HandoSake Sushi — Restaurant in Salt Lake City

DON’T ORDER THE HANDROLLS, BUT…. the sashmi and nigiri are delicious! Went here on a whim because we were headed to a show at the Eccles and it was close, but we will definitely go back and I could see it becoming tradition! Was excited to try the food the second we walked in because of the beautiful, clean, modern and elegant space! The Interior design was stunning! Lots of black stone, cool tone lighting with a gigantic water feature almost the whole width of the restaurant, with the logo on the stone back. Not surprisingly the huge sushi bar was the largest seating area in the place and was a really cool feng shui element. This would be a great place for an upscale date night or an impressive business lunch. The staff was super nice and helpful but also down to earth and not snobby. Every interaction was solid. The sushi chef was super friendly and welcoming! The salad dressing was so fresh it almost like I was eating a fresh orange with freshly grated ginger too! I have no idea how they made that dressing but it blew my mind for the freshness factor. The tempura rock shrimp was SO GOOD with tiny fine threads of crispy green onions sprinkled on top. I want to eat those onions with everything! We got the shitake mushroom, salmon and crab hand rolls and they were good! A little hard to eat honestly because of the seaweed wrapper but that's probably my fault because I don't know the proper Japanese way of eating them. The fillings all squeezed out! If you want an easier to eat option get the maki rolls. Really my only complaint here is that it’s called a hand roll sushi restaurant, but the hand rolls were my least favorite thing. I think the chopped up tuna and salmon for the hand rolls is pre-prepared which isn’t the best also. The sablefish onigiri and blue fin sashimi were mind blowing good! They were by far the best thing I ate! the chef was kind enough to recommend the freshest fish they had that day which is what I ordered and it was incredible! LIKE EATING BUTTER! This the freshest onigiri and sashimi I have had in Utah. Better than Takashi by a long shot! I try to only eat raw fish in places near the ocean but this was SO fresh! I was super happy at how fresh it was. This restaurant was meticulously clean, neat, orderly and so well run. So so impressed and can't...

First, the online menu thru open table is not the menu in the restaurant. The menu that clicks thru the open table app when doing the reservation is apparently take out only and not representative of what they offer in the actual restaurant. In that menu there was a listing of regular sushi rolls in addition to hand rolls. They only serve 4 inch long hand rolls at a bar seating set up.

The rolls themselves were very good but the way they fulfill orders is very inefficient. It took us 1.5 hrs to receive 6 completed hand rolls. They seem to make one from each order at a time rather than completing one full order. Also, rolls, one by one, would go on one sushi chefs screen and then another roll from your order would alternately go on the OTHER sushi chefs screen and it bounces back and forth that way. So, you get one hand roll, wait 15-20 min for the next one and so on. When we arrived at 6 pm, there was almost no one there. We placed our order and the placed filled up by 6:30/6:45. People who came after us one by one were getting their rolls before we even got our second roll. When I spoke to the server about our rolls and how long it would take for us to get the rest, she simply answered that they were busy. I responded that we had put in our order before most of the people had come. She simply replied: I’m sorry for the wait and walked away.

Also, I had wanted to take some to go home to my daughter and they would not let me because they said they did not do take out after 5 pm. So I went around that and ordered 2 extra rolls, didn’t eat them and asked for a container to take them home.

It was a very expensive night for very little food and long waits between rolls.

7 hand rolls, 2 glasses of wine, soup and edamame = $113

The food was excellent. The implementation of the concept...

A constructive review for management (hope it helps):

The atmosphere was okay. The bar is cool. The front door opens up to the dining room, and on a cold night it was very cold every time the door was opened. Probably should dim the lights to create a more intimate atmosphere. Service was okay. The waiter wasn’t able to tell me which nigiri were which when we were served. Also way oversold some very basic sushi fishes. Seemed like there were 20 too many employees working, just too many people standing around. The fish selection is poor. Especially for a place that is trying hard to be higher-end. Oversold Aji and Madai as super premium. Maybe it’ll fool someone who doesn’t regularly eat sushi. The dishes took way too long to make and didn’t come out together. So half the table waited for 15 mins with raw fish on the table while the rest came. The nigiri took easily 20 minutes to come out, apparently because they were training staff? On a Saturday night? Really? I’m not paying $6 / nigiri to have someone in training make it. Reflected in the quality. Loose rice, fish was too thick. The Aji sashimi I got was borderline frozen, and wasn’t cut all the way through. Very bad. The hand rolls honestly weren’t terrible but the rest of the experience was just so shotty that they couldn’t save the night.

Overall trying to be a high-end sushi spot with simple menu (love the concept), but execution is 0/10. Where are the basic fundamentals? Giving it 1 starts because the bar design is cool and the hand rolls...