SanSai Japanese Grill Downtown

As a lunch spot, this place is decent. It's got a limited selection of sushi, but they have noodle and other dishes, which is good for a group of picky eaters. The sushi itself was cut pretty thin though, and the rice fell apart every time I picked it up, which is a sign of poorly made rice. Ask any sushi chef what the key ingredient is and they'll always say perfectly made rice.

I got the special sushi combo, which comes with a salad and miso soup. I picked the cucumber seaweed salad, which uses the flat, dark green pieces of seaweed instead of the translucent greenish yellow seaweed as I assumed it would. It's the same seaweed you use in miso soup, so I'm seeing where they're cutting corners.

I would equate this place to your typical mall food court sushi. Not the best, but not the worst. For a $14 price point though, this will probably be the best you'll find.

I visited this Sansai location over lunch today with a few work colleagues. This was my first and will be my last visit. I ordered a simple Kids Tempura meal and waited 30 + minutes until finally deciding to request a refund, due to not receiving my order. After 25 minutes waiting and seeing that my colleagues and three customers that had ordered after me had received their meals, I asked the cashier about my order. The cashier checked with one of the "cooks" and then told it would just be another 5 minutes. So I wait.

I waited about 8 minutes before checking again on my meal. My food was STILL not ready, so after waiting another 5 minutes and seeing that my colleagues were nearly done eating their meals, I told the cashier that I will need to take a refund if my food is still not ready. The cashier replies "Oh OK", then takes my receipt and moves to her register. She then begins talking with another customer. I ask about the refund again, then wait another 5 minutes so that she can get another worker to give me the refund. There was never an apology... No "sorry for your wait". I paid for food and just expected the food I paid for and the workers acted as if I was bothering them. I have worked many customer service jobs and I know how respected restaurants should run and this is not it!

Needless to say, I will not be recommending this restaurant to anyone based on my experience and will not return to this location. It's so sad to say because the location is ideal, however the service is below even 1 star. There are many other restaurants to chose from so I would suggest checking out Washington Avenue instead of this restaurant.

Jess

For low-carb options, choose the chicken breast salad and/or sumi salad. Both excellent, healthy choices (skip the side of rice).

Sansai isn't some revolutionary restaurant claiming to tickle your taste buds. It's simply an easy, quick stop for something other than the normal subs and sandwich shops downtown. I love going there for a quick lunch. Make sure to go early or late if you want to miss the crowd.

Lunch today is a Chicken Bowl, Dark Meat with Oriental Salad. Really tasty chicken and salad, but I had to add Teriyaki sauce to the rice because it's really dry and sticky. Fast and friendly service.

In my quest to eat at every place downtown, it was necessary to visit SanSai. Upon reaching SanSai, we discovered a lengthy line out the door. Hmmm, maybe this place isn't as bad as the other metro area locations?

Wrong.

It's just as bad. Or maybe I should say bad, but just as fast foody. No, not really fast foody, it's like Chinese places in airports -- they sound better than "true" fast food, but they end up being overpriced not all that satisfying.

The two of us shared:

Spicy tuna roll (yes, I know others said to avoid the sushi): I'm curious what this cut of tuna looked like before being rolled. There were a couple of pieces where the tuna took up it's normal portion of the roll, other pieces it was minuscule. And there's about an inch of rice around these puppies. The crunch of the veggies helped, but not much.

Oriental salad: It tasted fresh, but the alleged "honey mustard vinaigrette" apparently made on cameo appearances. And when it did, it had a strange chemical/metallic aftertaste.

Dumpling soup: The dumplings weren't bad, but the broth? Again, for another location, it was mentioned that the broth tastes watered down. After eating the dumplings, the remainder of the soup was just bad. This is what they fed Andy Dufresne when he was in the hole.

Potstickers: hey, it's the same dumplings, just fried! But I had to have them, I mean, you can't be in a place like this without something fried.

I was hoping to be surprised in a "oh it's not that bad" way. Instead, I walked away saying "yeah, it really is."

They were fairly fast though despite the crowd.

Very good service and food, and quality is good. If it is not right staff is empowered to make it right. Staff is very friendly.

Pretty decent food however I suggest not to order delivery. Especially around lunch time.

The place isn't really anything special. I wish they'd fix the front door to get in though, it is kind of jarring to open it at first because it catches funny. The food is probably more healthy than going to anywhere else nearby for lunch and it is a nice change of pace than hitting up Culinaria every day.

I've had the sushi here a few times and it is on par with the grocery store as far as quality. I guess my expectations are too high when it comes some chains or maybe I'm focusing on the pictures in the menus to much versus what I'm actually provided in my Styrofoam container. I usually go with the Steak Plate or Bowl or maybe the Philadelphia roll.

One thing I do like is the Miso. It isn't the greatest but since the weather has been up and down I've felt like I've been fighting getting sick. Nothing works better than Miso in my opinion so if I start feeling under-the-weather I can always count on this place being my first stop to see if I remedy it with that before I reach for the cold drugs.

Absolutely awesome food! My daughter took me there and I tried some "new" sushi that was amazing! The portions were not sparing and the service was good. The variety of sushi was impressive and everything was fresh! I'll definitely be back to partake in some other items of delicacy before I leave.

I have been having lunch at this establishment at least twice a month. Today I ordered the Yakisoba Steak Plate with Brown Rice and it was very tasty!! Actually it is a lot of food and I wasn't able to eat the rice since I will save it for later. Biggest impression was that the cook who works at a very fast pace asked me how do I want my steak cooked and I said rare and it was dead on!!! I don't know how she knew it was my order since there were other customers waiting next to me. But I liked the fact that she wanted to make sure the steak was cooked to my liking. I have seen bad reviews for this establishment but so far every time I order I have no complaints.