Sakura Express — Restaurant in Pascagoula

Two things peaked my interest about this place. The first was that it's located in the old China Garden's building that everyone grew up visiting until they went out of business. Second, I saw that some friends gave it terrible reviews on Facebook.

They remodeled the interior and it looks fantastic! The floor plan features many small four chair tables perfect for the lunch crowd (cuz it was busy when I went in) and tucked away left of the entrance are the booths for some privacy.

The food was on par with any "asian express" you'd find in a mall. I ordered the shrimp hibachi which featured a good portion of rice, small portion of sauce soaked, but unseasoned, veggies, and six shrimp. Only complaint was the bland frozen veggies, but in no way was it bad. I'd definitely recommend this place if you wanted to try something new in Pascagoula.

What it is lacking to make it a 5 star review is parking and value. The parking lot is hazardous with narrow spots to squeeze more cars in, but unfortunately nearly every vehicle I saw the day I visited was clearly double parked in an already packed parking lot. It was stupid ridiculous. Then to leave the area, vehicles will obstruct your view so you may not see oncoming traffic THIS IS A HAZARD.

As far as value goes, my hibachi lunch was around $10.10 (the lunch special), but for that price I can go to the Hibachi Buffet two minutes down the road from this location and have fresh made plates of unlimited beef, chicken, shrimp, noodles, and everything else plus their fresh made sushi and standard buffet food. Yamato offers better seasoned dishes and the other asian take out places load up your boxes with food. This place does offer sushi, but the best in the area is Jacks by The Tracks and it'd take some work to dethrone them.

I like that this place is one minute away from my work and the food is good, but the parking lot and the prices are the only negatives to my experience. I hope they do well and more people will...

Took my friend here for his birthday dinner. The big sign outside wasn't lit when we pulled up so we weren't sure if it was open or not at first. First impressions the place looks pretty nice, very clean, no cracks on the chairs or anything, no dusty surfaces. The row of greenery would look more sophisticated if they didn't have printed pictures of sushi rolls in clear jackets like you'd put in a binder tacked to it.

Very different from any sushi place I've been to. You don't sit down and order even if you are dining in you have to read the menu and order at the counter first, fix your own drinks, get your own napkins and utensils.

They DO bring the food to your table though and it WAS pretty fast and a good presentation. We ordered the Philadelphia roll, spicy tuna, the Godzilla roll and the volcano roll. They were GOOD don't get me wrong just not...anywhere close to the best sushi I've had. My only major dislike was the clear soup. We're dining in and it's served in a plastic to-go cup. It tasted JUST like one of those Lipton's onion soup mixes with the little dehydrated bits of onions with fresh mushrooms mixed in. Not disgusting but just really not good.

All in all it wasnt BAD and I'd try it again but order take out of a bento box or hibachi. Of all the customers that came in while we were there almost all of them ordered to go or were just picking it up...even though the restaurant itself is nice looking. So I'm gonna assume take out is their primary sales. And the dine in experience felt very much like take out. So call something in if you wanna give them a try (the prices are VERY reasonable)....just don't get the...

Update: So for whatever reason I ended up with takeout from here two nights in a row. Both were inconsistent to the point I had to drop a star. First night got my sushi party and was fat and happy as always. But I actually ordered other things and that's when it went off the rails. So in addition to the SP, I ordered shrimp fried rice, seared tuna, shrimp shumai and clear soup. The tuna was excellent, didn't try the soup, but heard no complaints. The shumai was ok, heavy on the onion flavor, but not overpowering. The shrimp fried rice was a hot mess. It was just mushy teriyaki flavored rice with overcooked shrimp on top. No vegetables or eggs in my fried rice?! It was so bad it left me wondering if they mixed up our order with someone else's who ordered hibachi shrimp with no veggies extra rice? The second night, I had veggie hibachi, more seared tuna, edamame and soup plus salad. The veggie hibachi was good, but soggy. The seared tuna was good, but sliced way more thinly than the previous night. It was like we got half as much, and didn't have enough ponzu sauce. The soup this time had no flavor what so ever, just mushrooms floating in water almost. And the edamame had no salt at all. Had it been one off night, I would've taken it in stride, but two nights with multiple issues even on the same dishes was upsetting. I'll still come for when I don't want to drive forever to satisfy my sushi itch, but won't be my first choice for rice and noodles in Pascagoula.

Sushi party, sushi party, sushi party. Their other food is...