to argue, they sure have some great deals to be had here, and offer daily happy hour specials. They had fried calamari on happy hour special, and I wanted it, but they were unfortunately out of it. I had a sad face…3.5 stars.

Kimono my house! Never liked the band, Sparks, but always loved that title of one of their albums and now I’ve used it here… don’t know why… because it’s vaguely Japanese? Well, there is nothing vague about Taika… it’s the sake… BOMB! Speaking of which…$ 1 sake bombs here! But, I digress…
On my first visit here last week, my friend and I were really happy to taste such fresh sushi in OB and the prices… wow, they are beyond reasonable. My litmus test for sushi is… how tasty and fresh is their Hamachi… or yellowtail. It was SO fresh and yummers. For my friend, It’s salmon, which has never been one of my fave sushi choices, but I do love it cooked. Well, I had one of hers and we both flipped over each other’s choices, supa dupa fresh!
We ordered a Dragon and a Volcano roll and loved those too. Today I went by myself and ordered the Spicy Albacore Roll… delish! I also had eel and hamachi nigiris… they did not disappoint! My only criticism is that I would like any Tempura shrimp inside (this one in the Albacore) roll to be freshly fried. This one had been sitting awhile, so I gotta let Tim (the owner) know this. He’s very open to listening to what you have to say and seems to really want you to be pleased.
I could not be happier. FINALLY, a GREAT sushi place inside the bubble!