Kaisen Kaiten — Restaurant in Santa Ana

I don't know how people think this place is worth the wait and money. I went there for the 1st time and it was the last time. Probably one of the worst tasting sushi I've tasted for dine in restaurants.

Service: walked in and no one told me what to do. I saw people waiting with numbers so I went to the counter and had to ask for it which is not a problem. After waiting 30 min, I was wondering how people who came after me were sitting. I was waiting right next to the counter. They claimed they yelled out my number several times which is either lie or misunderstanding. Also no one explained who order works so I made a mistake and took about 20 min to get some food.

Revolving sushi: only thing on the belt is salmon and some mussels. You have to write your order, put it on the belt and wait. Not a revolving sushi place. Waitress only brought drink and ginger. I'm thinking why have waitresses. Put everything on the belt.

Food: quality was worse than the prepackaged sushi plates at American grocery stores. In fact in Alberston and Bristol Meyers have way better sushi than this place. Raw shrimps were not thawed properly and looked shriveled. Not tangle at all but fishy. Unagi came naked without brown sauce and very fishy taste. Infact some sushi had so much onions they should've been called onion-Don. Also they cramed 8 sushies on one tiny place, different fish pieces touching and onions all over. More onion and green onion means low quality and not so fresh meats. What variety? Seemed same to me with other normal sushi joints. I was never told about today's special. There was none.

Only spent $40 between 2 of us with drink because I couldn't continue any more. Kura sushi is much better even though they are franchises and not much variety.

There are so many better place to eat sushi nearby Tustin, Costa Mesa or Santa Ana. Even in Irvine.

Try other clean, well lit, highly recommended sushi places and those regulars here will see...

I have never given one star before but this place is one star only thanks to their chefs. I waited for two hours before even going in. Unless you are only going by yourself or with one friend on weekend night be prepared to wait at least 2hrs. This old lady who seems to be the one making spaces for everyone was really bad with running a store. She was letting people who are party of one or two first. later I notice people who came hour later than me was going in before me. I asked atleast four times when my party will be able to go in and only thing she said was "im sorry" smiling, she didn't look like she was comfortable speaking in english. first I was ok since the place was crowded. but after waiting for two hours I was done with her, even her smile or her apology didn't seem like real. So I told her that we want our name erased and I'm leaving. soon as I told her that she grabed my arm and said that the table was ready. 5mins before she said there is no space and I needed to wait and soon as I said Im leaving the table is magically ready. The service after was even worse. The lady threw a spoon at us when we asked for extra spoon cause only brought one even though clearly there are three people. The place is not organized with what employee should be doing. This girl who helped us, can't remeber her name well, she looked like the one who should be in charge and be a manager. Every mistake the lady makes the girl has to go back and fix everything. The food was very good but I take customer service as a big part of stores. If I ever want I go back I'm not comming back on the days when she...

UPDATE 12/18/2022 - The food is still great, and reasonably priced (which is hard to find anywhere), BUT..... do yourself a favor, and do a take-out. The dine-in experience is very disappointing. I had to wait close to 20 minutes for a space at the sushi bar for two people - and this was 2:45pm on a Thursday. There are two main reasons for this, from my observations: 1. The restaurant has limited seating to begin with. Don''t go expecting to sit right down, unless you are a party of one, which will help your chances. 2. The food took WAY too long to arrive, so people were taking up precious dining space basically not eating, and waiting for their food. I ordered 6 hand rolls, that took 20 minutes to reach us. Five minutes after we ordered the hand rolls, we ordered a candy roll (one of my favorites). After waiting another 20 minutes, Four new diners sat next to us, and we still hadn't received our candy roll. Within 10 more minutes, all four of those diners received two plates of food each. Our roll still hadn't arrived. After luckily grabbing a server, and informing her of this, she checked with the chef. She came back and said "he is making your roll now". Unacceptable. We overheard that they were down one chef, but there is no excuse for serving others who came later than us. I told the server to cancel the roll, and get us the check. No apology at all for the inconvenience. That's bad business. Again, I understand when you are short on employees. If you decide to dine-in, you better go with a lot of patience and a lot of time...