Hiro Japanese Restaurant

We stopped over in San Bruno after a flight from Hawaii, before flying to the East Coast the next day. The Spinach appetizer was good, with a nice sesame sauce, my only criticism would be that the spinach should not be so cold. The salmon stuffed jalapeños are out of this world, really yummy. And I really enjoyed my Soba Noodle soup, which was warm and homey, very enjoyable. The hot saki was also perfect on a chilly evening. Thank you Hiro!

Really good! Looked for a place close by for a coworker dinner and we were pleasantly surprised. Friendly greeting when you walk in, and decent service. Portion size was more than enough. I ordered the white tuna delite. My friends enjoyed the baked scallop and salmon rolls.
I’ll return for sure to make sure it’s not just a fluke. I’d love to find a decent place to take others to.

This place is great ! Very friendly and the food is great ! The fish is fresh and the service is spot on.

I come to the game store across the street twice a week for D&D games, and one guy there is often eating takeout sushi from this place. One day, my husband and I decided to stop by for dinner before our game.
It’s a bad sign when the first thing my eyes landed on in the menu was misspelled. And that it’s the word «Appitizers» on the top of the first page. I was having trouble looking over the menu because I couldn’t stop laughing at the «Chicken Garage» and trying to figure out what «Tuna Tataki Sealed» could possibly mean; at first I thought they meant to say «Salad», but if so, they misspelled it in exactly the same way in at least three different places.
My husband got a dinner box with teriyaki chicken and teriyaki beef, while I got the «Bruno In and Out» which is basically my dream sushi, salmon/​avocado/​cream cheese topped with more salmon. It sounded so good (I LOVE salmon sushi) and I was really looking forward to it.
Maybe I’ve just been completely spoiled by all the amazing Japanese food in San Mateo, but everything here was really tasteless. My husband’s beef teriyaki would have tasted like nothing if it weren’t slathered in sauce, and had a lot of gristle. The teriyaki chicken wasn’t much better. The edamame that came with it wasn’t seasoned at all, and had a weird pasty texture like it had been cooked a while ago and kept warm too long so that it was overcooked.
I dove into my sushi with excitement when it arrived, but I realized something was wrong. I peeled off one of the slices of salmon from one of my rolls and ate it by itself after dipping it in a bit of soy sauce. I’m used to raw salmon having a flavor that I’d describe as being both creamy and sweet with a smooth texture, but in flavor and texture this fish resembled tuna more than anything else: completely tasteless with more of a pasty texture. (I honestly don’t know why people like tuna sushi so much, I’ve never had any that tasted like anything at all.)
I can understand not seasoning the meat or edamame properly or overcooking it, but how do you mess up a piece of unseasoned raw fish? It boggles my mind.
I think we’ll stick to the sandwich place down the street for our pre-​game eats.

Hours say 4:30 but they don’t serve till 5. Our hostess/​waitress knew nothing about sushi or the specials. She also failed to ask if we wanted anything to drink. This may have been her first day?
We ordered two rolls and both were quite tasty… and they were large. Food for what we had gets 4 stars.
As someone else mentioned, table is sticky. That to me is just laziness. Also, the walls leading to the men’s room were dirty and the bathroom itself was not very clean.
With so much competition, they need to step up service and cleanliness!

This was my first time eating here, and the sushi was really good. The staff were pleasant, and the service was prompt.
The food was also at a reasonable price.
I defiantly recommend this place for your sushi needs

This place is great for dining in or take out. Good portions, always get my order right. Good hospitality!

Come here for a few years, never regret when hungry. Fresh fish with large size!
Real Japanese chef, not from other area. I have to focus in eating now…

Not bad for a first visit for lunch. Tiger roll was very delicious, bento box salmon was good too. Nice place and they have private seating areas for large groups. Will need to revisit during dinner and update review.

This place needs major improvement. The food itself was 2 stars and I noticed the sushi rolls could have been rolled tighter. The presentation of the sushi would have been better if newer sushi plates/​boards were used.
Gripes:
— The restaurant wasn’t even half full and they ran out of plastic cups for water. Did someone forget to do the dishes?! Only some of us in our group of eleven were able to have water… ridiculous.
— A server could have checked in on us while we were looking over the menu for twenty minutes. Side note: It’s called Chicken Karaage, not Chicken Garage as noted on the menu.
— My side of rice was on the harder side.
— Women’s restroom: one stall was out of order and the other didn’t have a working lock or something to keep it closed.
— The hours posted at the door stated the closing time as 10pm. Don’t yell at us in passing at 9:50pm that you have been closed for a half an hour in order to force us out. If you want to close early change your sign or politely tell us!
Just go down the road to Amami Sushi for a good dinner!

Hands down best Sushi place in the Peninsula Bay Area. Customer service is amazing! And all the workers are so welcoming. Quality of their sushi is amazing! It’s always taste so fresh. I always order the Alaska Roll and Poki Roll. Salmon and Tuna is too good! I can’t get enough! Hiro will always be my go to sushi spot! This is a must try place for all sushi lovers! Btw, their bento boxes are amazing! The perfect amount of tempura and meat! Definitely worth the 5 stars!

Honestly this place was awful from start to finish.
We walked in around 6 or so, me and my friend. We immediately noticed we were the only ones in the whole place (a sign?). The sushi chefs kinda just talked, and awkwardly stared at us the whole time. Shortly, a few tables filled up.
The food is awful. Like it’s really bad. The California rolls were somethin else, they were one of the grossest things I’ve tried. They tasted rotten, and dryer than the Sahara. The other rolls weren’t good either, they also had the same crab in them (we didn’t realize this prior to ordering). The chicken teriyaki was oddly chopped up, and had bone in it. Miso soup was very fishy tasting.
The service was mediocre at best, the server just had about 5 – 6 tables, and was spread between them all. They need some bigger water glasses, because we needed gallons to choke down those dry rolls. The tables are also super sticky. Like it’s super gross.
We ended up leaving irritated, grossed out, with all the food left on the table. Definitely don’t suggest you goin there. We ended up at in n out down the road.

I’ve come here a few times with family and friends and for some reason, the prices have definitely gone up. I enjoy the quality of their sushi but, I also noticed that as the prices went up the portions and rolls have gotten smaller or is it just me?
I can’t really complain about the service because the staff has always been kind and accommodating.

This sushi place is below average compare to all the other ones I have been too. When I first walked into the restaurant, I was impressed by their traditional décor by the wall, it brings out some nostalgic feeling to me… the food is just okay, however, with the price that’s associated with, it just became below average. We ordered the spinach dish for appetizer, volcano roll and dinner combo of sashimi and salmon teriyaki. The dinner combo was pretty decent, but I was extremely disappointed in the volcano sushi roll, i didn’t taste much of the fish in the roll and it’s too much with the fish flakes. And for $ 15, I would not recommend it.

My partner and I ended up in this neck of the woods 2 evenings ago, trying to decide on what to have for dinner. I was amazed at the variety of options. What a major change from the last time I strolled around here, over 5 years ago! Anyway, there were a number of Japanese restaurants to choose from. What caught my eye with this place was all the neon lights on their sign (I know…)
When we entered, we were immediately greeted and seated. My partner ordered the nobe udon, our friend who joined us ordered chicken teriyaki. I should have followed their lead and ordered something cooked as well. But since the menu featured at least 4 pages of sushi-​related items, I thought I can take a chance with their sashimi dinner. Though I did not get sick from it as I feared afterwards, 2 of the fish on my dish were clearly not fresh. The snapper still have not thoroughly thawed when I bit into them and each slice tasted watery. The yellowtail reminded me of mackerel in taste, not something one hope for when eating this normally delicate fish.
I decided to give this place a 3 star because my companions are pretty happy with what they ordered. I haven’t tried them so I have no opinion about those. But I think I learned not to go for the «glitz»!!

Ordered the scallop roll, some beef teriyaki and katsu. The scallop roll’s flavor was a bit overwhelming. I wasn’t really sure what flavors I was tasting. (Not quite sure if I liked it either.)
The teriyaki was not tender.
The katsu was alright.
This place is just «alright.»
Nothing bad, nothing special!

Can’t believe it took this long for us to visit this place. It’s a hidden gem in the downtown SB area. I try not to give out too many 5 stars, but this place definitely deserves it. It has the Unilocal trifecta, 5 star ambiance, 5 star service, and 5 star food.
Especially with it being located in the sometimes seedy downtown SB area, the outside doesn’t look like a lot. It’s your typical Japanese storefront. Walking in, it’s feels a lot bigger than it actually is, and a lot of the tables have these dividers that make it feel like you’re in a little private area. Speaking of which, they have a couple of large party rooms that are divided from the main dining, which makes it a great place to have large parties. I like the décor, tasteful and not overdone. Although the K-​pop music playing wasn’t too loud, it was weird sitting in a Japanese restaurant. I’m guessing the owners are Korean, since i was sitting their enjoying a bottle of Hite. aw yeah!
Service was excellent. Courteous and attentive, but not hovering. Quick service for the food, even though the restaurant was about half full on this Saturday evening.
Food is really not much more than i can ask for. We contemplated getting the boat which looked awesome, but wasn’t sure if we could put down the entire thing. I’ll wait until my friend Brandon comes to town, he has some extra sushi capacity that I can’t even begin to match. Instead got a dinner sushi special, which consisted of 9 pieces of nigiri, 9 sashimi, a few cali rolls, and spicy tuna roll. All were excellent. The wife got a San Bruno roll, which is basically a salmon topped Cali roll. I could do without the cream cheese, but other than that, this roll was great too.
To start I got agedashi tofu and a Hite beer. An excellent combo. The kid got some tonkatsu and bbq chicken, standard fare.
At the end of the meal, we were really happy and will be coming here more often when we need our sushi fix.

So yeah, it’s been a while since I was last here at Hiro… Decided to give it another try… and I gotta say, the experience was better. We ordered a couple of their special sushi rolls and a bento box dinner. The food was on point.
The service was good (I didnt see the same server from last time on this visit). We didnt have to wait long for our food after we initially ordered and the servers were nice.
You redeemed yourself on this visit, Hiro. =)

What can I say, I’m not a fan of overpriced sushi that doesn’t live up to the cost or poor service. Here I received both. The rainbow and dragon roll had thin slices of what tasted like stale fish, and the shrimp tempura inside the dragon roll had too much batter and was cold.
It took forever to get the waitresses attention to get more tea or the check or extra napkins.
Bleh, that’s my final verdict on this restaurant.

You ever been to one of those sushi boat restaurants? The little sushi boats sail by as you debate on whether to grab it and if you wait to long «that ship has sailed», literally.
At Hiro they serve and excellent sushi boat that won’t sail away. In fact it’s more like the Queen Mary in Long Beach. It’ll dock itself right on your table, it’s huge. The Hiro Boat combines:
15 pieces of Sashimi, 9 pieces of Sushi, 6 pieces of California Roll, Wakame, Tempura, Spicy Tuna Hand Rolls, Sake, Ice Cream, miso and salad. For those that can’t figure out what to order, but like variety, it’s great. The Hiro Boat is meant for two but most likely can feed three average appetites. I ordered a Dragon Roll so I could have some Unagi in my life as well which was way too much food.
Quality is pretty good, service was fine as well. Korean owned and its obvious as they play Korean music in the background. If in the San Bruno area, Hiro has a Boat load of sushi worth eating.