Sakura Japanese Restaurant — Restaurant in Winchester

Fresh fish doesn't tolerate much exposure, so Chinese/Sizzler-style buffet doesn't make sense for all-you-can-eat sushi, although some still try. So Sakura model is not unreasonable - order a variety of items from the long list, then add more, as you go, one at a time (or more, if you know your limits). The result is a very good value, although not uniformly so. Apps, soups & sides are part of the sushi menu, so ordering is easy. Non-sushi items are served first, followed by a single giant platter with the entire sushi order on it. I ordered mostly single pieces for variety, a few pieces of sashimi, a couple of maki rolls, 2 hand rolls, miso soup, "Korean" tofu app, edamame. Having been here previously, we skipped the noodles & Chinese-sounding dishes but got an order of bulgogi & teriyaki beef, not knowing what to expect, and 1 seaweed salad each. The seaweed wasn't high grade, mostly chewy & a bit saucy. But that's minor quibble. The fact that it came first suggests the prefab variety, which accounts for the texture. The tofu came next. It was unappealing. It was 4 glistening 3-cm cubes of soft tofu covered by an odd thin hot sauce dressing with neither Korean nor Japanese flavor. Like other dishes, it lacked garnish or texture-inducing ingredients. Although inoffensive, it's not something I would order again (and I don't believe agedashi dofu is an option). Edamame was perfectly cooked but was dashed with fine sea salt rather than flakes, which resulted in very uneven saltiness. Last before sushi arrived the meat dishes. Both were shocking, but not because of flavors. Bulgogi contained very little meat, mostly presenting stir-fried zucchini, carrots & onions in "bulgogi" sauce - a nice serving of cooked veg but not "bulgogi". No skewers on the teriyaki - it was a single 12 oz slab of skirt steak, sliced into 1/2" pieces. Despite the appearance, it was one of the best dishes, competently cooked. Miso never showed up until I ordered it again at the end of the meal. Noodle dishes are similar to "bulgogi" but overcooked. Sushi was a study in contrasts. Nigiri can range in size but is usually a finger-thick wad of rice covered with similarly sized uniform slice of fish (or similar). Here, the rice ball was rather large for the cover. Tako, otoro, ebi and hamachi are each limited to one piece per person, although the chef makes allowances. Each of these was well cut and shaped, although the shrimp was ebi & not amaebi, as listed. They were indeed the best of the selection. Other nigiri was somewhat misshapen and fish wasn't firmly placed on the rice, so it would always fall off when dipping - and dipping was necessary because no nigiri contained additional flavoring (e.g., wasabi "glue"), with one exception - spicy tuna, which was a 2" sphere covered in chopped orange paste, raw tuna with mixed with the same odd hot sauce. Saba was barely pickled, if at all. Sashimi was sloppy & uneven, presented unadorned - not a shred of garnish on the entire plate, not even a scallion. Maki was the saving grace of the platter. There are 3 categories here - single-ingredient & tempura-based, as well as California/futomaki type. The first 2 are well rolled, with tempura combos presenting a nice combination of flavors & textures. The ones with surimi are meh. Hand rolls were disappointing. The one with softshell crab was nice, but the salmon-skin one was inedibly chewy & greasy. Several nigiri rolls were never served - not really an issue as they can be reordered freely, but it does point to service issues. Admittedly, my order was likely the largest that day, but it shouldn't make any difference. Bottom line: well worth the price, decent sushi, but avoid small plates & apps - except teriyaki & edamame - and hand rolls. Keep an eye on the list. Leave some room for green-tea...

The absolute worst Japanese/sushi restaurant we have ever been to. Looks like a run down hole in the wall as soon as you walk in. Sometimes these turn out to be the best places which we were hopeful for. It was quite busy when we arrived. That too gave us hope.

Hard to complain too much about the service. One poor lady was running the whole restaurant. Not another server to be found. Seemed quite unfair to her and certainly for us customers. It took an hour to get our main courses. Hot apps were cold and the $14 spicy tempura sushi roll we ordered as an app was not a full roll. Four tiny pieces that were not at all spicy. However, they were a soggy mess. I had to wait about 10-15 minutes longer for my main course than the rest of my family. Mine was sushi and theirs were cooked meals. Part of my order was missing . I had to wait even longer for them to prepare that. I wasn’t given soy sauce or the usual small dish given for dipping the sushi. When I asked for it the server gave me a tiny plastic to go condiment container. Apparently she ran out of the dishes other diners seemed to be using. It was not big enough to dip the sushi in so I used the app plate.

Our first impression was correct…..this is a hole in the wall. Will be happy tomorrow if none of us wake up with a...

Despite all the negative reviews, I saw a bargain of a groupon and decided to give this place a try. Unfortunately, I regret that decision now, but hey, live and learn. My husband and I dropped by for lunch on a Friday around noon. The only positive I can say is that the parking lot is convenient. We ordered vegetable tempura and coconut shrimp to start. Both items were fried in the same batter. The coconut shrimp had zero coconut, zero, none. The sushi was edible, that's all can say. Oh, and it didn't give us food poisoning, positive number 2, I guess. We had ordered an avocado salad with ginger dressing. It never came. We asked our server, to which she replied, "oh, you still want that". Upon arrival, I was immediately disgusted with this salad on sight. It was a putrid mound of yellowed iceberg lettuce shreds, drowned in an avocado and mayo dressing. Not even a hint of ginger of any kind. I must confess that I hate mayo and this salad was all about yellow lettuce in a bland white/green creamy dressing. Then she brought our check. All the prices seemed off. I asked the server, she says,"you ordered from an old menu". What?!?! That's not even legal! And I'm not talking a few cents here and there. That gross salad for instance, labeled at $3.99, charged us 6.99! We will...