Sushi Bros — Restaurant in Idaho

Be careful and heads up... As a chef for a long, long time; an alumnus of the Culinary Institute of America, opening GoodWood Barbecue here in Idaho and then spending 15 years at Saint Alphonsus RMC as the Executive Chef - one could say I'm not your average consumer and that's a fair statement.

Working closely with the CDHD over these last three decades, coupled with the intense strict adherence necessary to meet the obligations and the privelage to serve food as a professional, and through my knowledge of the ins and outs of healthcare and the intimate workings of food safety in that environment - yes... I have a scrutinous eye -it would be accurate to say - a 'granular' sense of detail when it comes to food handling.

That said - stating the facts in a non-emotional way is what my intentions are writing this review.

The biggest takeaway at Sushi Bros is not the foods quality but rather the lack of sanitation and the heavy presence of cross contamination.

All the cooks wore disposable gloves. So what's the problem Chef you might ask. Here's the issue. Besides touching the ready to eat foods and preparations the cooks also were open palm adjusting their pants up...regularly, touching their clothing and popping food into their mouths...and continuing the prepare food and handle everything from plates to squeeze bottles of sauce etc.

The main cook in the middle was letting the other two guys prepare the sushi while he laughed and conversed with another couple to his diagonal left. While doing so he took off his gloves - began running his bare hands back and forth over the blue cutting boards in front of him. He grabbed a new glove - one in each hand and clenched them in his closed fists. In a "bored drumming" style manner, he pounded his bare hands all over the cutting boards some more. At one point he reached up and 'pinched-itched" his nose with his index, middle finger and thumb with his right hand. In food preparation these fingers are the main ones used for grabbing and manipulating. When an order came in he put the gloves he had been clenching in his hands on and prepared sushi rolls directly on the surface where he had been wiping, rubbing and pounding with his bare unwashed hands. You have to wash your hands and dry your hands between glove changes.

My cook was eating big mouthfuls of fried something whileins the food preparation area. You can not consume food or beverages in a food prep area...and of course he never changed his gloves either.

My last sanitation point is that, as it can be clearly seen in the picture, there is a remote control left directly on the food prep area. Not good and a major red flag.

I never saw any hand washing and lots of glove abuse and the gross towel used to wipe the cutting board by the middle guy was really in poor condition. A younger stocky built guy went into the food prep area with a huge head of bushy hair and no hair restraint.

Some food notes - They were quick - it wasn't busy. The sushi elements tasted good. My Salmon Nigiri was room temperature warm. Tasted ok but not appealing. My Yellow Tail Nigiri was well chilled and delicious. I loved the Tempura Shrimp and the Tempura Crab - hit the spot. One of my mussels contained a copious amount of sand. Not my favorite menu item. The sweet sauce is a poor replacement for real Eel Soy sauce...it did the trick but the darker glazy Eel Soy sauce is much better in my opinion. I asked the waitress (who was cordial) for a half refill on my soda - she looked at my cup - verbally repeated my request and never came back. She had to be handed my dirty dishes from my first round and never touched the table again for the pile of dishes that had accumulated. Again, they were not busy.

The food was in the end was decent - not polished - but filled me up... I just hope 8 hours from now I feel the same about it.

Dinner was $28.99 AYCE. Plus soda, tax, and...

I ordered the 4 pieces of Nigiri with 2 basic rolls for 14.99. I got salmon nigiri and for the rolls I got a Bros Roll and a Rainbow Roll.

The fish quality was good and tasted fresh. The roll portions felt more than fair for the price. The Nigiri were a little on the small side but tasted excellent.

It is worth noting that when the menu says something is tempura fried, it does not mean the entire roll, but the ingredients inside the rolls (or at least this was the case with the Bros roll). Its not a bad thing, it was just not what I had expected from the way it was described on the menu.

The Bros roll was very good. The jalapeno wasnt "melt my mouth" hot, but had a little kick that then cream cheese helped balance the jalapeno and salmon.

The rainbow roll was good as well and allowed you to taste early how fresh the fish tastes without the added complexity of sauces. The Tobiko on top added a reshreshing texture variety to the roll. A good choice if you want a classic roll.

The only real concerning issue was the wait for the food. When I ordered online it said my order would be done at 4:15. I arrived at 4:17 and was told to wait and they would bring it to my car, which I was grateful for because it was cold outside. I did not get my food until after 4:30 and the food was delivered to my car by someone who had just pulled up in a car next to mine and had walked over to the food truck. I dont know if he was an employee or a customer, but it was a little off putting to not be personally delivered the food nor get an apology for the extra 15 minute wait. The extra wait meant that the other food I had to go pick up after Sushi Bros was already nearly cold when I got it. I dont mind waiting for good food, just be upfront and honest about how long it will take when taking online orders.

TLDR; the food was great and the pricing was fantastic for the quality and quantity of food but make sure you arent locked into time sensitive plans when...

Honestly just was not a good sushi experience. The flavors were so off and left me with a bad taste in my mouth.

I eat sushi a lot and it's my favorite food. But I can't recommend this place if you're looking for good sushi. Nowhere near as good as Yoi Tomo or Kona Grill, Dharma , Mai Thai, Kyoto, or even Lucky Fin.

We ordered all you can eat, so we could try as many different rolls and nigiri as we could since it was our first time there and we didn't know what was good (seared eel roll was the only light in the darkness that was our sushi bros experience) we paid like 30 bucks a person plus we got some "meh" quality warm sake for 11 bucks.

The rolls weren't spectacular.....build quality was pretty bad. They were tiny and falling apart. A few had some interesting flavors with some very overpowering lemon flavor or a super oceany (not good) aftertaste. You know something is up when almost every roll had shrimp or tempura and cream cheese. Proper sushi doesn't need to hide the flavor. Also I had to pick a bone out of a roll which is a first for me

Service wasn't very great. I had to grab my own utensils and ask for everything because they didn't give me saucers for soy sauce or chopsticks or napkins.

Strip mall atmosphere, not anything impressive. Kinda dingy and dirty and I wouldn't go there again. For a Sunday night, service was slow and there weren't even many people there.

Maybe we just went on a bad night. Either way I wouldn't recommend it. I would rather have the Fred Meyer special than this...