Sakura Asian Bistro — Restaurant in Alaska

Since this place didn't take reservation (very small place) we took our chance to just try our luck. We were seated less than a minute on their busiest night....as long as you don't mind sharing tables with strangers and made a few friends.

The menu is decent and covers enough varieties. We picked a few basic and some unique dishes just to see how well they compared. We ordered the seaweed salad, crab tempura, black pepper king crab knuckles and the lobster crab lemon grass roll.

The seaweed salad was well prepared. Not too sweet and it tasted fresh. The tempura was lite and crispy with a slightly more acidic yuzu dipping sauce which I liked a lot. The one thing I did noticed it the crab is not as fresh as it should have been.

The lobster knuckles was somewhat ambitious and hit some high and low marks. High marks for creativity and perfectly studied stir fried veggies. Though the lobsters have a nice delicate thin crust, it's a bit more spicy (with jelopeno) version of the tempura sauce. I know it's a matter of personal preference but I think could be better if the sauce was on the side box you can't take it out if it's too much for the customer.

The lobster crab lemongrass roll was the least favorite and disappointing for something that sounded very promising. The rice were a bit mushy for a roll and there were no lobster or crab. It looks like a normal surimi krab roll that's fried and serviced warm (yes it's another fried dish). Not worth the money... hence the missing star from my review.

Overall they get a passing grade for service, quality but a bit lacking in the value...

I really enjoyed the food, but the service made my night completely sour. The place was not full, yet it took 15 minutes for someone to acknowledge us at the table, no one came to refill our waters, they never gave us our appetizer, and no one came to check on us to see if everything was okay (if they did, they would have realized the appetizer never came). When we flagged the waitress down, she immediately asks "check?" and doesn't ask if we wanted dessert (which is why we flagged her down) yet she asks other groups about dessert. The chef was nice though and asked us how our special roll was. When the bill came, we noticed the special we ordered (the $12 beer and chef's choice roll advertised on the website) was not actually $12, but was priced at $7 for the roll and regular price for the beer (came out to be $13.50). We asked the waitress about it and she kept arguing with us that the $7 and $6.50 was basically $12 and said that she has never seen the website. It obviously wasn't make or break and we didn't mind the $13.50 but for the waitress to fight us on it, admit that she hasn't seen the restuarant website, and for the website advertising to be wrong just left a completely sour taste in my mouth. What happened to customer is always right?

Also would not recommend if you were trying to be covid safe because the place was basically one large conference table and you are seated literally right next to other parties. The place is loud and I could hardly hear my husband who was sitting...

This is a really beautiful restaurant in Aleyaska Resort. We are here back in 2019 and decided to return as I was craving sushi. The menu seems to have changed a bit, and I would say it's still averaging $30 per person if you're doing 2 entrees and either alcoholic beverages or tea.

The host seated us promptly and our server was timely in service, in relation to basically being the server for the entire seating area (!).

The seating seems to try to encourage mingling, as there's a very long island/bar where most guests are seated. It's interesting because PNW people are notoriously introverted but that said, the table is pretty so I can't complain.

We watched the sushi chef at the bar preparing orders and serving those who sat at the bar. He seemed nice.

Overall, the food was good. The karrage had a little flour still on it but tasted good and was cooked to order, the okonomiyaki was delicious. The nigiri was cut in a way that there was either some muscle or skin so biting it had a little extra chew ...like a little tougher but I opted to not say anything. Otherwise, it was very fresh.

And finally, when you order tea you get a pot and sand timer to enjoy it at it's best flavor, and we paired that with yuzu meringue pie which was the highlight of the evening--so beautifully...