Akadai Sushi
Category: Sushi Bars [Edit]
40645 Fremont BlvdSte 8
(between Clough Ave & James Ave)
Fremont, CA 94538 (510) 683-3800
- Price Range: $$
- Accepts Credit Cards: Yes
- Parking: Private Lot
- Attire: Casual
- Good for Groups: Yes
- Good for Kids: Yes
- Takes Reservations: No
- Delivers: No
- Take-out: Yes
- Waiter Service: Yes
- Wheelchair Accessible: Yes
- Outdoor Seating: No
- Good for: Lunch, Dinner
- Alcohol: Beer & Wine Only
43 reviews
Fremont, CA
"The best place to eat sushi. Sorry I don't eat anything that isn't cooked, but they make the best darn Tempura out there. The woman at the…" read more »
28 Reviews for Akadai Sushi
After reading reviews about this place, hubby and I decided to finally to give it a try. Service was okey. The woman who also was the waitress/cashier/hostess was friendly and accommodating.Menu was very informative because every item has pictures. Place was decorated simply and clean. I had the My Ex roll while my husband had fried octopus tentacles and mixed tempura. Prices are comparable to other sushi places in the area, ranging from 6.95 to 10+ depending on the roll. Portioning was disappointing. My husband octopus tentacles have 10 small fried tentacles and we paid close to $5 for one order. The tempura was okey but for some reason bland even with the sauce that comes with it. My roll was smaller in comparison to other rolls I've had in other sushi places. I still prefer Koi Sushi Boat in Decoto Road, Union City.
I love Akadai! Absolutely awesome selection of sushi, and the owners are awesome. The fish is extremely fresh, you can see and taste it.
I saw some of the negative reviews, complaining that the service isn't good - the reason is they lost a chef and haven't been able to replace him yet i'm guessing (i forget the reason).
People also complained about how it's a picture overload - honestly, with all the different ways to name sushi rolls, it would be annoying to order without the pictures.
The location is pretty hidden, but it doesn't matter because they have locals who keep it busy every day- they know most people by name. It is truly addicting, and the prices are beyond reasonable.
If you're in fremont looking for great food and a great experience, definitely try Akadai.
Your typical, Korean-owned Japanese restaurant. Located in a little strip mall in the Irvington area.
PICTURES. There are a lot of these everywhere. In fact, there is a picture for literally every single item of the menu. It almost causes a visual overload.
I only got to try the baked/deep fried rolls: Mama Mia, Fire Ball and Bikini. Funky names, huh? Funky names, big rolls and crazy sauces is what Americans like most nowadays. The scallop on the Mama Mia roll was putrid and not fresh at all. The Fire Ball tasted the best but it was overly deep-fried and fell apart once it got to our table. The Bikini was normal and just a different version of Lion King where salmon tops a California roll.
Service was prompt. Our lady came by twice even before we were even ready to order. At the end of our meal, we got the 10-second Korean melon gum with our check. You should probably pay up front since she can get quite busy being the only server there.
Overall, everything was aesthetically pleasing to the eye but a little harsh on the tongue.
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My friend Carol T, and I come here on occasion to catch-up and banter on and on with our inappropriate lunch/dinner talk. (Toilet humor, relationships, getting laid, bad sex/good sex, potent man juice, shit talking, getting drunk, getting laid while drunk, and buttdrags) All loud, obnoxious, and rude; like we are the only patrons in this place and own the joint! But this is why we get along so well. =P But I digress.
This place definitely is in a old/ghetto-ish plaza, and the place could use a facelift but don't let the outside reflect the sushi-goodness awaiting you inside.
So far the best roll I've had there is the Lion King Roll. Try it! Will not disappoint. Also, we tried the Ichiban roll which was also delicious. I forget what else I've had there before but the place hasn't disappointed me yet. Sashimi + Warm Sake on a chilly night, I could go for any day of the week!
The only time I wouldn't go to Akadai is if Carol T. and I are there. You might over hear out bathroom humor and lose your appetite before you even order. =P jk.
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They have horrible service and the food was just as bad. We had to literally get our own plates, napkins, and utensils since the waitress was no where to be seen. Once we did get a chance to order our food, it took forever to come to us. Sushi doesn't take that long to make, but for some reason they were slow as molasses. It's a "dive" not worth checking out!
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I tried this place even though it is located in a very old shopping center....and BOOYAH Yelp comes through again! A ton of rolls to choose from, reasonable pricing, good service, and tasty fresh sushi. Can't wait to go back for more! Only knock was that they didn't serve any of those green beans or miso soup before the meal.
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Finally I got to try this place out and all I can say is UNBELIEVABLE!
I've been to a few Sushi restaurants before but have to say this one got the largest selection of rolls I've ever seen. It took me a while to decide on what I want. They have nice pictures of all the rolls they made on the menu so you'll know how they would look like, kinda help induce your appetite too. As for their price? CHEAP. 90% of their rolls are under $10 and we are not talking about small hand rolls here.
Between me and my friend we ordered the Highway roll, spicy tuna roll, spider roll, and one that knocked my socks off, the Dracula Killer roll! Let me make it clear, they are all good, but the Dracula Killer is outstanding!
What this Dracula roll is made of is tuna, with jalapeno and cream cheese. What an exquisite combination! the soft creamy texture of the cheese, the hot spicy tuna with the sensation of the jalapeno! Magic in my mouth! It melts, it burns, it sooth, it's sweet, it's pure magnificent.
I like the spider roll too, crunchy but soft and tastes of crab. Only that the spicy tuna roll is not as spicy as I like, but that's just me, I love Szechuan shuizhu (water boil) dishes and numbing hot pot.
Have not try their sashimi so can't comment on that. But if you're in the crave of rolls this place won't disappoint.
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yOoooo!
hey, i love love love love this restaurant.
I've been here countless times after my mom introduced me and like I went vegetarian about a year and a half ago and I still come here with my friends cause I love the staff and the food still. I just eat freakin vegetable udon, but it's all good.
Like straight up, the chefs are awesome, the waitresses are hella cool, and the absolute specialty at Akadai is their BAKED sushi.
So if you got friends who don't like raw fish or just haven't really ever tried sushi, the best way to phase them in isn't straight up sashami but BAKED sushi.
Like I went to Akadai way before the current chef/owner John bought the restaurant. It was another Korean family before them and the original family loved loved sushi and they came up with the most godly flagship roll of all...
THE LION KING ROLL!
So if you're a sushi fanatic, you're like sure, I've had one. It's aite.
Yea, lots of Korean owned sushi shops have run of the mill type stuff like that with the whole asian fusion movement, but yo, Chef John takes it to a whole new level cause he loves loves Quizno's baked subs & Italian food so when you hit up a lion king roll, it's just... godly.
It's like... if you've had at least a California roll, it's like that, except it's still in its big fat compact roll, sliced through, but still held together, not split up into individual rolls. On top of this are layered strips of salmon sashimi and ALL OVER THIS, is this white creamy sauce poured and practically drenched across it.
Where a lot of sushi shops differ is in the quality and taste of that sauce. With John, he essentially really plays the parmasean cheese heavy, mayo, onion powder, sugar, soy sauce, garlic powder, and hella other ingredients, the entire list is a dozen plus things and like yo...
The fish is marinated through and cooked. The sauce seeps into the rice and tempers the dry flavor of typical sticky vinegar rice for sushi. But the most important thing is the SUGAR in the sauce cause teh whole thing basically carmelizes and it becomes this golden sweet covering over the entire roll.
So when you bite into a chunk, you got a lil California roll in there, perfectly marianted salmon... and your mouth will be ablaze with the strangest flavors ever to touch your sushi palate.
You'll get major hints of Italian in there cause of the parmesean cheese and vinegar balance, the toasted goodness totally gets rid of the typical fishy taste that even the freshest fish still can have.
In a word, IT IS HEAVEN!!!!!
=D
I'd recommend a glass of plum wine and definitely a pot of their brown rice roasted green tea. It just..... mixes in the mouth PERFECTLY with the fish taste, the plum wine and all... Like it's hell to correctly pair the proper white & reds with straight up Italian food, I mean you can kinda hit it right, but to balance it perfectly with nuance and subtle touches... dude, the formula is simple for Japanese:
green tea + plum wine + fish
DOne.
In a word, a HIGHLY recommend Akadai sushi. I hella go there and will f0 life. =)
This is a great place for sushi. Its a little dive type place and with a very well mannered wait and cooking (sushi preparer) staff. Service we great. If the place is not too busy i do recommend that you sit at the bar. The food is good and hardy. Some of the items might seem over priced but you have to understand that this is fish...some of the items are not in season. I do recommend this or a good night of sushi and good for a group of 2-3 kids...It is a little gem that has seemed to keep patrons coming back with its good food and well rounded servers.
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The best sushi spot around hands down! Where do we begin? The owner, his wife and the staff are very friendly and courteous. The owner Jang prepares sushi at the bar and his wife Monica is one of the servers, so you know the quality is always top notch. The fish is always fresh, and Jang usually recommends the catch of the day.
The selection of rolls at Akadai is amazing. Something for everyone, from the adventurous to the sushi n00b. I highly recommend the Fireball Roll, Bikini Roll and the Ecstacy Roll. A definite must if you are in the neighborhood!
By far and away my favorite sushi place EVER!! I love this place. The miso soup is good, the dressing on the salad rules, and the sushi is fantastic. My favorites are the A's roll and the eskimo roll. I love the fact that the menu has pictures of the rolls. Everything is reasonably priced. My only complaint is that they close between lunch and dinner and that they're not opened on Sunday, which seems to be the day that I usually want sushi.
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Thanks to all the yelp reviews who convinced me try this establishment. I've always seen this place Monday Nights when I'd go to Cloverleaf, but never knew that there was a good place that has creative rolls in the heart of Fremont.
My boyfriend and I went to lunch there yesterday and had a great time. I love fresh sushi, but can't help creative rolls. We go there and get an 8.95 bento box that includes the meat, tempura, salad, soup and 4 pc of california rolls. That was filling enough.
Then, to choose 2/50 different rolls was even more difficult. We opted for the Negoyama (spelling?) and some other roll I can't remember. Both were baked. The Negoyama had Shrimp Temp, California Roll avocado inside, with creamy scallop and tasty sauce on the outside: BAKED. Then the other roll was really intruiguing (I'm surprised I don't remember the name) but it had Smoked salmon, california roll and avocado on the inside, and unagi on top with sauce and the little salmon eggies on top baked. Delish!
I really enjoyed it. Plus the fact that tea only was 25 cents a pop. The water cups are huge!! so we never had to haul down our waitress for a refill....
Tasty food. Can't wait to try the rest of the rolls.
The spicy rolls were spicy and the fish were fresh. The gyoza was a bit bland. They leave a pot of tea at your table which is nice so you don't have to bug them to refill your cup. They have a TV in the front corner of the restaurant - a bit distracting but at least my husband got to watch the news (albeit subtitled). Overall, the good sushi, decent service and reasonable prices earn this place 4 stars from us. We'll come back should we find ourselves in the area again.
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If you plan on getting some good Nigiri or Sashimi in Fremont, don't come to Akadai.
Food:
- Their rice was dry and hard, indicative that the rice had been sitting out too long or was undercooked.
- The fish was certainly not fresh and was chewy. Certainly didn't go down smooth. My brother ordered the Chirashi bowl and didn't care for most of the pieces of fish in the dish.
- Salad dressing was watery.
- The California roll that came with the Nigiri Plate was loosely packed and on the small size. Imitation crab was used of course.
- Probably the best thing of the night was the wasabi and ginger. The wasabi had a surprisingly strong kick and the ginger stood out (although it may have been a result of the weak sushi).
- Nice ending though was the stick of melon gum.
Service:
- When we came in we didn't get the greeting!
- We had to seat ourselves. A waiter had turned his head up to look at us andwent straight back to what he was doing without saying a word. A waitress came by a couple minutes later to give us menus.
- They never came by to check up on us if we needed anything.
- The sushi was served on round, white, porcelain dishes. That's a first for me at a sushi spot.
Price:
Nigiri Plate - 9 pieces of Nigiri & 4 pieces of California Roll = $13.95. The price isn't too bad for Nigiri, but could've gotten far better at Koi Boat for $9.95.
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What an odd place to put such a nice sushi restaurant. The shopping center which houses a bowling alley and Bank of America looks a bit run down. The sushi is robust here - the fish pieces are not dainty but large and fresh. The salad doesn't stand out - lettuce with a bland dressing. A good place for a sushi fix. Service is friendly enough and efficient. Reasonable prices considering the size of the rolls.
i remember skipping class in high school and coming here to eat lunch with my friends. good times good times.
sushi, chicken teriyaki, and salads were all awesome. i dont think ive ever had bad food here.
we got free sushi once from the chefs. im guessing if youre in a group of krn girls and you talk to the chefs, theyll hook it up! yay for free food!
the hours are a bit weird thugh. i tried coming here a lot of times with my family, but it was also closed! boo! i dont quite remember which days we tried coming, sorry.
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I just came back and it was ok. The bad news is they charge you for tea (only a quarter, but still), and the raw oysters on the half shell were dubious. I knew they weren't very fresh because of the weird aftertaste, but it didn't help that they weren't cold. Oysters should always be kept on ice, and these weren't. Also, they could have used a splash of hot sauce. All in all, very disappointing...I was on the verge of asking for my money back. The good news is that the rolls are good. The Akadai Special was spicy and very light tasting, while I liked the crispy exterior of the fireball. Overall, I would recommend going only for the rolls.
I was in the bathroom several times that night, so definitely stay away from the oysters!
I'm hookin this spot up with the coveted 5th star. for what? great service. yee.
fools here are mad good at hookin you up with recommendations. I changed my order from mussels to oysters when he recommended. THEN fool hooked me with some urchin. Any fool thats hoookin me up with urchin gets a hook up of his own.
plus the rools were tasty and they had this one with squid on the top of it, which is a completely new experience for me. gotta love the new experiences.
I think he actually was hooking me up more than usual because he was feeding me aphrodisiacs (i later learned oysters and clams are both aphro's) which is cool because i was with a lady. not cool bc of the way he was smiling at me
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When I first found Akadai. I used to have lunch there twice a week. They have a very pretty menu, with a picture for every roll. So I know exactly what the roll looks like before ordering. Rolls are pretty big(8 pieces)
My fav are akadai special and warrior. They are consistend with the quality of the food. I've gone there 30+ times and the fish is fresh everytime.
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Okay, here is the thing about Akadai. You go here if you want to eat sushi and don't have the money for really good sushi. The sushi is cheap enough where you can eat a lot and not getting knocked down on the bill.
The sushi is by far not the best I have ever had. But it isn't why I go there.
The menu has tons of options, most of them you won't find anywhere else. They have unique combinations, like putting some lemon in the sushi!
The service is great here and I feel really comfortable walking in.
I've been going to Akadai ever since it opened a couple years ago. Since they opened they have expanded their menu and become incredibly popular in the city of Fremont. Everyone there is very friendly and pleasant, and every dining experience I've ever had has always been really satisfying and fun. Some of my favorite things on the menu include the green dragon roll (if you're a fan of unagi, tempura and avocado you will LOVE this). the R&B super roll (soft shell crab, and some other stuff.. I'm not even sure exactly what's in this one. All I know that it's enormous and extremely filling- and it's spicy!). The Akadai special is to die for, as well as the Lion king roll. I also like the nigiri there a lot, as well as the sashimi. Everything is always fresh and it tastes great. They have a nice sake selection and als have several other Japanese dishes..
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Felix:
After a couple of my co-workers recommended us this restaurant, we decided to go lunch there. Before going to this place, I had one of their menus already which was given by my coworker. Everything looks pretty darn good in the picture so we ordered about 4 rolls - The Akadai roll, Eskimo roll, Island roll, Green Dragon roll. The rolls looks great but lacking for me was the taste.
The Akadai roll supposed to have crunchy texture but no - the batter they used was a little too chewy for me and the spiciness/sauce overpowered the incredients. Also the lemon slices was a little too thick.
The Eskimo roll was baked with Smoked salmon inside was too burnt. The fish eggs/sauce were too dried up after being overcooked in the oven. And so this ruined the taste/texture of the roll.
The Island roll had pretty thick lemon slices and the salmon on top was so thin, plus no sauce at all. Sushi House in Alameda has an Island roll but here they put thick salmon slices on top with paper thin lemon slices topped with special sauces. So I have to compare and Sushi House's Island roll wins by a mile.
The Green dragon roll was the only one that I enjoyed.
The service was excellent though but we may not come back after 3 out of 4 rolls we ordered weren't to our satisfaction.
I recommend Sushi House in Alameda since their rolls are bigger and the taste and ingredients are spot on!
Karen: All looks, no substance. I've had better.
just got back from akadai and since i'm too stuffed to roll off the couch, i thought i'd review it.
the first time we came here, we were a little bit wary bc it's located in one of the least pretty strip malls in fremont (and we've got tons of strip malls in this 'hood!). think borderline dark & shady w/ a bowling alley on the corner.
akadai is a california roll lover's dream. they have a big, colorful menu w/ tons of maki sushi rolls, half of them variations on the basic cali roll.
we had the crunchy, rock n' roll, nagoya (creamy scallop, shrimp tempura), lion king rolls and potato croquettes... all very tasty. lots of baked rolls and a few deep fried ones to boot.
service is awesome and you can tell that a lot of the customers are local regulars, probably in part for the excellent service. this wasn't surprising since our good friends who told us about this place are known by name there.
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I was randomly searching for a place to eat, driving in the Irvington district and happened to come across Akadai, in a strip mall by a bowling alley. Service was friendly and attentive. They have menus that show the picture of what the dish will look like which is a plus. They have a wide range of sushi rolls, and a limited range of dinners. I ordered the tenpura don and my bf ordered the bento dinner (salad, edamame, tenpura, and beef teriyaki). On the side we ordered lion king roll (california roll with salmon & japanese mayo and then broiled). I immediately regretted ordering the tenpura don as it was a bowl of rice with tenpura and drenched in teriyaki sauce--fortunately my bf loves sauce drenched rice so we switched our dishes middle of the way which worked out for us. There were a lot of different things I wanted to try on their menu so next time. I've had better Lion King but it was still tasty.
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Another surprising find in Fremont, Ca. This place has a variety of good rolls to choose from.
They have some good baked rolls as well.
I absolutely love this sushi place. They have the best selections of rolls I have found. My two favorite are the "highway Roll" which is spicy tuna roll deep fried with a spicy creamy sauce on top and the "fire ball" which is albacore, avocado deep fried with creamy spicy sauce on top. So good! I also like the Nagayo which is basically a shrimp tempura roll with avocado baked with creamy scallops on the top ....so good! I also love the Mama Mia roll. You cannot go wrong here.
Very good sushi and service. We went on a Friday night at 8:30 pm and it was easy to get seated. Waitress was quick to bring drinks and take our dinner order. Appetizers came promptly and the main plates came shortly thereafter. Pricing is very reasonable for the quality of the sushi.
The only comment is that the decor is a hodge podge of Costco-like tables/chairs with some Japanese images slapped on the wall. Fortunately for us, the quality and service (our first 2 priorities) were very good while decor (a much lower priority) was adequate but not impressive...
We will return...
today, i had the mama mia, poki roll, eskimo roll and shiro maguro nigiri. definitely one of the better spots down here. fish is pretty fresh, the rolls arent overloaded w/ rice and they stay together. i was tryin to figure out this distinct taste on some of the rolls. my friend figured it to be oregano. thats original
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