CHICAGO SUSHI — Restaurant in Maine Township

It truly is sad watching one of my favorite lunch spots become so disappointing. This place has delicious sushi & curry dishes. The quality & presentation of these meals has always been nothing short of fantastic for me. However, the past few visits have been bad enough for me to write a review, which I never do. But I genuinely want to warn people about what just happened at this location.

They must be under new management for a second time this year, because the menu has changed twice in less than 6 months. Yesterday I went to the restaurant for my lunch break to get a chance to redeem the 20% off Wednesday deal. When I arrived it was gone. No big deal at all, I sat down and noticed the menu changed again. I opened it up to see lots of delicious options. To my surprise they had the Tonkotsu Ramen back. The last time I had it, it was so amazing that I went back every week for it until it was gone. I went to order it and the server told me they have none of the ramen options. I thought this was disappointing considering this is a brand new menu & they already don’t have almost half of it. I shrugged it off and went to order sushi hand rolls & a miso soup instead. The server told me there were no hand rolls or soup. I asked what they do have. The server opened the menu & said they only had rice bowls & curry. This is less than a quarter of the menu that they give you.

In addition to this, they also haven’t had their liquor license for most of this entire year, yet continue to have a page on the menu of alcoholic beverages they cannot serve you.

I was upset that they didn’t have hardly anything available so I asked when the ramen would be back, and was told it would be the following day (which is now today).

I left and went elsewhere. Today I went in for the ramen and they did have it. I ordered the ramen. It took about 30-35 minutes to come out. The broth was cold & the consistency of Elmer’s glue. The pork slice was thick and cold. The noodles were as thin as angel hair pasta & would nearly dissolve when you picked them up. They tasted like a cold paste. The egg came out separately and was as cold as my glass of water. It was extremely under prepared & unable to be eaten. My friend ordered the same and also could not eat it. We kindly asked for it to be taken off the check. The server was very kind about it and apologized because it was apparently their first time ever making it… I appreciate the customer service here and always have, but to present a brand new menu & not know how to cook the food on it is absurd to me. We ended up not eating the food and wasting an hour here. Side note: the beef curry my other friend got was delicious and came out quickly. I probably won’t go back again because no experience has ever made me this upset to eat. The constant menu fluctuations is ridiculous especially because they cannot serve what’s on the menu most of the time. That ramen should not have been...

Long story short: I developed serious hives all over my body after eating the tuna here.

The deets: I came here with my wife and daughter on Saturday at ~5pm. We were the only ones in there the whole time with maybe 2-3 customers picking up orders. My wife and I both ordered an Ume Jewelry Box consisting of salmon, tuna, eel, cucumber, salmon roe, imitation crab meat, and egg on top of rice. We also ordered the chicken karaage appetizer and a Beef Box from the kid's menu. The food came out and already did not look appealing: the fish in our jewelry boxes looked poorly cut with the tuna cut into tiny cubes and the salmon looking almost shredded. The karaage was also disappointing because it was very dry (my wife believes they used chicken breast), had hardly any breading, and was barely fried at all. Lastly, our daughter's Beef Box was supposed to include gyoza, but they just threw in more dry karaage for whatever reason. My wife only ate some of the salmon and rice before deciding that she didn't like it, so I finished her dish along with mine. There was already a decent amount of soy sauce in the dish but I also added some wasabi sauce so I didn't really notice any abnormal flavor. I was also pretty hungry so I scarfed them both down.

Fast forward 4-5 hours later and I start to feel some itchiness all over my body with some red welts starting to develop. I took an Allegra to address the itching and went to bed. The next morning the red welts start to spread, and by the end of the day they developed into full-blown hives all over my arms, legs, chest, back, neck, face, and scalp (I included a couple pictures of the hives when they started, but you'll have to trust me when I say that it got much much worse later on since I don't want to gross anyone out with those pictures). After searching on Google for possible causes, we determined the cause to be histamine fish poisoning/scombroid fish poisoning which occurs after eating fish that has not been properly handled and stored, causing histamine levels to increase. This mostly occurs in tuna, which would explain why my wife didn't develop a reaction while I developed a severe one. I'm not sure if the current heat wave played a part in the improper storage/handling of the fish; I wouldn't be surprised if it did, however that still wouldn't excuse any poor storage methods. I also read some other recent reviews of their sushi rolls being warm when they were served. I sincerely hope no one else has gone through the same thing I'm going through now.

This was a huge disappointment to say the least since we've been wanting to try it for a while. But I guess we waited too long before it started going downhill. Never coming...

Updating my first review from when they opened back in August 2022! Food, Service, and Atmosphere ratings were not available then but now adding 5-stars all-around. Have gone a few times since then but came back this time for their updated menu. This spot has grown to offer more Sushi and Ramen options, as well as Beer and Japanese Cocktails, with Japanese cocktails and Sake at $8 which is not bad at all. All meal items are still made to order, of course. Added pictures here are their Spicy Tuna Nigiri, Spicy Salmon and Onion Nigiri, and Caterpillar Roll (shaped and looked to be a caterpillar!) which comes with some Takoyaki flakes. Nigiri orders come in 2pc orders. All very tasty and just enough in portions for a nice dinner meal. All orders still come with a small bowl of Miso. There is usually one server manning the entire spot which can seat up to about maybe 30-40 people(?), and they are very attentive and very knowledgeable about the menu. Will need to try their newly added options next time of Japanese Curry and Japanese Curry Ramen, Ramen de Pasta, as well as their Chriashi Sushi aka Jewelry Box. (Wed.08.10.22) Located a door or so away from CHICAGO RAMEN, this spot offers up fresh, made-to-order Sushi Rolls, Hand Rolls, and even Noodles! Ordered Three Hand Roll Combo: Salmon, Spicy Tuna, and Imitation Crab - mouthwatering, perfect in size, and served one-by-one; Spicy Tuna Roll was unique in its own way and had some nice heat; a small Red Hot Chili Noodle with Egg - size was plenty and can only imagine what a large size would look like. Plenty of food ordered and excellent at best. Of course try their Sushi, but I highly recommend their Red Hot Chili Noodle! Will...