Hinoka Sushi — Restaurant in Sacramento

TLDR: used to ordered all the time 5 yrs ago... First time back since then! New owner, new restaurant name, but still same great sushi, same great customer service, and great people!

5yrs ago we used to come here often, and most 99.9% of the time I'd call in and have Karen (if I recall her name correctly) to just surprise me with 5-9 random rolls. She never fails me. I've always tipped them so well even when I order for pickup. Sadly, we moved out of town since we had our daughter, and then COVID hit...

Today, we were in town and we wanted sushi. I recalled this place and when I searched it, the name was different so we were bummed. Figured we'd check it out if it was good compared to the old one we loved.

I called to order and that we'd arrive at such a time to dine in since we were short on time. Karen's voice sounded familiar. We ordered and she was great in which rolls to advise us on per what we wanted.

We've arrived and Karen seated us. Our order came, and Karen promptly made sure our drinks were good, our food was correct, and overall, it was just a great experience. A gentleman also came by to assist, though we didn't get his name, and was also wonderful to us. He made my daughter feel special and that in itself was awesome.

In the end, we left a generous ~40% tip as I would normally have for always taking care of us. I'm glad that the service is still great, even if the owner has changed and the restaurant is...

3.5 stars. The service need some improvement.

Let's start with the food. The Paris Sashimi had a nice presentations with the dry ice fog effect. The sashimi was fresh. The Poker Face Roll was different, top with seaweed salad and poke on top. The Negihama and Spicy Tuna Maki was average. The Hamachi Kama was good but could have been grilled a little longer to get the smoky taste.

We arrived at the restaurant around 5:30 pm and only one other table was taken. Maybe two people at the sushi bar. At around 6:00 pm, the place completely filled up and that's when the service just went downhill from there. It wasn't a large restaurant and they had three or four waiters. No one came back to check on us after our food arrived. I had to flag down someone to place an order to go, which I realized was probably a mistake since they are very busy at this point. The wait for the to-go food was about 20 minutes (not too bad). The waiter left me the check and never came back to pick up my credit card. After 10-15 minutes, we just got up and took it to someone because we felt bad that we were holding the table. Yes, they had people waiting by the door. Plus, I was ready to go like 30 minutes ago. To be clear, the waiters were very nice but I think each waiter should be assigned to a section or their own tables when it's a full house so some customers are not neglected...

Our family of 7 dined here for a special Birthday dinner last night 🥳🍰 This Japanese restaurant was highly recommended and had great reviews 👌 We were all pleasantly surprised by the VIP treatment by Yoshi, our nice server and the staff's friendly smiles and attentiveness to us!!! We totally enjoyed our 6 Bento Boxes -- Salmon, Sesame chicken, and Teriyaki chicken. The grilled Salmon was tender and juicy. . .chicken was flavorful indeed! We selected Tempura or California rolls that are included -- very good 😋 We also ordered Suki and Dragon sushi rolls -- so fresh and yummy! The service was impeccable. . .Brandon, the former owner also provided excellent service and chatted with us. The Sushi chefs were smiling and the entire staff is very joyful 😄 You must eat their decadent mocha cheesecake served with a delicate pirouette cookie -- "out of this world" specialty dessert!!! This is now our favorite Japanese restaurant. . .authentic freshly prepared food, combined with 5-STAR customer service and smiles 👏 Yoshi turned the TV on to TNT channel for us to watch the Lakers NBA game 🏀 The amazing staff made our family feel truly...