Kaisen Don — Restaurant in San Leandro

The first disappointment I encountered was the amount of food for the price. My wife and I ordered chicken teriyaki don, unaju don, and three sushi rolls, and the total (not including tip) was a little over $100. Note: We came to the restaurant at 1:57pm and didn't know that they close at 2:00pm on the Wednesday that we visited. They let us know that they were about to close, but gave us the option of ordering to-go. For the amount of money, it was more like paying for the atmosphere of the restaurant than the actual food (which we didn't even get to dine-in). If they were still going to commit to preparing last minute orders, then they should have also committed to preparing quality food.

Now, the second disappointment my wife and I experienced was the food. She ordered the chicken teriyaki don, and the green salad that was included was too warm and salty. There could have been a little more rice, but that is generally up to personal preference. The chicken was bland, and included in the don was a potato salad that looked "suspicious" (ie. she wasn't sure what was in it so she didn't eat it). I ordered the unaju don, and the unagi was overcooked or something because it was too mushy and bland. It definitely was not satisfactory, and I had to spend a lot of time nursing this dish to finish it because it was not that good. My wife liked the sushi that we ordered (dragon roll, estudillo roll, and orchard roll), but I thought it was meh. Most of them fell apart, and I have had more satisfactory sushi rolls elsewhere.

My wife says that she would be willing to give this place another try because maybe we came at a time where they were getting ready to close and so the quality was not all that good. I, on the other hand, would not visit this place again for the price and the amount of food. I wouldn't mind dropping $100+ for quality food/food experience, but this place...

Location is tucked into a hidden street near the dealerships and Marina outlets. Small, yet private parking lot which I feel like is rare to find in this area! The restaurant was beautiful, and I'm upset that I wasn't able to take any pictures while I was inside. Most tables from what I saw were for two seats but I saw atleast one semi-private tatami-style (I believe that what it's called) group seating area which I thought was cool! My sister got the shoyu ramen (typically isn't available during lunchtime when we went, but our host made an exception for us since my sister has ordered it prior and enjoyed it!!), I got the Combo A, and we shared edamame, fruit sake flight, and tempura roll. Everything was so delicious! Fish was fresh, rice was cooked perfectly, and tempura was crunchy. I believe l've doordashed from this place before, but I'm lucky to have finally visited in person. I wasn't able to get the name of our server, but the lady with the short pink hair gave my sister and I amazing service! Periodically checked in on us making sure we had enough water and making sure everything was tasting good. The lovely service we received was the main thing that motivated me to leave this review. My sister and I visited around 2pm on a Saturday which is typically prime lunchtime, but the restaurant was practically empty apart from three other groups that were in and out during the time we were there. I truly hope this isn't the normal, because this place deserves as much love as I'm giving it! I recently came back from a month-long trip to Japan, and this experience brought me right back to it. The quality of this place was on-par to what I ate back in Tokyo and Osaka. For sure my favorite place l've tried in the east bay, and possibly even the entire bay area. I will for sure...

I love their interior! They have some traditional-looking elevated wooden bench seats, but the server wouldn't seat us there, even though there were plenty of open spots. :(

Different servers kept checking back with us to order, which made us feel a little rushed.

We purchased the Groupon online, which can be used for rolls of any kind- "special rolls", "rolls", and "hand rolls" on their menu, only. We ordered 3 different rolls- the Lion King, the Davis, and the Sunset. Also, note that tea isn't complimentary here!

The rolls tasted okay- the Davis was actually my favorite, which came as a surprise because it's made the most simply (fish, rice, avocado). Their fish tasted fresh and was yummy. However, the flavor in the Lion King and Sunset rolls are really lacking compared to other establishments. Also (and this is the MAIN takeaway from my review!), their rolls are TINY!!! Easily 50% the volume of other places in the Bay. 3 rolls will usually fill me and my husband right up, but both of us were still quite hungry after these 3 here, and went elsewhere to grab some tacos after leaving!

Additionally, the moment we took our last bite of sushi off the tray, the server came right over and asked to take everything away. We were still chewing and had to wait a minute to respond! This was really inconsiderate and didn't help our impression of being rushed out of there.

The price was okay with the Groupon, but we would never come back otherwise due to the abysmal...