Yoshino Restaurant

Tried to come for dinner tonight, but unfortunately, the placed has closed down.

they’ve been closed for a while for a renovation and not sure if they’re re-​opened yet. Great grilled fish dishes. It’s very authentic Japanese food.
Try the Grilled Kama (Yellowtail)

The chief who used to work there is no longer there, I was told he is now working in downtown L.A.? They used to have one of the best chirashi in the area with very reasonable price ($ 26 ?), not anymore after the chief left, my very last experience ended terrible, ordered the amaebi, turned out to be rotten, told the waitress and they apologize and gave me another one, but just ONE !!! hello~~~~ each order suppose to come with two pieces, I guess since I throw up the other piece and folded under my napkin, they thought they only need to replace the one untouched on on the plate? haha… dont know what to say…

Not a bad place! Probably one of the more ‘authentic’ Japanese places in the area in terms of the hot food (aka not sushi) they serve. One time I went I ordered one of their fish meals and ended up getting the sculpin (note: most restaurants don’t serve this kind of fish!). It turned out to be very good! They deep fried it whole (gutted and de-​spined of course) and the meat was very tender and sweet inside.
That aside, it was a bit of an expensive meal. I think I paid close to $ 15! I don’t even remember being very full either. I think we did order some of those $ 1 handrolls as well, but that adds to the cost of course.
I think if I want sculpin though, next time I’ll just go on a ½ or ¾ day fishing trip out of Newport or Long Beach to get my sculpin. Word of caution: do NOT try to ‘bounce’ sculpin over the rail especially on a crowded boat! One spine to the face and it’s game over :(

I came for dinner with a group of 7, and things started off great. There was a table immediately available so we were seated right away. But, then it all went downhill from here. We waited for our menu’s and place settings for what seemed like ages. The waitresses never came by! Our table was bare, we had no menus, no water, no chopsticks. Too busy? Not likely. Two different waitresses even looked at us straight in the eyes but they just turned around and walked away, so I’m sure they had acknowledged our existence. We waited patiently as any customers would, but after another 15 minutes of waiting with no service whatsoever, we all had enough so we decided to get up and leave.
What a terrible experience! I don’t ever plan to go back there. A real shame though, the food looks quite good in the submitted photos.

$ 1 hand rolls? AWESOME.
I just had lunch with a good friend of mine here. We had 16 hand rolls and left completely satisfied.
I also like how they’re actually Japanese. Asahi biiru o kudasai!

We had high hopes for this place when we got there. We were seated and then promptly left alone for 15 minutes. You might say then, oh. they were busy and it was packed. but no, it was at about 30% capacity and to make matters worse, the waitress looked right at us and then went and served another table.
After seeing this twice and 15 minutes later, we got up and walked out. Purely disgusted by the blatant disregard of our presence having not even been given menus or asked for drinks after FIFTEEN MINUTES.

I’ve been to a ton of japanese restaurants and as a result, I’m pretty anal when it comes to japanese food. I go here for the food and nothing else. This place has the best sashmi for $ 20 in the Irvine area. Nuff said.

Delicious!
I just tried some kitchen orders and it was good.
I had a sweet shrimp, mixed vegi bowl and a side order of saba.
I could not finish them all, but I liked it.
Next time, I am going to try sushi.

I stop here after work for a special treat… strictly $ 1 hand rolls for me. I order 5 for $ 5 and then head for the gym. It’s a great protein boost. I learned my lesson though… only order the tuna and spicy tuna. Occasionally they offer yellowtail hand rolls for $ 1 too, but it must be when the fish is going bad because twice I’ve ordered it, and both times I nearly yaked.
BTW, don’t take any ish from the owner-​lady at the register when you walk in. She’s on a major power trip and like a brown bear in Mammoth, she senses fear. Walk in with some confidence and tell her what you need and she’ll respect you, otherwise she’ll walk all over you and you’ll be givin’ this joint a 2-​star rating.

I just went here for lunch today with a friend. We arrived at 11:35 and walked inside, there’s a guy at the sushi bar, a guy standing in the front waiting for his to-​go and a lady w/​her son. Her boy was playing with the chopstick and sticking it in his mouth. The mom was so busy eating and did not notice or cared, but the waitress came by and took it out of the boy’s mouth. Told the mother it was dangerous for him to be playing with chopsticks like that. I looked around and saw a sign that says to not let the children play with chopstick. So we waited for a minute before anyone ask us how many. The waitress leads us towards the right side and seats us next to the wall but right next to us is another table for 2. If someone was sitting there, it would of been uncomfortable thank goodness it wasn’t crowded yet. So the menu is already on the table and we look for a couple of seconds and another waitress ask us what we want to drink. She comes back with the drinks in about 30 seconds and ask us what we want to order. Luckily we were quick and ordered the beef steak teriyaki w/​shrimp/​vegetable tempura. My friend is still looking at the menu and I see the waitress slowly heading to take it away from her, so I said is there something else on the menu you want to order. So the waitress stops and than my friend said no than gives her the menu. Okay, you barely have any customer but your rushing us. Close to 12 pm, some of the clocks starts going off and it’s cute but where is our food. If you have only 30 minutes for lunch (during work hour), just order to go but call ahead too. Because the poor guy that was waiting for his food to go was waiting for awhile. The waitress brought out 2 small dish of sliced daikons and carrots, doesn’t look appetizing. Than she comes back and ask if we wanted miso or chicken soup with our lunch combo. We ordered miso and it was decent. Now comes the good part, she finally brings out our meal. It’s a huge round plate with lots of salad w/​their dressing (it wasn’t good, really no flavor), a good portion of the beef steak teriyaki (i must say this is the best beef steak teriyaki i have seen compared to other Japanese restaurants. the teriyaki sauce was not too salty but just right. however, it was medium rare and i wished that she had asked how i wanted it cooked), shrimp & vegetable tempura (the shrimp tempura wasn’t wimpy and was a good size too) and a potato, cucumber, carrot, onion salad (this was good) accompanied with a bowl of rice (it wasn’t a lot but it’s okay). For 2 orders of #3 lunch combo & 2 sodas, it came out to be $ 23.05.
Not even halfway into our meal the waitress brought us our bill. Even though they weren’t that crowded yet, they want to get their customers in and out ASAP. I agree the service isn’t too great but the food was good. Next time will try their sushi/​sashimi.
Also, if you come here with friends make sure everyone is present. They have a sign that says all parties must be present to be seated and they will point it to you too. That’s what happened to this couple but luckily their other friends were parking their cars.

Lately I’ve been craving Japanese food, so upon the suggestion of a friend came here Friday night for dinner. First thing, their menu is kind of confusing. There’s 3 different menus. One for appetizers, one with Combo dishes, and one that has a la carte dishes. I am notorious for spending an annoyingly long time perusing the menu because I can never decide what I want, so my dinner mates should be glad that I spared them this time, because I would easily have spent a good 15 – 20 minutes pondering what to order.
So here’s what we ended up getting:
Grilled Hamachi cheek — This was really good, the skin was nice and crisp and then meat was so tender and juicy and had a light buttery flavor.
Miso Sea Bass — The best grilled miso fish I’ve had! It has a very nice crust like the hamachi, and I really like the miso flavor, and the fish was perfectly cooked inside, not dry at all.
Enoki mushroom appetizer — This was just ‘eh’. It was enoki mushrooms sauteed in butter. Not bad, but nothing special.
Poke Salad small — I would call this… a medley of sashimi and seaweed all tossed with a light dressing. This was a good dish, but I don’t know if I would order it again because for $ 7 it was a pretty small dish and it wasn’t so delicious that I would think it worth the money.
Sushi Dinner — I think if you are feeling like sushi and want a variety of stuff this is a good choice. It came with 4 or 5 different sushi pieces, along with veggie roll, uni, salmon roe, and the egg thing (sorry, I don’t know the real name of it. =P)
Udon set — Also a good choice, you get a lot of food, with salad, pickled veggies and the udon noodle and a katsu don on rice.
Crunch Roll — This is one of the better crunch rolls I’ve had. It didn’t have the imitation crab meat as filler. The shrimp tempura was big and you can really taste the shrimp, and it had some cucumber slices in it to cut the greasiness of the tempura, and all of it topped with crispy bonito flake thingies and light sweet sauce. (Not overpowering at all, just right.)
Overall I liked everything we got, I want to go back and try some of their other hot foods, or one of their boat specials which another table got that looked really good. It was HUGE too! Our bill was about $ 80 for all that food, but the sushi kind of bumped up the price, if you are feeling more like hot food, they have a lot of good combo dinners that are all about $ 12. I want to try those next time too =) Oh, and all the waitresses are Japanese and really nice too. AND they have happy hour $ 1 spicy tuna hand rolls if you go before 6:30pm.

Yay! Yoshino! I’ve been coming here since I was little and it always brings back memories every time I go here. You also can’t top the $ 1 tuna hand rolls before 6:30PM. I’m a fan of their chirashi. Very authentic and the old lady that works there is very very outgoing. She makes me laugh.

**Update** 9÷28÷2007: Just heard from the folks that our great friend sushi chef has left the building. They went a couple of times post-​departure and it just wasn’t the same. Sushi didn’t cut it. I’m removing 2 stars.
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I’ve lived in Japan, and although that doesn’t make me the Japanese food connoisseur, I have a bit of belief that I know a little something or two.
My family lives in the Irvine area, so when I make my jaunt down to the South, we always make it a point to visit Yoshino’s once or even twice during my stay — and we’re never disappointed. We usually just eat sushi at the bar, but I hear the other menu items are good as well.

Went here once. Ordered two pieces of sushi and it was awful. The Spicy tuna was the Color Grey… Left and went to Tommy’s Sushi. Much better. Honda ya is even better. This place is just awful but I can’t give an indepth review since I could barely choke down two pieces of their sushi.

I happened upon this restaurant by accident recently and I was at first apprehensive, but once inside, I was suprised it actually seemed authentically Japanese. There were actual Japanese from Japan eating in there (usually a good sign) and all the waitresses and sushi chefs spoke Japanese so I thought hey, it might be good. I was pleasantly surprised by the big extensive menu. They seemed to have every kind of fish you can imagine (cooked). I didn’t feel like eating sushi so I got a combo of udon, oyako don, and california rolls. The udon was good and the Oyako don was even better. It had a great flavor and I enjoyed it immensely. The California rolls were good too because they didn’t have all that nasty mayo mixed with the imitation crab which is the way I like it. I’ve only been here once so I don’t know if I can say that everything is good, but the one dish I did get, I liked a lot. I’ve read the other reviews and I’ve heard some stories from friends of getting sick and other stuff, but only when they bought sushi stuff so maybe this restaurant is better for cooked Japanese food?!
The décor was pretty interesting there were clocks on every inch of wall and it felt like I was at someones crowded messy house. There was some drama with our waitress and a cook, crying and what not so that was entertaining and a bit uncomfortable, but this place was definitely not a fancy restaurant and the ambience was a bit lacking.

I finally found the time to head out to Honda-​Ya in Tustin. Bad news: it was crowded as hell. What to do? Let’s stop by Yoshino. I’d seen this place many times after driving past it about once a week for the past few months. I sure didn’t expect a meal like the one we got here last week.
As we walked in, the first thing I noticed was all the Japanese media plastered on the walls… next to the collection of wall clocks. Photos of sumo wrestlers could be seen from our table and a feed from a Japanese channel was filtering in on the TV set in the corner. We arrived with about 45 minutes left until closing. Seemed safe. Actually, no. Our waitress quickly spouted that ours was to be the last order of the night since the kitchen was going to close in 15 minutes. Well, their menu is half-​written in Japanese and only has a few pictures of their entrees included in it. With our waitress impatiently waiting to collect our order off by the cash register, I tried to scan the menu for something to order… it all looked good, but what do I feel like? I caved and ordered a combination plate. My wife ordered the udon set. I felt like ordering a bunch of a la carte items, but knowing that the kitchen was closing soon, what choice was I left with? So, I hastily ordered the fried oysters and a pair of flaky tuna handrolls as appetizers.
Pickled daikon: interesting; refreshing change from pickled cabbage or cucumbers that other places serve.
Miso soup: tasty; served with tofu bits (some places throw in somen noodles or don’t include tofu at all).
Flaky tuna handrolls: not bad; a touch of spice (chili sauce); tasted a bit like tuna salad in a handroll.
Salmon Teriyaki/​Sesame Chicken Combination plate: huge! the plate itself was over a foot in diameter; salmon was cooked well, but a bit on the thin side and coated in a tad too much teriyaki sauce; sesame chicken looked almost burned, but wasn’t (just very golden brown) and tasted pretty good; salad was okay; boiled green bean bits would’ve been better if they weren’t swimming in the mayo/​shoyu sauce.
Fried oysters: very oystery, fried well, and served with tonkatsu sauce; tasted good despite being served half way through my entrée.
Bottom line: the food was decent. Service left something to be desired. The waitress hurried us through the meal and practically had a mental breakdown near the end of the night (she had a spat with someone back in the kitchen apparently). Definitely authentic Japanese food. The abundance of Japanese people in the restaurant was a dead giveaway. Also, a film crew shooting a segment for a Japanese TV show behind us seems to be a sign that the food here must be pretty good.

My coworkers can’t stay away from this place even though when they come back to the office they all complain of a stomach ache. I have tried to like this place, but really, the food just does nothing for me. I don’t care for the ambience, the sushi is mediocre at best, and ugh… no, sorry, don’t go there.

This place reminds me a lot of Taiko in Irvine. They give you pretty good quantities of food for a reasonable price. During happy hour and lunch, they have spicy tuna handrolls for $ 1.
I would say the quality of food here is better than Taiko, but the service is much more lacking. If you are meeting people there, they will not seat you until your entire party is there. If you are there for lunch and its after 1pm, they will get pretty pushy to get you to pay the bill quickly so that they can close at 2pm.
As a random sidenote, all the clocks that they have displayed on their walls will transform and perform some sort of animated sequence every hour.

Another Japanese restaurant that is definitely worth your time. Its a pretty small place, but its darn good. You should go there to get the early bird specials (which I believe are from 5:00pm — 6:30pm), becase they’re well worth it. You can get a sampler plate with sesame chicken, tempura, chicken teriyaki, and a couple pieces of California roll (plus green beans and salad), for a mere $ 10. Portions are nice sized, too.
Also during the early bird special you can get tuna roll or spicy tuna rolls for only $ 1, and they are darn good. Other things on the menu are good, and there’s a lot of authentic seafood here as well. Closed on Sundays, but seriously, hit up the restaurant for their early bird specials and you won’t be disappointed!