Dono Sushi Cafe — Restaurant in Chino

Even with the understanding that AYCE sushi restaurants usually serve poorer quality food, I still gave Dono a chance due to their enticing Dono Special Box. For $18 dinner price ($15 lunch), you get 5 pieces of sashimi, 2 pieces nigiri, 5 pieces tempura, a "full" crunch roll, small salad, and miso soup. Before I dive in to detail about the food, I want to describe the atmosphere.

From the parking lot, SUSHI CAFE restaurant sign confuses you and forces you to look at the windows to confirm this is Dono. For Friday night prime time, there was no wait but the medium-sized (50 customers) restaurant was near full capacity of customers - I believe this to be the perfect balance of business for a casual restaurant. Our party of two was quickly seated in a 4-seater. I actually have to mention the chairs which were stylish and comfortable with clean plump cushioning. Upon sitting down, I realize the lighting is just way too bright - as if the restaurant is screaming transparency as its main priority, lighting up all dark corners. This is a huge negative as attention is drawn away from the food and people you came with, and spotlights the lack of restaurant decoration and the dining experience of other people. 2 stars on atmosphere. Back to the Dono box. It came well presented as expected from a Japanese sushi restaurant Sashimi was sliced on the thicker side: 3pc salmon was fatty but inorganically plump, 2pc tuna stood out with above average taste for casual sushi. 1 shrimp and 1 salmon nigiri were average. Tempura well fried but batter is way too thick in flour. The "full" crunch roll smaller than your average roll, interestingly cut to resemble what I believe to be a shrimp - thick head slice with small sections and ending with a thick end piece cut. Visually appealing but proved to be impractical as the smaller pieces fell apart when picked up. Salad was refreshing. Average soup came hot and foremost upon sitting down. 4 stars. Almost forgot about the caterpillar roll. Beautifully arranged with thinly sliced avocado on top and decent amount of unagi inside. 4.5 stars; beautiful but not the best.

Service was prompt. 4 stars. Food and drinks ordered and served timely. No further drink was offered after quickly finishing one shared large better. Bill came timely.

Will be prioritizing trying other local sushi over coming back. That being said, this would be an excellent lunch spot as the major downfall of bad lighting would be...

This WAS a good sushi restaurant( under new management)to go but i should've paid attention to the health score "B" but I'm always willing to give a try. My partner and I went there for dinner. Welcoming was great. We ordered our food and it come out promptly. As we were enjoying our food my partner was chewing her sushi and felt a different texture. She pulled out a long strand of blonde hair from her mouth. We're not blondes. I looked around and noticed one of our waitress had two flowing ponytails with blonde streaks. She was the waitress who took our order and brought us water. Her hair weren't in a net or in a bond. I immediately got her attention and advised her my partner pulled strand of hair out of her mouth from drinking the water. She offered to make a fresh sushi roll. We didn't accept the offer. At this time our appetite was disturbed. We waited for the bill only to get charged the full price. I brought it to the other host's attention. She said "That hair can't come from here. No one here has blonde hair " I advised her the other waitress has blonde streaks in hair. She wouldn't accommodate. To prevent further trouble with this lady we paid for our food dissatisfaction. I didn't leave a tip. This use to be the best sushi spot to come to. I WILL NEVER RETURN THERE AGAIN. THEY LOST A VALUED CUSTOMER. 👎👎👎👎👎👎👎👎👎👎👎👎👎👎👎👎👎See photo. Health score...

Was craving some sushi while in the area and didn't want to our usual spot in Corona. Dono Sushi Cafe is located in a very busy shopping center behind Pot on Fire.

Upon entering Dono Sushi Cafe, we were greeted by all the staff. We felt like family. They have AYCE and regular a la carte menu. We chose the AYCE. They have large variety of rolls and appetizers for their AYCE menu. We were very impressed. All the rolls are categorized so you know whether your roll has raw fish or not. I really appreciated this extra step in their menu.

Our favorite roll was the Canyon roll, we just could not get enough of it. It is in their Baked roll section. We also enjoyed the baked mussels.

I will definitely be coming back to...