Sushi R91 — Restaurant in Riverside

Well after reading reviews this place seemed promising. I am from Long Beach and the sushi spots out that alway are awesome. As a new resident to Riverside I have been on a hunt to find a good place and needless to say Im still looking. This place is very nice inside, however the food wasn't good in my opinion. I ordered shumai and it was 6.95 for 6 pieces which clearly came out of a frozen package that I myself have bought from a store before for $3 for a 12 pack, I didn't like those (frozen) either. I ate one and told the waitress that I didn't like them that they were not fresh, she took the plate behind the counter and ate one from MY plate. That's gross she does not know me but that's her business. Secondly I ordered the Kani Kama Shrimp handroll, when I got it my dinner partner and I clearly seen it had not one piece of shrimp, NOT ONE. I even just grabbed the seaweed wrapping and unrolled it... NO SHRIMP. So embarrassingly enough I had to also send that back, which I hate that I had to do, but it was not what I ordered. After witnessing a conversation between my waitress and what looked like another waitress and a male, which was uncomfortable to be talked about in plain site I had enough. Only thing that I ate was the seaweed salad I ordered was good, and the eel roll which was mediocre and had bones, but I didn't want to complain anymore I just wanted to leave. My daughter enjoyed her California roll and my dinner partner said her Tiger Roll was big and delicious. I told them I am glad that they atleast enjoyed their meal. After all that our waitress came an apologized for my bad experience and told me she took of the two items that were unsatisfactory. She then went on to say that she knows the menu says shrimp but the way the chef mad it was the traditional way as if I should have known it didn't come with shrimp even though on the menu it clearly reads shrimp, that is the reason I ordered it. That rubbed me the wrong way like it was my fault that he decided to do something different then the menu and I was suppose to just eat it not knowing what it was. I wish I could have took a picture but I really was insulted, frustrated, and ready to go. I don't plan on going back...

Cons: very disappointed with the lack of acknowledgement sushi was so-so 20-25% gratuity already added onto bill.

Pro our waitress Dina Outside ambiance was cool and my 2 y/o daughter enjoyed family and stroller friendly parking friendly

First let me start by saying our waitress Dina was excellent. She gave us great service and was kind and pleasant.

July 5th was the observed holiday for 2021 so on Yelp! It says to call and check the time. No answer. Called about 5 times without an answer so we decided to just drop in, in the chance that it might be open.

Lo and behold it was. So we walked in..........(however many periods i punched in was how long it took us to get acknowledged), finally got acknowledged and was told it would be about 5 more mins which turned into 10 min. All the while I'm looking at a partly empty restaurant. [ Yes i understand, there's is a shortage of workers, but an acknowledgement should not take 10 min.]

So Dina came out took our orders and surprisingly, the food came out fairly quick. We ordered 1 order each of fatty salmon sashimi (5 PCs) $13, salmon sashimi $12, yellowtail $13, 911 roll $11, salmon ceviche roll $14, brakes salmon roll $14, 2 salmon teriyaki entrees $13, kikusui unfiltered sake $14 and 2 Orion 22 of beers at $7 a piece.

The sashimi was fresh so that was a plus, but the rolls i felt were so-so. Nothing really memorable about them. The 911 was supposed to be done kind of spicy flavor but was disappointing. Food-wise nothing really stood or for me.

What did stand out was the 20-25% gratuity already added on at the end of our bill. We had 5 adults and 1 toddler. I don't know if this is a Norm now since the pandemic but this would've been great to know ahead of time. Luckily Dina provided us good service, but if we didn't have good service?

Food was decent, but personally I wouldn't come out of my way...

October 8 2020 we went for our wedding anniversary. We decided to try this place for our special day. My husband called 2 hours prior and was told he would be put on the list for 6:30pm. When we get there, they sat 3 parties and then checked in with us. They were taking temperature checks which was fine. We were told we were never placed on a list nor reservation, we felt lied too in order to get us here. They also noticed we had our 1 year old daughter in a stroller since she was asleep. They carelessly sat 2 parties of the same size in tables that had enough area to place a stroller. After about 10 minutes, they wanted to seat us in the first table next to the entrance were all guests enter, get checked in, and perform temperature checks in the smallest hallway where my daughter would completely block the high traffic area walkway. While there was an empty table within covid guideline, they refused to seat us and asked for my husband and I carry the stroller up stairs to eat together as a family on a high top??? We looked at them like are you joking? No they were serious. My daughters safety was non of their concern. We asked again to get seated in the empty table since they did not honor our "spot on list" or whatever was promised but continued to say no and to wait another 30 minutes for another since they wanted to hold it for a party of 4. So disappointed that our anniversary night was ruined by this place. My husband called Ooka sushi and explained what happened here and was immediately offered a reservation for us to not rush and make our night better. Thank you Ooka for allowing us to enjoy the rest of our night with PROFESSIONAL AND EXCEPTIONAL SERVICE. I WOULD NEVER RECOMMEND NOR EAT AT THIS LOCATION AFTER BEING TREATED LIKE TRASH. Go to Ooka, Asahi or Ohana but...