Katana Sushi & Sake — Restaurant in Sunnyvale

I'm one of those cats who spent years sitting at great sushi bars taking extremely detailed notes (and photos of the result) then practiced making it at home. Wanna know a secret? You can learn to make way better sushi at home because even a popular sushi restaurant would go bankrupt if they used the amounts of high end ingredients (and obsession w/detail) that you can use at home, such making a Rainbow Roll with a perfectly overlapped 12-slice topper that includes Toro, and a real lump crab center (and perfect Koshihikari rice !). Anyway....

We like Katana because it has a fun atmosphere with fantastic service and owner and staff are wonderful, cheerful people who love making customers happy. We also like they have some non-traditional menu items you wouldn't find at a more traditional Japanese sushi restaurant.

With all those positives, I overlook that their sushi is merely good, Americanized sushi and so is not finely crafted traditional Japanese style sushi. However, their care in presentation of sushi platters is impressive, even if the sushi itself is like 3.5 stars on quality and...

Mind blowing! That's the word to start off with. Our order consisted of Chicken yaki, Katana special (both these were served with salad and miso soup), Explosion roll and Godzilla roll. The katana special consisted of 5 pieces of nagiri, 5 pieces of sashimi along with the the Ultra california roll. The sashimi was fresh and were huge in size; more than enough for a mouthful. Same goes with the nagiri and the rolls. The noodles had awesome wok-hay! FUIYOH! The soup quantity was more than at other places I've had sushi before (outside CA) and was yummy. We loved the fact that in spite of some ingredients being shared across the rolls we ordered each one had a distinct taste. Getting the feeling of a full tummy at a sushi place is a rare feeling for us Indians and trust me we were full! I also want to point out the menus on the internet for this place are not accurate. There's more to it! Ambience: We went here for late lunch. It wasn't too crowded. Quiet. They have sanitizers on each table! Quantity: Very generous Parking:...

I am super sad to leave my first ever bad review on a sushi place even though sushi is my favorite food.

Parking: The parking was busy.

Customer Service: Not all the staff was helpful, and they don't even answer their phone.

Best Part: The fried green tea ice cream was good, their lemonade is sweet and I love sweet stuff.

Worst Part: The fish was not all fresh, and most of the rolls we order add this cleaning spray to it. Because of it, one of my family members are taking a super long break from eating fish, and the staff are not noticing it!!

Tips/Recommendations: Satsuma Sushi has fresh sushi and not far from here, it is in Mountain View. Just exit this parking lot and continue taking El Camino Real.

Return: Probably not. There are other places with fresh fish around here. 2 star review...