Sushi Ai - Long Beach — Restaurant in Long Beach

Update: 12/31/2020. I chosed this place for my last meal of 2020. Unfortunately, it was a regretful decision. I ordered a bento box; while I was paying for my meal I noticed two sushi Ai paper bags sitting on the counter. The employee was helping another customer and going back and forth trying to finish his order. By the time the other customer left taking one of the bags she finally gave me the second bag with my order, from the counter. My food was just getting colder and colder, even when I had already paid for it, it was just sitting on the counter, all she had to do was to hand it to me. I asked the employee at least twice regarding my food being hot. I asked her when I was paying for it and I asked her again when she handed me the bag; both times she replied, "It is hot".. I took my meal across the street where I was parked. I ate in my car hoping to eat a hot meal,, according to the employee. The food was deplorable. The rice was cold, the tempura was bearly warm, the California rolls were very tiny and were falling apart, I bearly got enough Wasabi for one California roll. The worst part was the chicken. The portion was small, the chicken on top was barely warm and the chicken on the bottom was cold. Some slices of chicken were hard like a rock. This is not the first time that this happens. I stopped going to this place for a few months for the same reason; there's something wrong with the cheap chicken that is used at this place, sometimes it is hard like a rock, impossible to eat. I didn't want to end this year on a sour note by going back to complain about it and waste my time getting another deplorable meal. I just threw it in the trash can. A complete waste of money and time. I am extremely disappointed, I wasn't expecting to get such a horrible piece of garbage for lunch. I have been going to this place for years, sometimes is bad, other times is decent, but today was worst than ever. I have never been so disappointed with this place, I consider this bento box the worst meal of the year. What a way to end the year paying for a meal and getting pure garbage in return. After so many years of coming to Sushi Ai, most likely I am not coming back.

Previous review: This place sometimes is good, but sometimes is not that good. I used to go very often for lunch, but a couple of times I got what was supposed to be chicken breast that was most likely not chicken breast. I am still wondering whether it was real chicken or who knows what it really was. It was hard like a rock, my fork and knife couldn't get through at all. I showed it to the staff and I tried to cut it in front of them so they could see it by themselves. The table was shaking as I tried to cut it to no avail.They had no explanation why the chicken was so hard. That was a turn off. Most times customer service is good, but sometimes depending on the waitress the service is not that good. I really dislike when they bring a hardly warm miso soup cup that is less than half full. The waitress only said "I am sorry about that". She didn't even offer to replace it. It has happened in a few occasions I am not eager to go back to this...

CAUTION!!! Sushi night out, turned for the worst. Wife and I love sushi, first time here last night. Service was superb, Dinning location was well set. She had mentioned a roll with shrimp tasted like soap, we thought just a twist on taste buds. We stopped eating due to wife not feeling well immediately, shes a lady so she held it down til we arrived home and threw it all up. I decided to write this review at 3am same night with disgust to sushi and shame of what we spent was not worth the night out.

I called restaraunt, after arriving home and tending to the disaster wife experienced, to hopefully help others avoid the same experience asking them to make sure their shrimp or something of the 7 items we ordered was in good condition to be used. I understand maybe the lack of staff may have played a part in this, maybe due to pandemic. I only hope they checked, becaused they said manager would return my call and did not hopefully busy correcting said food situation.

I write reviews only when experience was awesome and a must, or when trying to save the public from a bad experience. We really wanted to like this place and make it part of our rotation, but this has made the AVOID...

I hate to leave a 3-star review, but work needs to be done here. I’ll start with the good. Our food, when it finally came was very good. We ordered Hawaiian Rolls, the Chubby Lobster and the Vegas roll. All of the food was wonderful. The tuna on the Hawaiian rolls was fresh and very tasty. The Chubby Lobster was interesting and we all enjoyed it. The Vegas Roll was a mouthwatering adventure for the mouth.

Now, the problems. We’ll start with the tables. They are so sticky our cups had to be dislodged with every sip. We could tell this had been an ongoing issue as my daughter was able to read several menu items from the remnants of menus previously stuck to the table. For the record, they are not even using paper menus. They are totally reliant on QR code menus. So there is really no excuse for not taking care of the sticky table issue.

The service was quite sub-par. The hostess brought us drinks which were empty before any server even greeted us. The food also too far too long to come out based in on how busy they were not.

All in all, good food,...