Sushi Para M — Restaurant in West Chicago Township

I went here for the first time on Labor Day's dinner to enjoy the last day of a long weekend. The restaurant was quite busy with only two table left. There were three servers plus three sushi chefs. The reason we went here is it has all-you-can-eat sushi dinner with $19.99. I could not say if it is a reasonable price or bit pricey until the first bite. So that, let's see.

My first impression when I looked at the menu was it has quite a lot of dishes to try. So that, I started with Miso soup, house salad, kai salad, fried scallop, and grilled squid. I would never order shumai or gyoza or spring roll as most of the restaurant serve their kinds of frozen ones that people can get from any oriental market. In fact, Japanese has Miso soup as the last one after all the dishes, but the weather of Chicago is too pair with a bowl of hot soup. The soup is similar to many other sushi restaurant, nothing special. House salad is disappointed as I thought it should be ginger dressing but it turned out plain less salty soy sauce. I would not recommend this. Kai salad and fried scallop are average, not good not bad. The salad could be better if they put more of the seaweed in it. My friend would give a thumb up for grilled squid, the only thing in the appetizer that deserves a try.

As I mentioned before, the restaurant was busy when we first came at 7:00. Therefore, we had to wait for around twenty minutes between the appetizers and the main dishes. I am certain of this sushi restaurant that it serves WORST SUSHI WE HAVE EVER HAD. Tuna is bland, hard, dry, and has bad cuts. Salmon has good oily and elastic texture with a bright color, though. But the most disappointed thing is RICE, which is immensely important and the only thing required for it to be true sushi. The restaurant serves very dried, hard, and flavorless rice which does not contain any smell of rice vinegar. Totally, absolutely, exactly no vinegar in the rice. I doubt if they served the newly-cooked rice for the day or if they forgot to mix rice with vinegar. I could not find any sweet taste in the rice. Totally failed. We gave them a second chance as we ordered salmon sushi after 45 minutes in hope that we could get a new sushi rice. The result is the same. Besides, the chefs made sushi with lots of rice, which does not bring a balance taste as we just feel the rice and a weakness taste of seafood. I counted there were two layers of rice in the roll. For the sushi, the rice is overload for one's mouth.

Last but not least, there is no dessert including. No ice cream, no fruit, no fried donut. I have never been in any all-you-can-eat sushi restaurant before without having one or two scoops of ice cream for dessert. Pretty weird to me. I am not sure if they have candies on the front desk. But I kept the fishy taste in my mouth all the way home. I have no complain about the service as I understand that this was a busy night for the servers.

All in all, I would not recommend this sushi restaurant for any sushi lover as the sushi quality is too bad. With the same price range, I knew there is at least one better sushi...

This is my favorite Sushi Para location by far! When I feel the gluttonous need to devour my weight in nigiri and maki rolls, this is the place I come to.

The all-u-can-eat special is a great deal at $18.99 and the sushi has always been super fresh and delicious. AND...did I mention it's BYOB?! The wait has never been over 10 minutes and the service is excellent! Although sometimes it can take a while for the sushi to be made, I always get my money's worth one way or another.

I usually come with a group of people and get a enough sushi to fill a huge sushi boat and then a few more plates, which we destroy with our amazing eating abilities. We always start with a large array of appetizers, including tempura, miso soup, shumai, gyoza, and yaki tori. By the time we finish, the sushi is here! Make sure you ask for spicy mayo too - it's only 50 cents extra and it makes the sushi tastes that much better! Some of the rolls that we always get are volcano, spider, shrimp tempura, pop up, and spicy tuna rolls. The masago, shrimp, tomago, and tofu skin nigiri are great as well! Here's a tip: instead of each person ordering separately, I suggesting ordering together on one sheet, this way, you can get a huge sushi boat filled with sushi! Great presentation!

This location gets packed fast so make sure you get here early to avoid the crowds. There is plenty of street parking in the area (2 hours should be plenty of time).

sushi + booze + awesome friends/family...

I'm sorry I can't give them 5 stars, but I'll tell you why.

*I LOVE gyoza and shumai, and will often order than while awaiting my sushi goodness...yet they aren't better than what I can get from the frozen food section in the grocery store.

*On more than one occasion, the wait staff has neglected to give us plates, and we've had to eat our sushi off of the main plate the meal comes on. Not terrible when eating amongst friends, but still awkward when sharing a meal.

*Sushi that falls apart when you try to pick it up. Again, if I had my own plate, I wouldn't care that much...but leads to awkwardness when you can't get the piece off the main plate without making a mess :(

*Sushi that is so big that it's hard to fit in your mouth. I don't even mean the 5 piece rolls, which I already know are huge. But oftentimes even the basic rolls...because they use so much rice as filler!! I get why they're doing it...but it detracts from my enjoyment.

*There are a few rolls on the menu that are named differently, and claim there are different ingredients, but taste (and look) EXACTLY the same.

With that said, I can't wait...