Bonsai Sushi — Restaurant in Dr. Phillips

By far, the best tasting sushi in Orlando - if not anywhere.

About 8 years ago, my girlfriend introduced me to Sushi - which I had never tried before. After that, we started going to Sushi restaurants in the Orlando area, and elsewhere while on vacation and trips, two or three times a week (much to my wallet's chagrin). There is not a sushi restaurant within a few hundred miles we hadn't gone to, and it was an awesome experience with some really fantastic and unique food and special rolls.

But Bonsai absolutely is the best one we have ever been to, and since we tried this place for the first time in 2016 or 2017, we have come here almost every week or two for years. Most of the time, we do order take-out as we live nearby and it's nice to eat at home, but we make it a point to bring friends here whenever anyone is visiting from out of town.

A few things to know: -This is a very small family run business with their own recipes etc. The spicy tuna is absolutely unbelievable - it's not the pink/ground tuna that clearly comes from the same suppliers that many other local restaurants use. There are countless other things on the menu with the same attention to detail and special recipe too

-Because of the size of the location and their staff, they have extremely limited seating. For a long time, they did not take reservations but I believe they do now - it doesn't hurt to call a day or two ahead if you plan to eat there on a Friday or Saturday and at least ask. Don't just show up on a Friday night or they may not be able to serve you - don't take this the wrong way, they have limited supply and enormous demand and they do their best to make it accessible.

-Tied in with the above, when ordering take out, expect to wait possibly 45 minutes or longer during busy nights - or they may not be doing take out that evening at all! As big fans of this place, I usually try to call as soon as they open for dinner to place my order. On busy nights, they might have to cut off take out orders as early as 5:30. On the other hand, order your take out on a Monday or Tuesday - the food is just as good as it is on Friday, and it's usually ready in 15-20 minutes. They are also open for lunch!! If you call and they do not answer, they are taking another order - call back again in a minute or two.

-Since we come here frequently, they remember us and we have great conversations and it is so cool to have that personal touch, they genuinely ask about what is going on in our lives and remember details we talked about later - that's truly above and beyond any reasonable expectation. Even before we were "regulars" though, the service has always been impeccable - both dine-in and when ordering take out. We have never had a problem with the food or orders, any issues with slow service - they do a really unbelievable job here. The atmosphere is fantastic with nice lighting, a cool bar area where you can see the food prep if you like, etc.

It's rare for a restaurant to have everything - top tier food, top tier service, and top tier cleanliness (the facilities here are spotless). Do not miss this restaurant if you are in the area, and like Sushi. If I ever moved away from Orlando I would fly back here just to have dinner here again. Seriously. It's that good.

I also have to commend their consistency. The quality of the food and service has not changed one bit in over 5 years. That's impressive. If they hired more cooks, expanded their space, added online ordering etc. I'm sure they could accommodate more customers but I'm certain the quality would go down - it's just the nature of these things. It's impressive how they have continued to make Sushi with this level of uncompromising quality...

Incredibly mediocre food and currently suffering food poisoning, more likely from this place than anything else I had yesterday. I called and ordered a shrimp tempura roll, miso soup, pork/veg gyoza, and a side salad - pretty basic Americanized Japanese fare across the board. The roll had almost no flavor on its own, and the rice was off - I don’t think there was any vinegar added, or anything else. Just cooked rice. It was already fairly room temperature, which was odd since they had to gather my order after I arrived, and my drive home was very short. I had a few pieces, but ultimately didn’t feel like it was a safe temperature, nor delicious. The miso was decent, but scalding hot, and had no tofu (I don’t know if this is the choice of the restaurant or a mistake on the kitchen staff’s part since this was my first and only visit.) The salad was sparse and the ginger dressing was quite disgusting. It hardly tasted like anything close to a typical ginger dressing, had a strange sweetness to it, and was visually repulsive. The only thing that stood close to par was the gyoza, of which I have no real complaints.

As far as service, the woman who took my order was very nice, but had missed an item on my order and thus, my bill was higher. Based on prices I had seen, my original total made sense. I had to ask the prices of the items AFTER arrival, only to find that Doordash (the only accessible menu, as theirs is not available on the link provided) had the wrong prices for everything I ordered - my roll being $3 more than listed. I’d like to blame Doordash, but this is an issue they admitted to knowing about, but seem to have done nothing to correct it?

I honestly have no clue why this place has the very high rating it does, but I’ve found that it’s very common in Orlando for restaurants to have high ratings that do not actually reflect the restaurant quality - this is the only area where I for certain can’t trust Maps for reviews.

TL;DR: Some of the worst “Japanese” food I’ve ever had, move along and find a legit local spot. Even...

I was told this place was "Life changing Sushi" by my friend and they aren't wrong. I've eaten sushi from some pretty good places, but this place hands down demolished all of them.

Food: (9/10) Amazing, the tuna lovers roll was the most tender tuna I have ever eaten, we paired it with authentic Wasabi (a must for any sushi lover). The tiger salad is another must try and if course they had a decent Nigori Sake to go with it all

Portions: (8/10) everything we had was decently portioned, with sushi less is more and they found the butter zone with the sizes not too small but also not too big, the rolls left us wanting just a bit more so we opted for sashimi which was also amazing.

Price: (9\10) The price to quality is hands down impressive, they serve the best sushi I have ever had and at a price that you can actually eat it 1-2 times a week if you...