Sushi Hotaru — Restaurant in Melbourne

Latest update: A little disappointed. Prices still at $4.20 but the quantity has changed. Previously: more pieces of Karaage chicken - now just 3 more salmon sashimi slices - now just 6 smaller slices Larger soft shell crab - now a shrinking size of the half soft shell crab in handroll- filled with more rice larger/thicker slice of unagi - now smaller/ thinner pieces of unagi on their nigiri

I’d rather them charge a little more than to skimp. Used to be really decent and good value. Still cheap for today’s market if one has no cause to compare their shrinking serves. Please ignore the previously posted photos- their serves do not look like they do now.

Update: Had to queue but only for about 15 minutes. There is now a seating session of 60 minutes. One table was given notice of 5 minutes left and they were politely asked to finish up and leave.

There is a sign at the entrance of this newly imposed time limit.

Today we ordered a variety of items. The choices on the train were basic/limited and we mostly ordered off the tablet.

We ordered: Scallop Nigiri - plain Spicy Seared Scallop Nigiri - this was great, ordered more - might be too spicy for some Salmon, Onion, Wasabi, Mayo Nigiri - tasty, mild pleasant wasabi mayo Unagi Eel Nigiri - great Spicy Tuna Nigiri - tasty Octopus Nigiri - tender, plain Flying Fish Roe /Tobiko Gunkan - still inconsistent with the amount of topping Jellyfish and Vermicelli Salad Gunkan - topping was a little too salty Soft Shell Crab with Tartare Handroll - delicious. Ordered more. Spicy Soft Shell Crab Handroll - delicious. Ordered more. California Roll - ordinary Spicy Chicken Karaage - 4 pieces. Should have ordered the plain. The sauce was not great. Crispy but ordinary - not dry but not juicy/succulent.

Despite ordering off the tablet, food was serve very quickly. Good, polite and attentive service. As previously mentioned, serves are smaller than elsewhere but still well priced per portion.

Previous Visit: A Japanese run sushi train place. Small area, so be prepared to queue. Our queue took 30 minutes. Well worth the wait.

Quality sushi choices at $4.20 a plate. The morsels were a little thinner and a little smaller but still worthwhile. We had 15 plates and we were both chockers!

Whatever that was not on the train, service was really quick, pretty much within 2-3 mins when ordering off the menu pad. Freshly made to order.

Loved the Soft Shell Crab with Tartar and Spicy Soft Shell Crab. Not a fan of wasabi but loved the Salmon Onion Wasabi Mayo. Was happy with the Crab Claws as well - thought initially that it was stuffed with surimi but in the midst, it tasted like it was loaded with real crab meat. It was tasty - preferred it on its own without the sweet chilli sauce.

Complimentary ginger and Togarashi but you’ll have to order it from the menu pad.

Only complaint was the inconsistency with the Flying Fish Roe Gunkan - they were not very generous here.

Service was great! Friendly and welcoming. Well priced for portions and quality served. Complimentary cold water with chilled plastic cups. No grog. BYO with...

I have been to Sushi Hotaru more times than I can count and it is (was?) my favourite Sushi train place in Melbourne for the affordability and quality.

They have fantastic hot and crispy soft shell crab and prawn hand rolls, and generally rolls as well...

But the prices have increased for the 2nd time, first 3.30, to 3.80 and now to 4.20. And I got some terrible rolls for the first time!

DO NOT GET THE SOFT SHELL CRAB ROLL!!! (Not the handroll, the handrolls I got was fine)

I really don't know what happened today but the first plate of Soft Shell Crab Roll that came out was straight up cold. I have been here enough to know that it had to have been fridged. It was also missing the usual 'centrepiece' roll with the legs coming out the top. I was told that the photos are purely for reference and are not accurate to real life all the time - which is fair, but this wasn't a fresh roll. I did ask them to remake it and they agreed to do so.

I'm not sure if they ran out of crab, wanted to conserve crab, or didn't have any clean ones to cook, or just didn't want to fry crab, but the 'remake' of the sushi was even more abysmal. I pulled them apart and the crab inside each roll were mere scraps of shell and even worse, a singular leg. Was this just pulled from the plate I had returned and reheated?

I really loved this place, I raved and brought everyone I knew here. Really disappointed to have this experience and would recommend everyone just stick to hand rolls if you prefer the...

This was our first time visiting Sushi Hotaru and it was a very disappointing experience.

We arrived around 5:50 PM and there was no one waiting outside. Since it was our first visit and hard to find the location, we walked in, but no one greeted us at first. Later, a woman with black hair and glasses told us to wait at the entrance. A few minutes later, with a bad attitude and no smile, she told us again to “please wait outside.”

After about 10 minutes, we finally got a seat. We ordered a lot of salmon sashimi and BBQ beef sushi. The salmon was just average, but the beef was terrible — tough, not fresh, and tasted like it had been cooked a long time ago or left over.

When we finished eating, I raised my hand several times to get the staff’s attention to count the plates and pay. One staff member clearly saw me and even made eye contact but didn’t come. So we decided to stand up and wait next to the cashier. After about 2 minutes, the same woman with glasses came, and I thought she would finally help us pay. But then three other customers came out from the inside of the restaurant and tried to pay the bill, and she helped them first even though we had been waiting at the cashier the longest and were the only ones there before them.

The food quality was poor, and the service attitude was really bad. We won’t be...