Sho-Ga Japanese Restaurant — Restaurant in Casa Grande

I walked into this charming well decorated little Japanese restaurant at around 11:45 am, and it was extremely busy. The first thing I noticed is that everything was clean and new. Soft American rock music played on the radio, and balanced the Japanese furnishing well. The servers were obviously flustered, as this turned out to be the restaurants second day open. I was brought a small bowl of edamame which were good. I was also brought a small bowl of Miso soup, traditionally Japanese Miso is served in a Dashi (fish) broth, and this was a chicken broth. This can easily be forgiven as it was still tasty.

I ordered the 9 piece sashimi sampler and the fried calamari. I was not impressed with the serving size of the calamari, but it was very good. It was lightly breaded in a panko breading. Calamari should never be chewy if it is, its overcooked. This calamari however was not chewy, which is impressive because the difference between undercooked, cooked, and overcooked calamari is a thin line. It was light and decadent and served with a homemade sweet and sour sauce.

The 9 piece sampler was good it consisted of Tuna, Salmon, and Yellow Tail. It is always impressive when you can find fresh fish in the middle of the desert. The slices were larger than I expected, and were very flavorful. Most places give you shavings of fish these were thick.

The only down side to the restaurant was that they were short staff, and newly opened. This meant that their work flow was not battle tested and service was a little slow. I do expect that this was caused but the first statement, that they were very busy as it was opening week.

Out the door I paid $18.22 plus tip not bad for a decent...

EDIT SEPTEMPER 1, 2020

IF YOU ARE INTERESTED IN UPDATES ABOUT THIS RESTAURANT, PLEASE READ:

I just went to this restaurant today, and there is a sign on the door that says: "Sorry, we will be open neither of September. Thank you." I'm not entirely sure what that means, but I'm guessing it means that either it will be reopening later in September, or that it won't open at all this month. I'm not sure. If I come back here, I will be sure to edit this review with any new updates of what I see.

One thing for sure, I am NOT revoking any of my five stars because this was an amazing restaurant that I loved going to, and I think it would be more likely to re-open if it got more positive reviews.

EDIT SAME DAY

There's also a little note on the left of the door that says "Waitress needed. Experience preferred. Inquire within" Do they do longer have a waitress/waiter? And I'm not exactly sure what "inquire within" means. Does someone have to go inside to be able to apply for a job? I'm not sure how anyone can apply for a job if the restaurant is closed and there's no way anyone can know when it's open. The Facebook page for this restaurant is inactive, its latest post date back to 2016. I've emailed them a couple and I have yet to get a response from them. I hope this place eventually reopens, and has a good way of notifying people who are interested in coming back. For now, I'll continue to edit this review of...

A small quaint spot that has the appeal to the locals. I come across it by accident and decided to give it a try. The service was great and the food had a lot of flavor. However, it's more of a sushi shop then it is an real Japanese restaurant as all they had on the menu was all about sushi. So, I you go you can decide what type of restaurant you think it is. To me it's a mom and pop sushi shop. And I think that's who runs it. Any way, it's always fun to find some place new to try. I did have sparkling rice wine and it was really good. Yes, I was surprised, as I had never had it. But, a sip filled your mouth with bubbles and a cold crispy after taste I couldn't help but to drink half the bottle, (which by the way is the same size or smaller than a Bud bottle) only I like the flavor better than the Budweiser. On a thumbs up scale I give it a 2 thumbs👍👍. Why? Because great service and flavorful food are the only two things it has going for it. But, the food type is all the same just prepared differently, like you would a sandwich. Parking at night is extremely difficult and if you have never been there you will never had known it was there because it's tucked away and it's a tiny little shop that can hardly be called...