Sushi Totoro — Restaurant in Santa Cruz

Bummed because I really wanted the new ownership to succeed here being so close to home. I went to email them this instead of posting publicly but they had no contact page and I didn’t want to call to mess up that sweet server’s night so close to close… so here we are.

I picked up a miso soup, gyoza, spicy tuna roll, and their Pink Dragon roll for my gf and I. Pretty quick - in and out. Server and staff were all kind and said hi and bye. Easy peasy.

But as far as the food goes….:

Honestly, bar-none, the worst sushi I’ve had in Santa Cruz - which is saying a lot because Santa Cruz restaurants are pretty bad in general, sushi not excepted. The fish did not taste fresh at all. The rice was slimy and overcooked. They weren’t done with my order when I got there and I live less than a five minute walk away, so it wasn’t like it was sitting there getting gross on the counter or in a delivery car or something.

I could honestly barely get mine down. My girlfriend didn’t finish hers. Her gyoza was all dried out but “fine”… even the miso soup tasted and smelled bad which is like…. How, even? The fact that the specialty Pink Dragon roll was $18 for something I’ve seen upstaged at all-you-can-eat Chinese Buffets was pretty egregious. I would’ve gotten more satisfaction from lighting a fifty dollar bill on fire than I did spending it here. Expensive, and poor quality. Probably the worst combination of things in a restaurant, right?

Akira remains the only passable sushi restaurant in Santa Cruz.

Alright now I gotta go review three of my favorite spots in the area because I feel ick being an internet Karen of this caliber… But the people gotta know. ¯(ツ)/¯ Eating out is so expensive these days I do it so seldomly anymore… very disappointed to have cashed that in at Totoro tonight. If you’re usually budget conscious and trying to treat yourself like we were -...

NEW OWNERSHIP BEWARE!!! LOSS OF QUALITY AND CHARM!!! No longer the Totoro we all know and love.

They did 3/5 rolls incorrectly for my pickup order. My “order” vs what I got:

1. “spicy tuna maki roll w/cucumber” - spicy tuna roll w/cucumber (not maki roll, it was a regular roll) 2)“spicy salmon roll with avocado, add spicy mayo on top” - correct. Kind of unique because I have never seen spicy salmon chopped up like spicy tuna… I am somewhat indifferent to that. Though, one of my favorite salmon rolls ever! 3)“cucumber maki roll” - cucumber hand roll 4)“cabrillo roll” - cabrilla roll 5)”rainbow roll no eel” - rainbow roll WITH eel

The rolls tasted good, even if they were wrong.

New ownership sucked the life out of the place like a sushi vampire. No decorative Polaroid pictures plastered on the wall. As far as when I was in there, there were not the typical evening fun colorful lights (unconfirmed). Not really sure about this, but it looks like they changed out their cute shirts that had the Totoro doodle logo. Pro, on the walls there are still cute chalk drawings/writing about certain rolls. I am sure that the new owners will bring more character as they get moved in.

My three last thoughts are that… -there was a fish bone too. Ah! -the spicy tuna is definitely spicy, nice job, close to too spicy. If you don’t like that, take note. -And that the spicy mayo...

WARNING: POOR NEW MANAGEMENT!

Wow, to say I'm heartbroken would be an understatement. On my other account, around a year ago, I had given a five star review praising this place. For the last three years Sushi Totoro has been the ONLY place I will give business to in regards to sushi or seafood. I recommended it to friends in the area, people coming in to visit, and even would praise it to folks who have never been to Santa Cruz as a must-stop location. Management has changed this completely for me. I ordered two California rolls with unagi sauce, spicy mayo, and masago, an order I've gotten every time for a couple years now, two orders of salmon nigiri and one order of tuna nigiri. The look was immediately off. The rice looked less soft, the masago was a COMPLETELY different color and there was very little unagi sauce on it. I ate it anyway, and was just disappointed. The rice had a sort of watery flavor and it was so bland compared to the savory taste I've become addicted to for the last few years, and the salmon nigiri had a BONE in it! I've never even heard of sushi having bones in it, and I've been to some dodgy restaurants. My favorite restaurant in Santa Cruz, who'd come to know my family members' names due to how loyal we've been, has just changed and I just cannot express my disappointment...