Octopus Japanese Restaurant

This restaurant has been here for a long while now, and it is as good as it gets.

* Great lunch/dinner specials
* Great selection of sushi
* Good happy hour menu
* Great place to hang out with friends
* Great customer service

Recommendations: If coming for lunch, please make a reservation.

Awesome AYCE deal! I was pleasantly surprised at the variety of choices, quality of the food, and the quick service here. I've been here multiple times many years ago, but never left with an amazing impression so I didn't bother coming back. Now I can say I will definitely be bringing all my friends here instead of getting KBBQ all the time.

AYCE is ~$25, completely worth the price. We ordered a little of everything, the sushi better than expected for the price. They should have smaller size dishes however; for example, we ordered the edamame and it came in a giant bowl so the three of us really had to try hard to finish all of it. The menu variety is insane as there are so so many options. We asked for dessert, and they said they were planning on incorporating that in the menu sometime in the future. So if they could just add dessert, this place would be perfect!

Overall, highly recommend coming here for the AYCE deal. If not, the bento boxes are also pretty good, filling, and worth the price.

When you eat with the boys, they like to do sushi AYCE style.

We went around 5ish and got seated immediately. The place was a little busy though as it took forever to even get someone to notice us. I think the hostess must have been very attentive bc my hungry eyes were wandering all over the place and my guess is she sent someone to us.

Ordered drinks and she said she wasn't our server but they would be with us soon.

The baked mussels weren't available that day, so that was a bummer but other than that, we just ordered and tried to eat as much food as possible!!!

I think the best thing about this place is that they offer specialty type sashimi in their AYCE menu. That's a plus! Most places don't.

I was also stoked that their rolls aren't just overloaded with a bunch of rice...a trick some AYCE places do to get you to fill up on empty carbs before you can out eat them!

Happy Hour sake drink - large for $5.50 and if you have Yelp! Do a check in and you get a $1 small bottle of sake! Super win!

Now, I'm a pescatarian so I can be quite snobby with my fish. Quality and expensive sushi is the BEST. But I can't always eat that way bc $$$ and sometimes I just wanna eat A LOT of sushi.

I would say Octopus' rolls are pretty good for AYCE. I would definitely come back here, no problems! Plus eating with the boys let's you eat a schmorgasboard (sp?) of sushi tapas style! Taste a little of everything and get your fill fix.

Hopefully you get a good table and don't get stuck sitting next to a boring dud couple who can't enjoy and appreciate a group of young bucks.

Will come back soon!
Plus I still wanna get my share of baked mussels.

Stopped off for a quick lunch. Haven't been to this location in downtown. Once inside, the staff behind the counter was very friendly and sweet. Compared to the others, these girls actually had a real smile on their face. Got seated right away, lunch time but most people in the area had the day off as it was right after thanksgiving. Our waitress, Samantha I believe was her name. Very sweet. Took out order and was always on point with refilling our drinks and checking up on us. The food was great and didn't take long at all to arrive. I'm going on it as it want crazy busy and there was plenty of chef on hand. Checked in with yelp and the offer came with a small saki for 1.00. To my surprise, the small was quite large. Overall, service was great, food was great, staff was great, and atmosphere was great as well. Would definitely come back for sushi.

Also, they have a great sushi deal for 30.00 per person.

I've been a fan of Octopus for many years being a regular patron at one of their Valley locations. So when I found out there's a DTLA location near the office, I was all over it. Better yet, it's easy to get a seat immediately (they only take reservations for parties of six or more).

I've been to this location a handful of times either by myself (comfortably -- everyone downtown eats alone once in awhile), as well as with my colleagues. I have to say, the wait staff is very mindful of the short break times since I can never spend more than 40-45 minutes in one sitting. And if it *is* time to go, they help you get on your way. This service is a huge deal when you have a limited lunch hour!

For these handful of visits, I've always indulged in the lunchtime combo, which is basically, a Bento Box. It comes with house salad, rice, a gyoza, edamame, four California rolls, and the two combo specials of choice. I usually go for either the chicken teriyaki, veggie rolls or veggie tempura (I request no seafood).

Before the box comes, you also receive a small bowl of Miso soup with tofu which is really delicious. I love it! But the BIGGEST difference I've noticed between this location and a Valley location, is that the house salad comes IN the bento box. In Burbank for example, the house salad comes separately on its own plate. In other words, you don't get 'as much' with the lunch combo here as compared to other locations. Small quirk, but as a fan, I notice!

The food itself is great and never have a problem. When I need my Japanese Bento fix, I'm here, and under $12. I highly recommend if you need a quick, sit-down lunch with plenty of food.

I had been before for lunch, but recently came here for the AYCE sushi. My cousin had told me it was $24.95, which is not bad. So we met there after work a little after 5:30. It was pretty empty but slowly got busy. We ordered two rounds - you basically fill out this tab and they slowly bring out each item. Your table gets pretty full after a few minutes.

The sushi was surprisingly really good and really fresh. I say that because its a chain and I guess I wasn't expecting that much but I really liked the variety of sushi. Staff is very nice and the price was on point.

This Octopus Japanese Restaurant is located near 7th and Flower and have been here for years. Despite the fact that I work in downtown area for years, I have only dined at this restaurant a handful of times. The only positive thing about this menu is its modern venue, but nothing is comfortable about this restaurant. In fact, there are a couple tables that I really hate being seated at.

While the quality of the fish is decent, the taste of the sushi rolls are "americanized". I personally don't get the whole concept of steak roll. Blah. I like my Japanese cuisine the traditional way, just stick the raw fish on top of the rice. Nothing more, I don't need my sushi drenched in ponzu sauce nor do I need cream cheese or other stuff with my order. The servers are usually really nice and friendly, but I find I find it very difficult to come here for lunch because the kitchen is slow.

Recently found out about their happy hour. While I can skip the food orders, I was glad to discover their Lychee Breeze for $10 (Serves 5-6). Yes, you can bet that I was a happy camper after sipping the entire bowl of Lychee Breeze on a Friday afternoon. Would definitely be coming back here for happy hour again even though I am not a fan of Octopus' food.

Great sea food and shushi place. Service is very poor. Great service would covers all the inconsistencies but this doesn't have the major thing - SERVICE.

In the middle of the Downtown LA, not a good service.

This sushi place is a decent spot for AYCE. On the weekends it is $24.95 and that is not a bad price. So I decided to try it out. The service here was not great as there was four workers but it was hard to get their attention as they were too busy talking to each other.

The sushi here was good but that great. When I came to this place I was really hungry and did not mind that the food was mediocre. The tuna sushi along with the octopus, salmon and the squid taste warm and not cold. I did not like that because I usually like my sushi to be cold and not warm due to taste purpose.

The baked mussels was good along with their Philly hand roll which I always order at any sushi joint. Their tatsuka age chicken was good as their mustard sauce went well with the chicken.

Overall this place was decent, as I was a sucker due the good price they had for weekend ayce sushi. But the good price did not reflect off their quality of the sushi and I was somewhat disappointed

Almost every sushi restaurant in DTLA was a 1-2 hour wait on Valentine's Day weekend.

l Environment l
Last minute found this place, called ahead of time and there was no wait, which was a plus. The interior is modern and nice. We wanted to dine upstairs since it was dimed with cool lighting. I like how each booth is sectioned off for more privacy.

l Food & Drinks l
Garlic Chili Edamame ($4.50) - Soybeans sauteed in garlic sauce with chili. For starters, you can't go wrong with edamame! They use a lot of garlic sauce and the portion was good for sharing.

Octopus Chef's Special Plate ($21) - Sashimi (Tuna, Salmon, Albacore), Sushi (Salmon, Yellowtail, Unagi, Shrimp), Spicy Tuna Hand Roll & Roe Bowl (Red Tobiko, Black Tobiko, Smell Egg & Uni). The presentation of this plate was eye-catching and looks fancy. You get to try a little bit of everything. If you want a combination of sashimi and rolls, this would be a good option.

Chirashi Sushi ($18) - Assortment of chef selected sashimi on a bed of sushi rice. The presentation was on point! You get a variety of sashimi and it goes well with rice. However, their rice was a bit dried. I recommend getting a side of seaweed with the Chirashi, so it doesn't get overwhelming. The fish was fresh, but not the best I've tried. The sashimi was thick and nicely cut, very fulfilling.

Sashimi Roll ($15) - Soy paper with tuna, salmon, imitation crab, and roe. If you don't like rice in your rolls and want to focus on sashimi, I highly recommend this one! I enjoyed it a lot and every bite had a lot of flavors. It tasted delicious with spicy mayo sauce (upon request).

We got a beer and mix drinks, but note that there is no cocktail menu. You have to ask the waiter for drinks options and he recommended this unfiltered sake and pineapple juice, similar to a pina colada. The drink was sweet at first but didn't taste too good after a few sips. But they do have fish bowls here so I thought that was cool!

l Customer Service l
Going in and out was pretty fast, however, it seems like they're short on waiters. For a sushi restaurant, it's a minus how they don't give you wasabi and ginger with your order until you request for it. This should be a given regardless. There are also no soy sauce bowls unless you ask. It's hard to get the waiter's attention because he has so many tables to take care of. You have to flag down the waiter or call his name out. Our waters were never refilled, but he did come back 2x to check up on us.

l Conclusion l
Overall, I would give this dine-in experience a 3.5 out of 5 stars. The sushi restaurant had a nice interior, a wide variety of options on their menu, great food presentation, and affordable prices. The only reason why I wouldn't give it 4 stars is customer service. I think they could definitely use more waiters and improve on basic things. Nevertheless, we still had a good time for dinner.