Ponzu Sushi - Palm Springs — Restaurant in Palm Springs

This is a great little spot. It is very pricey, but then again It is downtown Palm Springs. Great place for people who drink alcohol like my partner. But I don't drink, and they only had 3 options for people who don't drink alcohol. Coke Sprite or Diet Coke Is all the server recommended to me when i asked for non alcoholic options. All three come in a can, and they charge you $4 per soda.. which seems like a rip-off that they charge for refills for soda. But regardless, the food was good. We did the tuna toro with the quail egg on top. The server wasn't sure if the egg was pasteurized or not, and it was raw, so we were a little skeptical eating the egg, but the rest of the dish was nice. My partner did 2 different sushi rolls, and I did the filet hibachi. Which were also good. They only have white rice though, would be nice to see more options like brown or fried. They only accept reservations according to the hostess, but fortunately, they have a communal table for those who do not have a reservation. But what was weird was that the entire time we were sitting at the communal table, we noticed quite a few tables that never got sat the entire time we were there. So I'm just a little puzzled why they would rather put first-time customers at this table in the waiting area by the front door, next to where guests are storing a bunch of luggage bags etc, when they had available dining room tables. Also, the communal table was a little weird because servers kept hitting menus on the table, etc, which was loud and kind of killed the vibe a bit when they would do that. So moral of the story... have a reservation. Otherwise, they will treat you like you aren't as important as the rest of the guests. And it's not like we were just sharing one entree. We actually spent some $$$. But the food was good. Just don't sit at the communal table if they tell you they can't seat you because it's reservations only. I think I will wait sometime before coming back to this spot, but I will...

We were having such good food and service while in Palm Springs…but it all kinda ended here at Ponzu. We were walking around downtown and didn’t have any reservations or plans for dinner this night. We researched what was around us and stumbled upon Ponzu. We were in the mood for sushi and it seemed to have pretty decent reviews so thought we would try it. They had an opening for we got seated within minutes of coming in.

It had cool, modern vibes inside; service started off okay. We ordered edamame, 1 drink, and 4 rolls. We got our cocktail and edamame pretty quickly…but took almost 45 mins to get our first roll. At this point, we were very hungry and it was over an hour later since sitting down, our other 3 rolls hadn’t come out. It was kind of busy, but not hectic. Our server disappeared for awhile and we couldn’t get anyone to our table. My 7 year old, couldn’t have the first roll that came out due to allergies, so we were hoping our other rolls would be coming out soon after. But no…nothing came out for a while. And no one checked on us, except for the really nice busser. If maybe we were checked on and updated on how things were going, I would’ve felt better about it, but no one did.

I get it; it can get busy…but communication, acknowledgment, and just politeness, can go a long way in situations like this. We decided to cancel the rest of the order and leave to go somewhere else. This was a terrible experience and we...

While the food and drinks taste incredible their timing is way off. Here is our experience: We were originally seated outside by one of the firepits, it didn't work also, the seating by them is not conducive to eating sushi. We moved inside and asked the waitress to give us a minute to decide on one of their delicious drinks. When ordering drinks we ordered appetizers. The appetizers came out and we ordered our sushi dishes. We finished the appetizers and the the main courses started coming out. I then asked about our drinks, she apologized and said they were on the way. We waited another 5 plus minutes and did not start eating yet. She brought out 3 drinks and walked away. Another five minutes when she was close by I asked about the last drink. It took some time for the last drink to come. We are the type that don't start eating until everyone has their drinks and food. Not rude just proper manners. I was quite shocked that she actually asked the table if we wanted another drink LOL. I said we didn't have that kind of time. I am also surprised that the drinks weren't taken off the bill. Very poor service though I will give them another chance when they learn how to properly run a...