Sakura Sushi

The service here is awful and it’s very unfriendly. The menu is overpriced and the food is underwhelming. It’s too bad because we really need a Japanese restaurant in this area!

If you’ve never been here before, you need to use your gps. The restaurant is hard to find, it’s connected to a bigger building. When you walk in, it looks nice but its a tight squeeze, especially when it gets busy. Portions are very small. Ive never been to a place where they dont accomodate ice for your ice water. Like I said, the food is good but the portion is really small.

Mediocre sushi.
Tucked away in a business building, Sakura sushi is a family friendly restaurant that serves sushi and Japanese cuisine. The portions are small compared to what you pay for. The fish slices in my chirashi were so thin. I was also disappointed by the portion of their katsu. It seemed more like a supplement dish than an entrée. Other than that, my Hamachi sashimi slices were fresh and decently sized.
I appreciate the great service, but won’t be back.

Sushi bar & table seating, friendly sushi chef & waitresses, affordable fresh delicious sushi, not much more you could ask for. Definitely a hidden gem as it is located in the business building across the parking lot from the Smith ranch movie theater. The Sushi chef is great at giving recommendations so if you want to try something new just ask him to make you something. It’s nice when people really enjoy what they do and take pride in their craft.
The red dragon roll $ 11 was AWESOME… shrimp tempura & cucumber inside and tuna and avocado wrapped outside with teriyaki sauce drizzle.
Spicy tuna was just enough spicy to add and excentuate the delicious fresh fish.
Will have to come back several times to try the test of the menu.

We decided to come here because it was kind of late and was one of the only nearby sushi joints that wasn’t going to close by the time we got there. It’s kind of located in an unusual spot… the middle of what looks like a business park but the interior of the restaurant is comfortable and clean. Overall, the service was good and the sushi/​food quality is good. Their portions are a bit small so it feels a bit on the pricey side for what you do get. We ordered an avacado roll, tonkatsu pork and chicken terriyaki. The dishes tasted good, but again, portions are a bit small.
Overall, it’s an average place with friendly service. They are open later than other places so that’s convenient.

Kind of surprised at the high reviews here. As someone who was passing through town on work, I ordered from here based on high reviews. Was initially disappointed that the delivery minimum was $ 50 (what?!)!! Decided to go ahead and order anyway-​I shouldn’t have. Edamame was brown. Shrimp tempura roll had no shrimp-​was all just fried gunk. Gyoza dumplings were cold when I got them. I didn’t even finish my meal, which I desperately wanted after a day of travel.

I enjoy the atmosphere & the chief. With most of my orders the flavor was good and many options of fish. I love Fresh Uni! I know what fresh Uni looks and tastes like this was NOT the freshest. The bill came to over 100.00 for one. I got sick the next day. «YOU Got to ask yourself, do you feel lucky?»

Wonderful sushi! It was fresh and delicious! Will definitely return

My favorite place in Marin for sushi. Their fish is always so fresh but it’s so yummy. Michael is always so nice and friendly and he makes wonderful rolls. My favorite is their black snapper. But I always get their chirashi bowls and it fills me up. If you like raw fish then definitely come here.

Great service. Easy parking for dinner. $ 80 for 2 people. We ordered 3 special sushi rolls and a chicken cutlet dinner. Got up charged for mushroom in the miso. Miso was bland. Will go again

I can’t believe that I’ve lived in Marin for over 15 years and somehow managed not to visit Sakurai until last night! Shame on me… My husband took me there on our date night… what a great hidden gem! We had reservations at 7pm on a Friday night and were given a cozy table near the window. There isn’t a whole lot of room, but the ambience is very comfortable.
The food was delicious! We had their Ahi and Salmon Tartar appetizer to start. Both were delicious, but the salmon seemed to have more flavor than the two. We also had their Salmon Lovers Roll and Butterface Roll… so yummy! I had another of their hamachi sashimi which came in 5 pieces which were both fresh and fairly thick slices.
Desert was nice. We shared the banana tempura and green tea ice cream. Our waitress may have been a tad «busy» at the time, as we did need to ask for our water 2 or 3 times and she didn’t have any support (busser/​runner) to refill our water throughout the evening and waited a bit for our napkins as well.
All in all, a great evening with great food! So glad he found this for us… We will be back!!!

This place is great… fresh fish… many toro selections and great sushi chefs!!! What more could you ask for in a sushi restaurant:)

THE BEST SUSHI RESTAURANT in MARIN… and one of the best sushi restaurants in the Bay Area. I reviewed Sakura a year ago and am happy to say it still warrants 5 stars. The location is unexpected and somewhat out of the way (unless you just saw a movie at Century Regency 6) but there is plenty of parking and worth the drive. Michael, the owner and sushi chef, is welcoming and the fish is always fresh and of superior quality. The Shiso Tartare and the specials of the day are remarkable. **Highly recommend**

From the waitress who, when I asked her what beer they had, told me to look at the beer menu which literally only said «beer», to the crappy overpriced combination rolls, which were just boring Nigiri, to the two sushi chefs staring people down from behind their bar, I detested this place. So much great sushi in Marin, this place isn’t fit to wash their dishes. Honestly, the Whole foods stores nearby have far better sushi.

I had a party of four in total, a long wait for seating, and a long wait for ordering. The average wait time from when we ordered to when we received some of our food was 45 minutes (one of our members waited an hour and fifteen minutes and on top of that, one of our meals was messed up by the cook). Towards the end of us finishing dinner, we were told to move our table over… We were also told at the end that the kitchen was backed up and was told that dessert was on the house for us. We put our order in (two tempura bananas, one green tea ice cream and one green tea cheesecake), but were told five minutes later that we can only have ice cream and one order of tempura banana… No one was rude to us, but the negligence was enough to keep me from coming back for a second chance. As far as the food goes, the tempura was bland, the portion was extremely small for a dinner, and the broth they used was extremely watered down.

The service here is HORRIBLE! They claim they have delivery but after you wait for an hour they call you and ask if you can just come pick it up or it might be another hour or longer. They are unapologetic and this has happened on 3 occasions to me. I was trying to give them the benefit of the doubt, but they will never change. It’s not worth it!

«Meh. I’ve experienced better» is really the gist here. Nothing inspiring and definitely over priced for what you get. $ 16 for live scallop– really? It’s a TINY portion and the taste was whatever. I’ve had live scallop quite a few time in SF and this blows in comparison.
Go to Yu Shang on Bellam instead.

I’m a little biased because I already have a favorite sushi spot in town, but always looking to branch out. Sakura is very close to home, up here in North San Rafael, a.k.a. Suburbia.
Very nice and clean restaurant, great presentation on the food. The actual flavor was not really on point for me though. Everything was fresh — no issue there, the rolls that I had just didn’t satisfy my gluttony for sushi. The teriyaki chicken was okayish, but not my favorite. The wife’s tonkatsu, again just fine but missing the «dandy». The miso soup was actually very tasty, but a little miso can’t save the experience for me. The price here was a little higher than I am used to, it ended up running about $ 100 for lunch for 5 without drinks (we had a mix of lunch specials and rolls, and a couple of appetizers).

This was our first sit down experience after having take out twice. The quality of the sushi is truly superb, but the timing can be strange. On our last take out, after being told it would be ready in 20 minutes, my husband arrived and proceeded to wait almost an hour! No explanation, no apology. He would not have returned, but I loved the food, so…
On this visit, it was very busy on arrival but the sushi chef pointed out a small table that was open after we had been standing for a few minutes with no contact. We had to find a chair, but not too much trouble. Our very pleasant waitress took our order promptly and brought the drinks and miso quickly – and the soup was very good and freshly prepared so the tofu and seaweed still had nice texture. It then took over 20 minutes for the next dish to arrive, including the edamame appetizer. Our server told us it was being cooked when I asked after 10 or so minutes, but half of them were cold. We both had too much time then to be able to ignore the totally unnecessary and distracting large screen with a digital slideshow of their food that was next to our table, in the middle of the biggest wall. Get rid of this, please! The rest of the décor is nice, and the real food is far better to admire. The last negative aspect was the cleanliness of the bathroom and the ceiling vents was lacking. Not gross, but really dusty.
But the sushi… such fresh fish and so well prepared and presented. The salmon toro and walu were exceptional, and the tiny sliver of lemon on the toro balanced the richness. We also enjoyed the spider roll’s satisfying crunchiness.
I’m not sure if they are content simply banking on the locals, but this place could be exceptional if they got the details right so the whole dining experience matched the food.

Very tasty and original rolls. The ikura was first class. The Dragonfy is highly recommended. The most charming waitress I can remember in a long time. Bite sized roll pieces like they are meant to be, not padded with a ton of rice.

The food is still good but the service is atrocious. It was a busy Saturday night and the servers could not keep up. It took forever to get our drinks and then to get our food. They put all the sushi orders together in one big plate and then they did not bring us the last two pieces. When we inquired, they told us that they run out of squid. Well, tell us without having to ask. Awful service.
The first night we were there it was very slow so maybe that is why we had such a positive experience.

I came to Sakura in a party of 3 on a Saturday evening. I was surprised to find the restaurant packed given its location in an industrial plaza. Instead of waiting for a table, we got seated at the bar. The sushi bar is oddly set up so the chefs are elevated above you and you cant watch them work.
I really wanted to love this place because every single thing we ordered was delicious and fresh. However, our experience with the sushi chefs left a bitter taste in our mouths. We started dinner off my ordering a couple specialty rolls. One arrived and the other didn’t. We proceeded to order other items. Then over a half hour later, the recently ordered items began to appear, but still no roll ordered an hour ago. When we asked our waitress about it, the sushi chef snarled at her/​us, «I told you we were out of eel.» Perhaps it was her mistake, but even if it was, his tone was very disrespectful and we were a little shocked at his reaction since we were never told our order would not be fulfilled. Then, the rudeness continued as the night went on. For some reason the second sushi chefs was laughing when his co-​worker presented us with one of the rolls. They exchanged «inside-​joke» look of understanding and the second one told him to «shut up.»
Further, we never got octopus we ordered among other selections but were charged for it on the bill. When we brought it to the attention of our sweet waitress, she seemed confused. Of course, it didn’t take long for the sushi chef to snap back that he served it to us. Pretty sure we would have noticed octopus as it is hard to confuse. We did not want to argue so we just paid and left.
I might try to come back again for the delicious food, but I would never sit by the bar ever again and I would not recommend anyone to subject themselves to such unprofessional and disrespectful service.

This restraint is a must try great sushi and amazingly nice people this restraint is amazing but is a little not over priced

This place is amazing !!! Love the people who work there and of course the food … SPOON FULL OF HAPPINESS

We ate dinner here last night for the first time. The place was packed and people on a waiting list. We decided to wait but it only took 5 minutes. The decore is nice and interesting and the mirrors masked the rather small location. They had only two waitresses and made us wait a bit for service, but the wait wasn’t bad and well worth it. This is the best sushi I had for a while. The prices are fair and a bit better than downtown San Rafael for better food at this place.
This morning woke up thinking about the food last night and my companion had the same thoughts!
If you are looking for good sushi and plenty of parking. If you are in a hurry on a weekend, keep looking.

Pretty good food. The décor and atmosphere is so beautiful and so much fun to sit in. Our waitresses were very attentive and pretty much on us the whole time. The miso was FABULOUS! The only thing that really made me upset was they had no idea what spicy mayo was! I eat that with sushi instead of soy sauce and they had no idea and didn’t have it. What sushi place doesn’t have that?! My boyfriend and I were so confused!

Good sushi, a little on the pricier side but the quality is great. I ordered one special roll ~ $ 12.50, a green tea and the vegetable tempura (~$ 7) for a grand total of about $ 22.50 after tax, that with a 4.50 tip = $ 27 lunch. Ouch…
Also, went there on Monday and they are closed for lunch so I came back the next day and placed the above order.

The chef was very nice and the décor was unique. The food delicious. My girlfriend loved the lychee rice wine, while I particularly enjoyed the dynamite roll.

Went for lunch… what a great lunch I had! My friend n I have talked about this place for 2 years n never went till today! What a hidden gem this place is. the sashimi was perfect & he has lots of TORO which best fatty parts or the fish… mmmmm hamachi toro, blu fin toro, salmon toro and white toro… the chef so talkative & so sweet… I’m bringing the whole gang here soon! I never got his name :-(

We get far better sushi in vegas, I would have expected everything to be fresh and delicious this close to the bay but I would be wrong.
Extraordinary slow service and flavorless food.

Food is okay, nothing special. The reason for the 2 stars is because of the lack of service. There were two waitresses and one bus boy. After 15 minutes of sitting at our table, we had to flag someone down to order, and it to be the bus boy who only took our drink order. A waitress finally came by after another 10 minute wait.
After placing our order, we received a lot of other people orders and not our own. We then received our orders. We attempted to order some more food, but it never came. After a long wait, we inquired with the waitress about our order. The waitress suggested that we forget the additional orders or take it to go.
We were highly disappointed with this restaurant. It could be a lot better if the service was better.

Terrible terrible service, the restaurant wasn’t even busy. Wish I could give more stars because the sushi was really good!
They brought the order very late didn’t offer water we had to ask numerous times for a glass of water, didn’t have a ginger wasabi plate! What kind of sushi restaurant doesn’t bring out ginger and wasabi without asking!!!
They brought out my sushi without even knowing what the name of it was, luckily I knew what I ordered so I didn’t send back.

Warm bright décor with interesting ship and other nautical decorations. Cozy atmosphere with lots of space at the bar. Extensive list of rolls and main dishes as well as lighter than air tempura.
Friendly helpful staff just added to the positive experience.

We’ve eaten this place’s sushi once, tried twice.
Once we called and asked if we could order and pick it up– they said they were very busy and it would be an hour. we passed. The second time we ordered dinner through EAT24, on which they’re listed. We placed our whole order, including tip for the delivery, and it said it would be 45 – 60 mins. This place is literally five minutes around the corner. So, an hour goes by and no delivery, so I call the restaurant: they haven’t even started our order yet. We decide to just go and pick it up. So, based on that I’m already pretty pissed. Hire another chef or change your kitchen workflow. An hour and no call for delivery is unacceptable.
I go to pick up the food and the chicken kaarage isn’t even cooked. I’m sure it’s just battered and frozen and they dip it into the fryer, but they had skipped that last part. The sushi itself was OK. Not great, not bad.
I won’t go back again, though. Screwing up delivery twice, exceptionally long waits, uncooked portions. No thanks, there are enough choices that I don’t have to