chobop - Premium All You Can Eat Sushi — Restaurant in Costa Mesa

This place was recommended to me by one of my Elite Yelp friends, I was super happy with this recommendation.

Without getting too far off topic, I recently came back from a trip to Hawaii. While there, I ate lots of fresh raw fish and poke. I realized there is a huge difference in eating fresh fish versus non fresh or frozen and thawed out fish. So when I came back from this Hawaii trip, I was determined to find a place with some of the freshest sushi/sashimi. This place definitely has that!

Sushi Imari is sort of tucked away at the end of a plaza, it seems sort of "hidden" to me. The wait time was perhaps 7 minutes on a friday afternoon around 7pm, so not too bad. The place is nice inside, lots of space, enough for larger parties if need be. Immediately upon being seated we were greeted by our waiter "Nacho"! This waiter was quite the gentlemen. Being that I'm new to sashimi, he was helpful and patient with all my questions.

I ordered the following:

Fresh wasabi Bluefin tuna Yellowtail Halibut Live shrimp Rainbow roll Sake bomb roll Plum wine Gyoza

The Halibut was my absolute favorite! Then the live shrimp. Following my friends suggestion about getting the fresh wasabi was probably the best thing I could have done, it was definitely fresh, and it has quite the kick, but it certainly does make a difference in taste and flavor. I will continue to do this from now on, thanks Michael! Even their ginger was better tasting than other sushi spots I've been to. Everything was fresh and delicious, no complaints about their food. The plum wine was WOW! I'm not a big on wine, but this was certainly something I thoroughly enjoyed. I enjoyed so much that I asked my waiter where I could purchase it, and I went straight there right after my meal, hahaha yes it was that good! The rolls were great as well, no complaints. I was pleased to have my waiter bring us some Gyoza on the house, not only was it a nice gesture on their end, it was in fact delicious! Thank you Sushi Imari! It was a pleasure to have Nacho as my waiter, thank you Nacho!

So I would definitely recommend this place to anyone looking for great fresh tasting...

FALSE ADVERTISEMENT! gave this place a try twice in the last two months

1st time we got the premium ayce ($38.95) for dinner, food was good, nigiri had great fish to rice ratio, there was no wait and the restaurant was 70% full

the thing that bothered us most was there was a 10pc per person limit in the first round and we could get unlimited pieces afterwards, but they took an hour to bring out the limited premium pieces we ordered and kept asking us if we still wanted it (after waiting for a long time) but were quick to bring out rolls and appetizers

we ended up cancelling our carpaccio (limited item) orders because it took too long and the waiter kept suggesting that we do throughout the dinner

2nd time we went was today for lunch ($29.95), we chose the classic menu and when we sat down the hostess told us that the first round was limited to 10pcs and the next two rounds were unlimited (fair since it’s stated on the menu and we are aware from our previous exp), another waitress picked up our order for the second round and told us it was in fact, not unlimited and nigiri was limited to 10 pc/person per round and the rolls were limited to 16pc/person per round

so we told the waitress that it is not all you can eat if we are limited to 30pc total, and she said it was a new policy they just started and the business was hoping people fill up on rolls and appetizers

Oh, and you can’t order all the appetizers from the ayce menu if you go with the classic “ayce”, you’re limited to just fried stuff (fries, tofu, tempura), rice bowls, and udon, so if you were expecting baked mussels forget it!!! (we didn’t know this until we scanned a QR code)

felt like we got baited, maybe don’t serve all you can eat sushi if you can’t...

OK, so we had gone to a restaurant called Anjin and had a great meal but didn't fill up to save our wallets. Feeling...just great from Anjin, we moseyed on over to this little gem of a Sushi store and waited about 45 minutes for a bar seat while we watched MMA fighters and CrossFit athletes train next door. Imari was really busy so I had high hopes. My SO, true to form, had read every review of every sushi place within 10 miles and is usually right about these kinds of things. Got seated. Then the gifts started coming. Dumplings; little tempura onion rings; extra giri on my double nigiri scottish salmon. Very sweet, and appreciated and most of all delicious! I hardly ever give 5 stars, but this place really deserves it. AND they have fresh wasabi, but don't order it unless you can handle really spicy.

Had the Scotch salmon nigiri; king scallop nigiri; seared salmon belly nigiri, yellowtail nigiri; softshell crab appitizer; +free dumpling, onion ring, and green tea ice cream. Remember, it was the second restaurant of the night or believe me I would have ordered more. Everything was top-notch, world class flavors. A real gem. We're gonna be back again and again, and again. Easily best in...