Tokyoya Sushi — Restaurant in Burbank

Let me start off with the most positive thing about this place: the food! Which is what you want to hear when you go to a restaurant, right? Good food. In this case, good sushi. Really good sushi at an affordable price.

I strongly recommend the Cucumber wrap. That crunch and savoriness of the fish... hits! And the ex-girlfriend, unless you don't like little fried onions.

What you skip: the baked scallop roll. It just wasn't it for me. Wasn't horrible, but eating everything else.... felt lacking.

Okay, the not so good part of this place: the service. I will preface this with they do have a "help wanted" sign outside their door. And don they need it. I don't think it's entirely the lack of staff.

After waiting 20-25 minutes being seatee and asking if there was a list to put our names on, one of the wait staff came over and asked the billion of us outside waiting to be seated if he added our names to the list. Like, dude, really? Whatever. We quickly made work with the menu because we hungry but had to wait almost another 10 minutes to have someone our order, which we wrote out because we had all the time in the world. Fine, whatever. Then I started noticing people that came in after us getting served before us. Which is a not a pleasant thing for a hungry, paying customer to see. On top of which, when our dishes started coming out, they would forget things. Hmmm.

Now, I've been to some places that were short staffed but the staff that was there was on it. Perhaps to each their own.

We did notice while that take out and delivery orders got preferential treatment.

Now, a Friday night might not be the best night to dine with the shortage of staff, the long wait and the inconsistency of service, but take out seems to...

Tokyoya Sushi was very good during it's soft opening many years ago. Then suddenly, they changed their format and offered bento boxes. I see that they are receiving a lot of good reviews recently but last night maybe it was just a fluke but my boyfriend brought home food and it was substandard. I was not happy. The sashimi was warm almost like it was seared ahi. Maybe sashimi doesn't travel well. But then the teriyaki salmon was so hard and dry. The veggie tempura tasted sour and like boiled cabbages. I am not sure what happened. It was just a bad day? The miso soup was good but the salad was just leaves of spinach. I was afraid to even try the beef teriyaki. It didn't look good at all. I am afraid to give this place another try. Prior experience was also lackluster. Ever since Momotaro closed in Burbank, we have yet to find a Japanese restaurant that meets Momotaro's calibre. Our favorite now is Ichima in Pasadena. But the best sashimi hands down is H Mart in Arcadia. Update a day later. I only ate the soup and the salad and I tasted the fish. I spit out the sashimi. In an effort not to waste food and money, my boyfriend took all the food and ate it for lunch. He went home from work sick with a stomach ache and more. He will survive but today he is still recovering. We should have taken it back but it was after hours and that's our lesson learned. We won't...

I was in San Diego on the weekend they first reopened, and I believe that I have made up for that by having been there around ten times in between opening and the day I wrote this review. The menu' s options were limited by spotty supply, but hey, it was only the first couple weeks. The interior is nicely decorated, but when it gets crowded, it is notably so, so i wouldn't recommend bringing a large group at peak hours. The food selection is basically old Tokyo Yakitori meets a well varied sushi bar, with the former being usual cooked Japanese fair like udon, yakisoba, and bento boxes, and despite me having used words like "usual" is very good, with the fish being excellent quality. Of course, I might be a little biased with this being my favorite kind of food now within walking distance of my house, but I haven't even tried all that's on the menu yet, which will only expand in size as time goes on.

I...