Sushi Plantation — Restaurant in Mission Viejo

I'm honestly pretty heartbroken and embarrassed writing this review.. Heartbroken because I have been coming to Sushi Plantation for SO long, over ten years ago at their other location across the street. Embarrassed because I have recommended this place to my close friend who then got food poisoning after our visit here on Monday. I am just so so sad that they have so far downhill from how great this place used to be. The server who took our order (who it seems 2 others reviewers had similar experiences with this guy on the same day as us 4 days ago) seemed really inexperienced & didn't seem to care much about his job or serving people. He got our order wrong over 3 different times. He was careless & had a hard time keeping all the items we ordered bc he didn't write them down, something I wish he would've as it would have made everything easier for us all. Wish someone would tell him there's no shame in ensuring you're getting an order correct by writing it down. Multiple different dishes & sides never came and we had to re order them after quite a long time of waiting. When we would need service, he genuinely looked annoyed to have to get up from his seat in the front to help us. The service was just so abysmal.. way different than how they used to be. Whoever runs this place now could really benefit from hiring more experienced servers & cooks.

As if the service didn't already kill my mood, the chefs also dropped the ball because the friend I ate with (and who ate here weeks before based on my recommendation) got food poisoning & threw up her whole lunch a couple hours after we ate there. I remember when we were eating she noticed right away that the broccoli in the tempura seemed bad & not cooked thoroughly. I didn't eat it which is why I'm guessing I didn't also get sick (we ate the same dishes other than this). I'm wondering if the tempura was made in a rush seeing as how it was forgotten by our server and we had to ask for it at the very end of our meal since it never came out. The other dishes were good from the chefs (although the rolls are not nearly as good as they used to be) & they were kinder than the server at least, but overall the experience was bad. Super bummed that my once-favorite sushi spot in MV is unrecognizable in so many ways now. Will not be returning or recommending...

Food- For Appetizer, the Tuna Takaki, which is seared tuna, is really flavorful and good. You can dip it in this zesty cream sauce and put an asparagus on top. So good~ Also tried the Albacore appetizer that has this flavorful limey soy sauce based sauce which is so refreshing. The salad was also very fresh and had a similar limey soy-sauce based salad dressing with fresh greens and small pieces of sashimi.

All the sushi and sashimi here is really really fresh and has no fishy taste at all.

Oh! and the cooked eel sushi was AMAZING. Must try!

We finished our meal with udon and the soup is really good! It was good to wash down all the food with a hot udon.

The servers are so attentive. The timing of the food was so good. As soon as one dish was finished, they brought out the next so that all the plates were cleared and new food was always coming out.

We ate with another couple friend...first time we met in 2 years and it was the perfect venue to talk and we had a great time here. The atmosphere is really comfy and bright light.

I'm really particular about bathrooms....happy to say that the bathrooms here are really clean and...

Went off the stars for this place thinking it was good, sad to say was a waste of time and money. Now maybe the sushi rolls are better. I ordered the Beef combination meal to get a taste of Miso Soup, California roll,salad, entree, rice. The Miso soup was good, perfect not salty as in many places, the California rolls were OK. The salad presentation was great, the dressing made everything taste like onions I feel cheated on the beef, cheap cut prepared with lots of baking soda to tenderize it, so you get a chewy soft gelatinous texture with a baking powder after taste, the teriyaki sauce was extremely sweet, probably to try to mask the baking soda taste. The rice was not a Japanese rice, probably the cheapest rice you can buy, wasn't jasmine Thai rice either making it hard to pickup with chop sticks. The fruit, an orange was pretty stale. My wife had the salmon, she complained about a bitter after taste, I tasted it and sure enough, it had a bitter after taste almost as if the salmon was also washed in baking soda. Probably to get rid of any funky smell maybe??? I don't think i would venture to go back and try...