Aniki's Sushi — Restaurant in Fremont

Meh…this place is mediocre & overrated, IMO. They’re still doing the QR code menu thing, which caught on during the pandemic, & I’ve always found to be kinda annoying & not especially user friendly. I ate here for lunch, on a weekday, & there were a fair amount of tables with folks eating (probably 4-5 tables, 10-12 peeps…). They had 3 servers working, most of which seemed to be running out to-go orders. I was seated pretty quickly, handed a receipt slip w/ the QR code to pull up the menu (fine…) & then started perusing the options.

I was kinda surprised to see no lunch special options for sushi/ sashimi. They had bento boxes, but none w/ sushi and/ or sashimi. Kinda weird. Took me a while of just sitting there, waiting to order, while the 3 employees kept walking past me oblivious, before I finally flagged one of the guys down & told him I wanted to select my lunch.

Since I didn’t want teriyaki chicken, or whatever, I just ordered a regular sushi/ sashimi combo for $29.50 (just call it $30), & told them “no salmon please”, as I don’t eat raw salmon.

I ordered a coke as well, which they brought out quickly, followed by a nice little “amuse Bouche” of some surimi (fake crab), with tempura crumbles & spicy Mayo. Tasted pretty good, tho it was light on “krab” & heavy on tempura dust. Next came the miso soup (basic, fine) & the salad, which was basically just huge chunks of iceberg lettuce w/ some sweet sesame dressing on top. Again, fine, but nothing to write home about.

The sushi/ sashimi came & it was pretty underwhelming. It was pretty much just maguro & hamachi, with 1 small scallop, & a couple pieces of albacore. The rice for the nigiri was gummy & flavorless, & all of the fish was cut WAY too big/ thick. The maguro had those big strands of fat in it (not the marbling of O-Toro), which made some bites “stringy” & hard to chew, tho they tasted fresh. The hamachi was pretty good, but had thick pieces of the “dark meat”, that most higher-end sushi joints trim off. The scallop smelled/ tasted kinda fishy (even the “dot” of sriracha couldn’t cover that). The albacore was probably the highlight. It had some squirts of garlic sauce on it, which complemented the flavor of the meat nicely.

My main issue, though, was that my plate was totally dirty. I didn’t notice at first, as my food was covering it, & I dug in to eat pretty quickly, but it had smears of another customers sriracha & wasabi & other stuff on it, which was a total turn-off. I know it wasn’t from MY lunch, because the smears of food/ sauce were old & dried on.

Considering the “sushi/ sashimi combo” was basically 2 kinds of tuna, & not very tasty anyway, I decided to call it a day, since I was grossed out by eating off of unclean dishware. I paid my bill ($40 w/ tip), left a fair amount of fish behind, & just bounced.

Again, wasn’t terrible, the meat was fresh enough (minus the scallop), & the portions were sizable (tho TOO big for individual slices of sushi/ sashimi IMO), but between the inattentive service & the dirty plate, plus gummy rice & a lack of variety, this isn’t really a place I need to return to. The hunt for a good sushi restaurant in fremont/ newark...

I absolutely love rolls. They're soooo good and Aniki's is the perfect place to get them! so many to choose from...

The place is kind of small, not too big. They have booths that line the side of the restaurants and then tables that fill majority of the restaurant with a bar in the back of the restaurant. CHECK IN on yelp and you can get a free appetizer( it was between the spicy garlic edamame, japanese nachos, and seaweed salad)! The prices here are a little pricey but nothing surprising if you're at a Japanese restaurant.

Once you're done drooling at all the pictures, it's almost impossible to decide on what to get besides they have so many choices D: but no worries, let me help narrow that down for you:

** WHAT TO GET *

NOT IN ANY PARTICULAR ORDER!

Hamachi Kama: for the price, this baby is worth it. It's a huge piece, way bigger than most other places and it's so good! The fish is super tasty and makes for a perfect meal when paired with rice.

OMG roll: The fried langostinos(lobster) are probably why this roll is one of my favorites. Simple but tasty and if you're craving something fried, then this roll would be for you.

WOODSON ROLL: THIS ROLL HAS BACON. yes and it's AMAZING. My favorite, hands down.

Aniki's ultimate: I have a soft spot for seared fish and this roll has just that! I love the hint of the charred-seared fish and everything else is just bonus.

Fremont 5-0 roll: well because you're in Fremont, no but really this roll is good. It has seaweed on top and deep fried snapper, what more can you ask for?

and lastly, if you loveeeeeeeeeee soft shelled crab then get the Spiderman roll. and as an added bonus it also has unagi :D

Service:

Their servers were great! they were friendly and attentive. The brought us everything we needed and we didn't have to ask for any refills.

This is my go-to sushi place...

Went here for a late lunch. The table started to order food and mind you the whole table was extremely hungry and none of us have been here before so we all wanted to try all there delicious food. We ordered about 8 items for 4 people so say 2 item per person but we shared. The waiter suggested to start with these then order more if we were still hungry. Which right then I wanted to get up and leave. Who is he to tell me how much I can order? What if I wanted to order a whole page of the menu they do have a huge menu about 4 pages. I found him to be so rude. If you would like to make additions or substitutions to the menu and if you want something not on the menu good luck the waiter was not having it. The plus side is that they do have a large selection of vegetarian options. They give you a complimentary crab and cucumber salad if you can find any morsels of crab nice gesters though. The spicy edamame is super garlicky. The hamachi kama is aged smelly, and not up to par. The sookie so so fresh roll has wakame in it which is a seaweed which was so over powering flavor of the roll that's all you tasted. The jalapeno bombs were good. Another negative note is that the staff was already starting to close up before the customers were done eating. Closing blinds, two chiefs eating while making the food that was disgusting and unacceptable, bussing table before you even done with the food, and giving the check before the meal...