Banzai Japanese Bar & Kitchen — Restaurant in Fresno

Not what I would call Japanese restaurant. Starting with the service. The guy that took our order was not friendly. Has hearing problems. His appearance of a busboy. He could use a shower and wash and comb his hair. I ordered chicken teriyaki box. I don’t know what I was served. It had chicken and a couple of shrimps. Per the menu I was to get miso soup, traditional salad, vegetable tempera, chicken teriyaki and rice. We ordered sushi but didn’t get those until well after the chicken meal. Only because I was starving I started eating some chicken. It was pretty good but dry. The rice was disgusting. It was not white sticky rice it was more like fried rice that you would receive in a Chinese restaurant. It smelled like puke. My friend who is not picky at all couldn’t eat it. He said it tasted awful. I never received my tempora, I never received my soup and the salad was just a green salad with 3 yellow hard not ripe tomatoes half’s on top. Dressing was a vinaigrette. The sushi finally arrived. I ordered a plain tuna roll (teka nmaki). I repeated it to him. Just plain tuna roll. Not spicy. He said plain tuna roll. What I got was a roll with a spec of tuna and what looked like cream cheese. I didn’t touch it and when I finally got him to acknowledge me. He rolled his eyes and took it back. Time passed and he then brought me another supposed plain tuna roll. No seawead in it or around it. It did have a tiny bit of tuna in it but the rice was not white sticky rice it was off color. Like a green to brownish tint. It had black things in it. I was so hungry I just went ahead and ate it. The rice was flavored. I want to mention the place was not crowded. There was no waiting for a seat. I never saw the guy really busy. In my whole life of 58 years I have never, ever had an order of plain tuna roll made wrong. I’ve never sent sushi back. These people do not know what Japanese food is. I will never return to this place and I will never recommend this place. I only give it one star because there is...

I sat at the sushi bar. Ordered water, chirashi bowl and the red dragon roll and the lychitini. Bartenders were attentive but didn't smile and didn't appear like they enjoyed what they were doing: older asian male with the sleeved tattoo and the young tall hispanic male. Total was $60.

If you read the previous reviews: "warm sushi yuck" would have been the same response as mines. I wish I would have known sooner. I tried my best to eat the food without having a strong sense of dissatisfaction on my face.

Chirashi bowl: Unappealing, clumpy rice with too much sesame oil and the fish lacked flavor (maybe the sushi chef didn't prepare it right? Who knows? maybe the sushi chef is still learning/needs more training?). I wasn't pleased with the chirashi bowl because for $30, it didn't look visually appealing and maybe the sushi chef/owner isn't letting them sample the food because it doesn't taste good at all just due to how bad the rice was.

Dragon roll: decent size (on the smaller side) and if I could rate the rice on this roll it would be 0/5 for taste and visuals... it was warm, overcooked or something because the rice did not sparkle/glisten/didn't look fluffed.

Quality went down compared to 3 years ago when I came. Save your money. Not worth it.

Again, don't take my word for it. Try it...

I used to love this place back in 2022~ish. Rolls were affordable and the portion was massive, and were dressed with so much extra things you couldn't even see the rolls themselves.

But that's not how this place is anymore. I have been trying again and again every year, but they haven't gone back to their greatness. The rolls are overpriced and are mediocre at best. There's no reason to order a roll for $20 and get a mediocre roll when you can just go to a random AYCE sushi and get a better roll for less.

Banzai, used to be great, currently not terrible, but not great. 3 stars... if you live close by.

Even after moving away from this area, I still drove 20 minutes every year to visit, to see if they have gotten better. But this is it, this is the last year. And I will finally...