Sam’s Sushi

Came here once, threw up later and haven’t been back.

Sam’s Sushi is about a half mile from my work, and have visited the restaurant several times. Unfortunately, my most recent experience there was my last.
A friend and I ordered a raw scallop roll and an order of gyoza. A few hours later I was hit with an undesirable gut bomb and my friend was violently sick, vomiting in the bathroom at our corporate office. She had to have her boyfriend pick her up, and went to her physician. He informed her that she had food poisoning.
The people were very sweet in giving our money back. One man I spoke with told me that, «if you don’t eat sushi a lot, then you can get sick easy.» I was just there the previous Monday, ordered the same exact menu items, and didn’t get sick. Maybe the same batch of scallops and then turned bad?
Service isn’t too great here. There not overly friendly but not necessarily rude either.
Plenty of other good places to eat sushi in Seattle.

Their service is SLOW! If you only have an hour for lunch, do not come here because it will take literally 40 minutes before your mediocre food arrives at the barely cleaned table.
Other than that, menu is very limited with about 10 sushi roll options (besides from the Americanize rolls such as California and shrimp tempura). The lady I ordered from didn’t seem to know sushi very well as she never heard of seared salmon…

Not bad. Not great. The bento was good, especially given the price.
There was a friend of the family yammering the whole time I was there. It was very distracting. One of the owners had to tell him to be quiet a number of times.

Sam is the man! I randomly found this place prior to a coffee meeting a few months ago. Glad I did. A true ‘hole in the wall’ find for sushi. I love places like this. Nothing fancy, just awesome, fresh fish and one of the nicest owners around. Sam and his brother have had this place 16 yrs and get the freshest fish every morning. I would put their quality up against any of the really expensive, fancy places in town. Definitely worth eating at the sushi bar right in front of Sam. Very quick. He’ll even do custom rolls if you want. I highly recommend dynamite roll and spicy tuna roll. Ask him what he has that is the freshest of the day.

Not fancy, not flashy, but the fish is consistently good and fresh. Salmon is always great and my wife’s favorite, she’s telling me it’s a 5, but I think 4 stars is appropriate. A great place that is well priced with consistent quality.

Bummed because it was NYD and a lot of the higher rated sushi restaurants were closed. My bf really wanted to try out Seattle sushi. We came here as it was the only place open nearby our hotel. Everything we ordered was eh. We don’t really like the mayo-​like garnish unless prepared to not taste like mayo. The sushi wasn’t particularly fresh and the service was just okay. My bf and I were both disappointed because we knew there could of been better providing it was avaliable or this case open.

It’s never a good sign walking into a Japanese restaurant that has no Japanese employees. This isn’t to say that those of other ethnicities are necessarily bad; diversity is always welcome! But when I was craving a taste of home cooking, I had wholeheartedly wanted to entrust this into someone that came from the motherland, tasted and grew up on said foods and flavors.
So, my adventure at Sam’s was mediocre. The fish quality was fantastic, but the rolls were awkwardly constructed. My go-​to favorites of mirugai, uni, chu toro were not offered. Just your basics, most untouched, likely because people at the other tables were dining on your more American-​styled rolls (e.g. California, Philadelphia).
Even a simple side like agedashi tofu left me depressed. The tsuyu (dipping sauce) was just a simple shoyu/​katsuo broth, not sweetened as agedashi tofu’s dipping sauce should be. And the tofu was so hastily fried that much of the potato starch was still… powdery… and not crisp as I would have expected.
I don’t want to discredit this place entirely. I’m sure the other offerings might be tasty. But the pricing here isn’t exactly cheap (somewhere in the medium of sushi pricing) and the quality was decent. I just don’t anticipate I will be returning.

Dude, seriously. They gave me smoked salmon and insisted it was sake. I sent it back and said I meant to order the sake. The chef held up sake and said «this is smoked, you have salmon». Every other sushi place I’ve been to serves sake that looks quite a bit like that «smoked salmon» you’re waving around, buddy.
Their spicy tuna was horrible. Tubs roll was good which made me regret not getting the right nigiri.
The waitress was hiding behind a fake tree most of the time. She was also not helpful.

Was just looking for quick sushi fix, walking distance from my hotel. Wasn’t bad, not the best I’ve had. But would probably go again to fulfill sushi craving.
Staff was friendly and very helpful in answering my questions. Gave me gluten free soy sauce on request.

This sushi place has been around as long as I can remember, but I’ve never eaten there until recently.
Who would serve unaju in a sushi tray!!! Their eel was a bit fishy and covered in WAY too much sweet and sticky sauce. Nabeyaki udon was actually not bad. I wish they would have given me more veggies instead of 3 small and sad clams…
Not impressed at all! :-(

Decided to grab a quick Bento Teriyaki Box to go, and I was disappointed.
They took FOREVER. Was not worth the wait or the $ 10 +tip that I paid for the meal. They gave me a cheap plastic fork that broke after my first bite into the food. Did not get a spoon for my miso soup, but it didn’t matter because the miso soup wasn’t good anyway.
The Bento Box = Sad face:
1. Gyoza — Soggy.
2. Sushi — 8 pieces of avocado and cucumber rolled in rice. Could have made it myself. Wasabi looked like pastel-​green playdo and had a SOUR taste :(
3. 5 small pieces of chicken that looked like imitation tofu. DOES NOT TASTE LIKE CHICKEN… not to mention I FOUND A HAIR IN MY TERIYAKI!
4. Salad — was OK, considering I was hungry. It wasn’t anything special, had mushed up carrots and then… more carrots?
HORRIBLE FOOD. Unfortunately, I will never come back here and will not recommend anyone to eat here.

Best rainbow roll I’ve ever eaten in my life. Hands down. *drools*

Was pleasantly surprised last night when I went to Sam’s on a whim. I am a huge Sushi eater and very glad I found this place within walking distance to my house!
I had the Rainbow Roll (excellent!), the Salmon Skin Roll and the Dragon Roll.
The service was great, prices reasonable and I will definitely be making this a regular weekly meal!

My boyfriend and I decided to give this place a try because we’re big time sushi lovers and live within walking distance. The wait staff was on point and very friendly, but the food was definitely lacking.
There are just better sushi places in the city so I will not be going back here unfortunately. Not sure if the one in Ballard is linked with this one or not, but I have many friends who like that one which is why I gave this one a try.

It’s good enough for a quick sushi fix. The sushi chef is very pleasant. The atmosphere is meh, but that matters little if the sushi is fresh and the beer is cold.
Don’t expect anything super creative in the menu. It is a pretty straight forward deal; with sashimi, nigiri, and standard rolls. Nothing fancy here.

I have been going to Sam’s off/​on long enough to know who Sam is but not enough for him to know me. It’s always interesting hearing him talk with customers in the background — tonight it was about housing a business. None the less, this is a favorite spot I have been to since before Obasan opened. Alas, I forgot my cell phone so no pics… I had a late 8pm’ish dinner when it is normally quite but tonight a family with some brats was there… no matter.
For dinner, I had Sam’s plate with a California roll, shrimp, sake salmon, tuna, yellow tail, red snapper and I am not sure if it was Mackrel or Abalone; I really like this one as it has a sauce that really brings the flavor out. There Miso soup better than most places too! There were a couple of other pieces, but I don’t recall what they are…
This is diffidently the place where raw tuna is a turn on!

Sam is da man!
My co-​worker and I were searching everywhere for a good sushi place to cater from. Our budget? $ 200 for 15 people. And gosh darn it all if Sam didn’t meet everything we wanted and beyond.
2 GIANT platters of an assortment of rolls that we got to choose from. And he had nary a thought on a profit for himself. He said we chose a lot of veggie rolls which are inexpensive so he INSISTED that he throw in a small platter of nigiri to round it out and get our money’s worth. Tack on some edamame and miso soup and we still had enough money left over to tip him generously.
Our entire office was well-​fed with ample sushi left over and everybody wanted to know where it was from. It’s not the most amazing sushi I’ve ever had but its a great deal, quality fish and best of all, a sushi master who’s willing to come in 3 hours before his restaurant opens to finish his catering for you.
Sam, you rock all of our socks.

I am the most unlikely fan! I do not like sushi like i love thai food… but I stumbled in to Sam’s twice!
I was impressed. Tempura prawns and vegetables. Gyoza. My taste buds loved me… my stomach was so angry (deep fried anything sends me into digestion hell).

There really isn’t a lot of Japanese options in lower Queen Anne. Sam’s Sushi may actually be your only option, but it’s not a bad option at all. I went by last night to have some dinner (same menu choices and prices as lunch) got to try out their Unagi and Salmon Nigiri, as well as some of their sashimi, chicken teriyaki, tonkatsu, and tempura. The quality of their food was kind of what I expected for the price. Definitely better than mall Japanese food, but not quite as good as what you’d get at some high end (aka über-​expensive) Japanese restaurant.
Their menu has a lot of variety and the usual suspects, so expect to see teriyaki, nigiri, sashimi, udon, soba, katsu, but don’t expect to find hidden gems like chawan mushi. Prices are very fair though which makes it very easy to be satisfied with the quality of food (and everything was tasty, so not really much to complain about). Ala Carte items like Teriyaki, Tonkatsu, Katsudon, Udon Noodle Soup, Tempura Udon, etc… run about $ 7 – 10. Nigiri will run about $ 4+ (depending what you select). And the combo (which is what we all ordered) runs around $ 15, but you get two choices of entrée as well as salad, rice, and miso soup.

Overall, Sam’s Sushi is nothing to go out of your way for. But if you want some decent quality Japanese food at decent prices… and just happen to be around the area… well Sam’s Sushi is definitely worth a stop in. Also I must mention this… as I found it quite funny. I’m used to seeing Japanese restaurants in the Seattle-​area run by Japanese people or more often… Koreans…but this is the first time I’ve seen one run by Cantonese. It might throw you off a bit.
~G