Jin Sho — Restaurant in Palo Alto

The sushi was some of the best I’ve ever had. The omakase selection was incredible and their rotating menu had some tasty and fun options.

Since Google asks for more information than just the quality of the food, I’ll speak to what kept me from giving this place 5 stars. To start, the environment was incredibly loud. There was a massive birthday group seated next us and it made it difficult to sustain a conversation with my partner. You know it’s too loud inside when your waiter has to cup their ear and bend over the table to hear you.

Speaking of waiters, we had an interesting experience. We had 4 separate waiters individually approach our table within 2-3 minutes of being seated. Each waiter asked us if we were ready to order drinks or food. This made it confusing to determine who our actual waiter was and made us feel like we needed to hurry up and rush (I’m not sure what the rush was since the restaurant was maybe 1/3 full). Ironically, the 4th person who came up to us asking for our drink/food order was not even able to take our order so they had to go back and grab one of the earlier waiters to take our order. The last strange service experience was having my phone knocked off the table by the waiter that took our order. Rather than pick up the menu off the table, the waiter swept/dragged the menu off our table and in that same motion swept my phone off the table. This same waiter made us anxious every time she brought us food or liquids for the rest of the night because everything was shaky/wobbly. In the end, the first waiter that greeted us eventually became our sole waiter and she was amazing! I wish she could’ve just been our waiter the whole time: it would’ve made everything less tense and rushed.

Again, the food was amazing. I look forward to going...

Would like to change my rating for this place due to recent increase in price and decrease in food quality. Recently lunch prefix changed to $18, and my favorite choice Beef Toben Yaki now has $3 extra charge. However, the quality of food cannot even stay the same. I come to this place once a week and order soft shell crab and Beef Toben yaki, but every time the flavor varies. Sometimes more sour, sometimes more salty. Beef is sometimes over cooked and sometimes undercooked. There was once the beef was barely warm.

What makes things worse is that they start to charge an extra 4% fee for non cash transactions when I came there today. I used to recommend this place to everyone who visit Cal Ave during weekday. I’m very disappointed and will never recommend it again.

——below is my review from half a year ago——

One of my favorite workday lunch place. $16.5 lunch pris fix is a great deal. Comes with your choice of appetizer, main dish and a dessert (usually a strawberry flavor pudding). Among the appetizers my favorite is soft shell crab. Chicken with miso dressing has larger portion than others. For main dish Dragon roll and Giants roll are my favorite, and they are also the most popular ones among my colleagues. Black cod with rice is tasty but has small portion. Tried salmon sashimi last time and it was fresh. Highly recommend this...

AMAZING SUSHI!!!! 10/10 would come here again. This place is a gem. This has got to be one of the best sushi restaurants in Northern California. Everything was SO fresh and so flavorful. Each bite transports you into a wild ride, as if you caught the fish and ate it same-day. I didn't know what I was expecting but I will have to compare all my future sushi eating endeavors to this one from now on.

Uni- the best item on the menu - so creamy, rich, and delicious. My mouth is watering as I type this

Salmon set 5pc- it's 5 pieces of salmon nigiri. Each piece is so tender and meaty and full of all the salmon flavor that I want

Ikura nigiri - so delicious, the right balance of salt and carbs

Sashimi deluxe- basically an omakase but with fewer types of fish. There were a few uncommon choices like belt fish and this other white fish in addition to yellowtail, sockeye salmon, Toro, bluefin tuna.

Chirashi bowl - added the rice that I needed in this meal and also had uni! As well as several other types of yummy fish

Spider roll - the crab was very crunchy and flavorful. A good addition to the meal

Giants roll - also a good addition to the meal, had potent salmon and eel flavor.

I would come back in a heartbeat. The staff were friendly and service was extremely...