Bamboo Sushi — Restaurant in San Ramon

We ate at Bamboo Sushi last weekend, located on the second floor of City Center Mall in San Ramon. You will not miss it as it’s literally a few steps from the elevator and you can see their sign from the ground.

The ambiance is nice, specially if you sit by the glass wall. As for the food, it was decent, but not quite what I expected for the price. Not a bad spot, but I was hoping for a bit more in terms of quality.

My hubby wanted to order the Tomodachi and since it’s our first time at the resto and have not seen the fish quality, we ended up ordering a poke and three of the signature rolls: The Unicorn, Rainbow and Bamboo Dragon and a few IPAs for drinks.

The Tuna Poke was served on top of some cucumber and salad in a bowl and with some Taro chips on the side. I am not sure if I’m supposed to eat them separately or like chip and salsa style so I tried both ways. The taro chips was sliced thinly and very crispy so that was perfect. I didn’t find the savory umami taste from the Tuna, which is supposed to be common on Poke. It could use a little less of the soy sauce dressing, as it covered my salad and spilling on the sides, but didn’t make an impact on the Tuna’s taste even when I tried to mix it. The tuna’s size was big so it turned out to be too heavy to be a topping or as a dip, specially if you mix it with the cucumber and salad. Personally, I feel like I was served with Tuna Salad in soy sauce.

The rolls tasted regular. The fish toppings on the Rainbow Roll were a little too soft, and some of the meat didn’t hold together well, which affected the overall texture. The colors seem to be pale and not vibrant, like that of the sashimi you buy from a fastfood or food trucks. Although the Tuna from the Dragon Roll wasn’t spicy enough, i appreciate the crispy texture. It would have looked appetizing though if the spicy tuna was delicately added at the end of both sides of the roll, for they look like a last minute blob, with no consideration on Japanese food art.

I love cilantro but I think the Unicorn had too much of it as that was the only flavor I remembered about this roll. I was expecting a crunchy shrimp tempura, but it was too wet on one side that the texture doesn’t seem right.

The presentation could use some improvement. The rice was a bit loose and tended to fall apart, and the overall plating wasn’t as neat as expected from a Japanese restaurant, with rice crumbs on my two plates. Although I waited for the food for a while, I feel like all the food were rushedly made and the quality got sacrificed.

‘Will I give this place another chance? Maybe, and only because the place was crowded when we ate here so I’ll try it when it’s...

An entirely regrettable experience.

The food is very, very, very overpriced. $21 for 4 pieces of salmon sashimi? I wouldn't mind the price if the quality was there. But the salmon was fresh-ish, and not cut properly. One sashimi piece was mangled. This isn't appropriate for the price. An actual sushi chef sent a shredded piece of sashimi out? Doubt.

The chicken karaage was mostly batter; it was difficult to find any chicken in it. The waitress also corrected me when I ordered it. I'm sorry for being an Irish-American who doesn't know fluent Japanese, but being corrected by another white person, and then being served pieces of batter, is laughable. I've never felt corrected when I order chicken karaage from a Japanese-speaker. They didn't pronounce it correctly either; rolling the 'r' isn't Japanese. Weirdly rude. I don't think it was intentional or mean-spirited; I think the servers are super young, and don't have the experience or training to understand good customer service. This is fine in a lot of jobs, but not where you're charging this much. High prices are for both the quality of the food and the skill of the servers.

The Friday the 13th Roll, which is supposedly a salmon roll, has a core of salmon that seemed to be processed in a blender. and mixed with something that tasted like truffle oil. It's absolutely disgusting, and not how the item is represented on the menu. I've never ordered a salmon roll that has the consistency of the crab in a California roll. Covering up the taste of salmon with overpowering oil and spice, along with blending it up, makes me suspicious of the quality and freshness.

I ordered the chicken karaage, the friday the 13th roll, and salmon sashimi. My friend ordered edamame, a cocktail and a roll. The total was over $100. Absurd. A restaurant where I need to scan a QR code to even see the menu is not a restaurant with an ambiance to charge that much. It's a pretentious food truck.

This place is not good, they're trying to do weird stuff with sushi, the servers don't have experience and come off as rude, and the prices are ludicrous. I'm sorry I went there, and I won't be back. The c casa, curry up, mendocino, delarosa...

I hesitated in trying this place for a while since I wasn’t sure how it would turn out. Well, with a celebration dinner here, I finally got to try it. Note that I did not pay for this dinner so I can’t comment on the prices or its value aspect.

I arrived early so I checked out the cocktail menu. They had several interesting drinks that I wanted to try, but being a whiskey guy, I had to order the Cabin Fever. It had both Japanese whiskey and Bourbon. Hard to say no to that :P I remember the bourbon stood out a bit more since Japanese whiskey’s usually smooth. A friend and I were keen on trying their sake. Our server (darn, I didn’t get her name) was very knowledgeable in sake and she described each one. My friend and I ended up splitting all 3 sakes. The Happy Owl tasted generic and it was smooth so almost anyone would like it. The Olive was very light, but crisp. Our server was right that if you liked white wine, you’d probably like this sake. It was so refreshing that I would sip on it first even before consuming the appetizers. The Mushroom Bouquet was our favorite as it packed the most flavor and had a complexity that the other 2 sakes could not compete.

This was buffet style so we had to get our own food. The appetizers were good, but especially the cauliflower, I thought it was some sort of meat initially. The chicken karaage did not taste as dry as it looked so that was a plus. There was a lot of sushi rolls that we had. I did enjoy them, but I didn’t pay much attention. Since I didn’t order, I am not quite sure about their names. But I didn’t care at that time either as the alcohol had kicked in. I also ordered an Almanac Love Hazy IPA. Our server said she doesn’t like IPA, but she’d drink this one. It sure was hazy and very easy to drink. This was my palate cleanser at the end of the meal.

I would like to come back and focus more on the meal and food items...