Sushi Taku Rotary STR — Restaurant in Chicago

⚠️ It’s CHAOTIME ⚠️

All-you-can-eat rotary sushi is truly a beautiful thing. No longer do you have to feel guilty after grabbing a plate off the conveyer belt, knowing that as your stack of plates grows, so does your bill. At Sushi Taku Rotary (STR), you can freely take as many plates as your heart desires, without fear. And this, my friends, is the best way to enjoy rotary sushi. 😤😤

We arrived at STR on a rainy Sunday evening around 8:30. I was blown away by the sleek, modern interior—everything looked so new and clean. They had a cute sushi mascot greet us near the entrance, dolphins on the ceiling, and these cool miniature bullet trains carrying food to each table…!! It wasn’t busy at the time, so we got seated immediately. I was super excited.

Our waitress Oi promptly greeted us with a friendly smile. She gave us a rundown of the rules as well as a quick tour of the menu (which, if I may add, was the most beautiful, well-designed and easy-to-read menu I’ve ever seen). For $36.99/person ($29.99 for lunch), you get access to unlimited sushi on the rotary as well as the entire menu, which includes appetizers, every single sushi, and full-sizes entrees such as ramen and poke bowls! Pretty crazy. To order from the menu, you will need to tell your server what you want. (Pro tip: If you’re able, I would strongly recommend to resist the urge to grab every single plate on the rotary and instead order the higher quality sushi dishes directly with your waiter. Don’t get me wrong—the rotary will have some dishes worth taking, but you only have so much room in your stomach, and you want to make sure you’re filling it with the good stuff. Eating exclusively from the rotary is definitely a noob trap.)

We had so much fun swiping plates from the belt and watching the bullet train deliver our orders straight to our table. The food hit so good too. Here are some of the dishes I would highly recommend:

Yellowtail Jalapeño Carpaccio - my favorite of the three carpaccios, goes SO well with the bed of sauce it comes with. White Tuna Carpaccio Salmon Carpaccio Sashimi Salad - you get quality sashimi without having to waste belly space on rice. Sunny Roll Fire Phoenix Roll Chicken Karaage - big pieces, meaty and juicy, very good karaage. Tonkatsu Ramen - better than I expected! The broth was flavorful and had that rich tonkatsu flavor. The noodles were a bit flimsy (you can tell they’re instant noodles and not handmade), but they do the job! Chashu was not bad! Very satisfying. Truffle Fries - surprisingly addictive. Gelato Ice Cream - the salted caramel flavor was crazy good.

The only dish I had a problem with was the Shrimp Teriyaki Don… The shrimp was way overcooked and had this unpleasant charred flavor. They were glazed with a sweet teriyaki sauce, but I felt there was too little of it for the amount of rice there was.

Big shoutout to our waitress Oi! She was super professional and inviting, one of those rare enthusiastic servers that just seem like they want you to have a good time. Her service was quick and accurate. Definitely ask for her if you can!

Overall, STR is a great place to go with friends/family or for date night (wouldn’t do a first date though; if you’re actually trying to get to know each other, you’ll be too distracted by all the sushi passing by to have a proper uninterrupted conversation 😂). I will add that I’ve had better quality sushi before, but the experience ultimately makes up for it. Check it out sometime!

Until next time, take care and eat well. Chao...

Hello everyone, I do apologize in advance as I forgot to take photos. Though I'll head out in a few weeks and take photos.

First, let me tell you about Bella, our wonderful, wonderful friend who was all smiles and cuteness. Bella personally delivered a few dishes to my friends that we ordered, and it was awesome! Bella, you cute little Service Machine Staff you.

Apart from this, the waitstaff also was very helpful and friendly, which allowed things to go smoothly, including separate check splitting, which was very superb by their staff.

Now, of course, the food, we did an all you can eat for 29.95 each, and of course, we had drinks. Everything was delicious, and I would have to say personally as a cook. I only had three complaints. Which were very minor, which most wouldn't notice. Though as I said I'm a cook so it matters to me.

The Sweet Potato Roll was very large for its size and almost tasted like starch on starch. I know not to be too picky. Yet this particular role seemed to have a very steong sweet potato dominant flavor in it. As to me, everything should have balance. Those that love sweet potatoes would ultimately love this as well.

Some of the larger rolls were not tightly bound and became very loose. I know this is an all you can eat and they cooks are pumping out Sushi very well as everything had a great flow to it. Though a little extra care would always be great for the larger rolls. But that's a very, every time small detail and overall doesn't take away from the taste, only the grip. So I didn't deduct any points here. As I said, I'm trained, so to me, it matters to the general I'm not so sure!! So again, no points were deducted as that might be personal opinion.

The atmosphere. Just wow. Lol, cuteness with the ceiling dolphins and over all pristine nature of this beautiful place. Everything had great flow and even had symmetry. This is definitely date night worthy and a great spot to take your friends as well.

Definitely recommend coming back again and enjoying the dinner menu. To which I will take pictures that time.

Ohh forgot to mention. Look for the speed train to personally deliver some of your items. The awesomeness of that...

To start with, our server explained that we could do all you can eat AND order from the tablet as well without being charged extra. We double checked this with the server. We have also been to plenty of rotary sushi places and this is unusual to have an all you can eat option so we were careful to check our understanding. This was also sorely needed as they weren't restocking the conveyor belt for many popular items. We were there when the place was very slow as well, and there were plenty of staff. When ordering, it would sometimes take quite a while and would come either by train, robot, or a random server. It was confusing and unnecessary to use 3 different methods. Again, they weren't busy at the time and there were a lot of staff members on the floor and in the kitchen. There was a lot of wasted labor, with a few staff members doing most of the work and many not doing much of anything. The food quality wasn't great and there wasn't much variety coming around either. And they didn't restock many of items. I only managed to get one plate of tuna nigiri that came around, they never restocked after that. There weren't any others to take it before we got to it as well. The fish is very low quality, which is probably why they mostly served rolls with lots of extra ingredients to mask it. When we got our check, they charged us extra for everything we ordered from the tablet. It took a long time for them to sort out, and they then charged us for the all you can eat and we paid and left. We still have no idea if they were incorrect in their explanation of how the tablet works and fixed it because it was their fault, or because they made a mistake by charging us for the tablet items. Either way, there are other rotary places that are much better and I suggest trying any of those instead. My only positive note is that the staff were nice enough and the place seemed clean (it's very new though, so I'd expect that it...