Sushi Mambo

CLOSED!
june 13, 2015

I love Sushi Mambo! I’ve been here twice and I can say with confidence it’s lovely. The fish is fresh, price reasonable, service excellent and location is great.
Each time we went to Mambo we got the sushi platter «dance for two.» 14 pieces of sashimi and 14 pieces of sushi with a rainbow roll. Super excellent!
Heather was our server last night and she was not only very funny but super attentive. I can’t wait to go back!

I admit I was attracted to this place namely because it appeared on an episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm. In a Larry David fangirl moment, I decided to pop in. The outside of the restaurant is very appealing, & the corner location is awesome.
Unfortunately, that’s where the pros end.
I absolutely love Japanese cuisine & eat sushi regularly (1 – 2 times a week), I can say with confidence that this sushi was not up to par. It was not fresh. It tasted like it was sitting out for a long time… a bit too fishy & icky. No thanks. The service was slow & inattentive on top of it. SO SAD. Despite its close proximity to where I reside, I will not be returning.
It’s okay Larry David, we will always have Pinkberry.

This may sound odd, but the sushi and calamari was extra fishy, like old fish tastes. I love sushi. The calamari was not good and the rolls tasted off.

Yeah sushi!
We ordered the spicy combo, it came in less than 5 minutes, oh yeah! It was fresh and exactly what you would except a spicy combo to be.
We also ordered a shrimp tempura topped with eel, delicious and a lobster roll with green eggs on top. Awesome!
Staff was really nice, sushis are fresh, can’t go wrong there!

Absolutely amazing. From the simplest miso to the fancy west village roll — everything was transcendent. The staff was friendly and attentive. The ambience was cozy and romantic. Great for friends or a date. A million stars! I would move to the west village just to eat here.

My bf and I stopped by today for lunch because he had an old groupon that had expired but wanted to use the value towards a meal. Redeeming the groupon was no hassle but the waitress was a little rude/​got a bit of an attitude when he tried to clarify what he could and could not do and she had to repeat herself. Forced friendliness in an unfriendly person has a way of shining through.
The space is large and was mostly empty when we arrived around 2. The menu is large and overwhelming but eventually I ordered a hot plate of salmon and vegetables with ginger sauce and mung bean sprouts. I was able to get the sauce on the side no problem.
My food came out piping hot on a skillet and was able to stay warm throughout my meal. I highly recommend this as my boyfriend got sushi and did complain that one of the rolls which was meant to be hot was cold. Just so you know, he also did not think his sushi was that great.
Both of our meals came with miso soup and mine came with rice, which I did not eat but it looked like your standard white rice.
We were told that the tea was free so we ordered green tea and I ordered pear tea. Our server was great about refilling my boyfriend’s cup of tea but since I didn’t like the pear tea I only took one sip (too sweet for my taste). At the end of the meal they had tacked on $ 3 for the pear tea and we had to dispute that since we were told it was free.
Apparently only the green tea was free, but since she had rattled off all the other teas after answering our question about the free tea and didn’t make it clear my pear tea would cost extra we weren’t expecting this extra charge. The server was able to remove the charge but her attitude had shifted in a bad way when she came and dropped the check off at our table.
BUYER BEWARE — they will tack a suggested tip on to the bill and my boyfriend didn’t to dispute it but I hate when restaurants try to pull this crap and would have disputed it if I had been paying.
In the end this fact (I don’t want to be bothered fighting to remove a tip that doesn’t belong there in the first place) and the other things I mentioned would prevent us from returning, even though I did enjoy my meal.

Food was excellent me and my boyfriend went here new years eve we can’t wait to go back

Since I was very unhappy to wait 30 to 45′ with my kids for our dish to arrive I did not put the suggested tip. They came to me saying that the suggested top was mandatory. I call this robbery.

Doesn’t look like much on the outside, but the best place for sushi in Bleeker street, by far. A huge selection of sushi and close to many places you can go to afterwards.

Have to amend my review after learning their closing was just to take an awning down. The combos are good here! They take reservations with ample seating for larger groups. Nice big open windows in the summertime.

As a huge sushi snob, giving my stamp of approval is one thing, nevermind claiming a place as my favorite sushi Restaraunt of all time. Sushi Mambo is not only delicious, but a great date spot with service that is wonderfully accommodating.
I had originally gone with my boyfriend using a Groupon; we ordered well beyond what the Groupon had offered and even still the check was very reasonable. The fish was extremely fresh and tasty, which is essential for a sushi restaurant.
The ambiance is very lovely and a nice choice especially for a date, given the dim lighting yet fun decorative. The location its in sets the stage, and the restaurant does a great job welcoming you, making you feel at home and comfortable.
I will 100% be returning — it’s quite the hike coming from the Upper East Side; getting me to leave my neck of the woods is a task that Sushi Mambo certainly conquered.

I’ve been here twice and look forward to going back many times! Although they usually have one somewhat frantic waiter attending the 20 – 25 tables, their service is excellent and fast, drinks followed but soup or salad, and entrée all come out right when you want them to.
The sushi is well-​made, fresh, extremely tasty, and filling! Pricing is very reasonable, and for the most bang for your buck, Definitely go for a platter! For a group of 4, a $ 70 specialty sushi roll platter (7 special rolls of your choice, consisting of usually 8 – 10 pieces, plus miso soup) is perfect — we left very full without breaking the bank.

I live a few blocks away so I came here for the first time out of convenience. It’s on the corner so lots of window seating and lots of great people watching on Bleecker St.
Food was good for a local sushi spot. Not the best, but def gets the job done with a sushi craving especially for the price.
The combos are a great deal, for example Mambo Combo is delicious with 3 rolls (6pieces each) and miso soup for $ 19.99.
Dragon Maki was delicious for eel/​avocado lovers.
I don’t have enough faith in the quality of the fish to get chirashi. I would stick to rolls.
I would recommend it if you’re a passer-​by, but don’t have high expectations if you’re a sushi lover.

We had been walking most of the morning and ran across this place. Since Japanese food is something I can get most of the group to eat, we decided to stop here.
It has a great location and the doors/​windows open up on all sides of the restaurant. The day was sunny and 70 which was great for early May. Almost like sitting outside.
The food is mediocre and I’m surprised it even survives in Manhattan. A restaurant this size would typically need to be pretty busy to pay the rent. When we were there, there were only a handful of tables and most were likely not sushi connoisseurs.
So, making all of those observations — open air dining (think flying bugs on raw fish), not crowded (think not fresh fish), and not very Japanese greeting at the door (think must be non-​Japanese that chose Sushi since it’s trendy), I decided to order the Katsudon. They can’t screw that up too much.
The Katsudon was okay but not great. The rice was a fine. The Tonkatsu (fried pork cutlet) was fine. The egg though was a bit odd. It was like a large omelet with vegetables on top of the food.
In all, if you are looking for convenience while in the area, this place is fine. If you want great sushi and Japanese food, keep walking.

Perfectly serviceable sushi in a spot that’s really great for people watching. I’ve only ever been here on weeknights for dinner, but I’ve always found it surprisingly empty (maybe 6PM is just too early for the cool folks to be out eating dinner). For that reason, it’s the perfect go-​to with a small group of friends: it’s quiet enough to catch up and we don’t feel rushed after our plates are cleared.
Servings are big enough to fill you up, but small enough that you don’t need to worry about how you’re going to get half a plate of vegetable udon home on the subway with you. All in all not a life-​changing restaurant experience, but it’s pretty decent.

Get the Salmon Tataki. The slices of salmon are thick and very sweet. We polished off 3 orders! The shrimp tempura roll was really good, the shrimp was still warm and the rice was really soft. The hot foods were okay, I recommend sticking to sushi. The Seafood Shogayaki was good, with fair portions of softshell crab, shrimp and salmon. The Sukiyaki Udon with beef was entirely too sweet. Reminded me of dessert. I would come back just to have the salmon. Service was a bit slow.

Fun fact: this is the restaurant that they filmed the Curb Your Enthusiasm, «secure the bag» episode!!! Big fan of the show, not so much a fan of this restaurant…
Ate at Sushi Mambo with some friends because of a
deal I purchased a while back. Our edamame had way too much salt on it and the sushi did not taste that fresh. The ambiance is cool and service was quick but would not come back, even with another deal in hand!

For a restaurant with over-​the-​top, traditional exterior, you’d at least expect this place to be «over-​the-​top» good.
I came here one summer night with a friend and the place was almost dead. I don’t know why, for a reason, I always thought corner restaurants would be crowded. Guess not.
I ordered the Unagi roll, which was not so bad. I think the sauce the was little overput and these were cheap, since they’re larger pieces than regular sushi. I was actually surprised the rolls were that big because I expected tiny pieces like I’m used to.
I also had a vanilla ice cream, which was a huge no-​no. That left my stomach hurting for an hour.
I don’t know if I’d come back again. The service was really nice but after that stomachache, I’m very reluctant on coming back.

This place has awesome sushi. It looks like just another run of the mill average sushi joint, but the sushi is surprisingly good.
I highly recommend the Mambo Maki. It is pretty expensive at I think $ 14 but it’s huge and well worth it — you get 10 pieces filled with all kinds of fresh fish, and each piece of the roll is huge. I shake my head at my wife every time she tries to bite it in half as she makes a real mess of it. They also have an excellent Salmon Skin roll and Dragon roll too.
The free green tea is really delicious too. The only negative probably is their obsession with the fact that they filmed that terrible Meryl Streep movie, Prime, here. They have posters and signs bragging about it all over the restaurant, which is not only a strange choice for décor, but also an eyesore. I think they should really play up the fact that they filmed an episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm here instead. Oh yeah, and last time I came here, I got a pretty shit bow on the way out (probably only like 20 – 30 degrees), but I’ll let it slide because the sushi was good.