they precook their shrimp tempura 8 hours before it's rolled into your sushi. they tried to charge 6 dollars to add mango to our salmon/avocado roll and ended up giving us a tuna avocado roll. the rice was hard. row tasted rotten. and they were rude when we picked up our order. read more

I was so sad when Umami closed in the Marina, but now I've found my new favorite sushi place. Excellent!

Very friendly service and the cooks are so nice and genuinely love what they do! Good positive setting and regulars come in and are also so nice! read more

Attention all sushi lovers: Ariake's sushi delivers freshness and satisfaction! The size of the place is small but that does not give you a reason to not come! read more

The 49er roll had a weird herb added to it, couldn't figure out what it was.. Ariake roll was good though. Overall, it was unmemorable. The next time my roommate went, he got really bad food poisoning... So I guess that's the end of that place for me. read more

The tuna tataki here is amazing ... seared white tuna with onions and ponzu sauce ... so simple and yet so delicious. The other specialty rolls are pretty tasty although I wouldn't all any of them must-eats. The strangest one was the Lion King ... crab roll with baked salmon on top ... it tasted good but was just a little off somehow. A small place so good to make a reservation if you can. read more

shashimi is always fresh! rolls are very creative and pretty - i love the monkey roll with uni! the baby oysters are the best! hamachi kama is cooked to perfection and it comes with the sauce! owner is very friendly! this is one of my fave restaurants! =) read more

firecracker roll is the best. parking is a b*tch. the waitress named lisa is the best. read more

My all time favorite sushi restaurant! Moon dog and tuna tataki is amazing. Yes, its not a large restaurant and you won't be getting any fancy drinks here, but if you want fresh sashimi and creative rolls, this is the place! read more

The food is amazing, the value is sublime, everyone is super friendly, and it didn't seem too crowded. My favorite sushi place in SF right now. read more

I just learned from some of these other reviewers here that this restaurant is Korean owned. We drove around all over the richmond having trouble finding a Japanese restaurant open on a Monday until we came across Ariake. We had a nice experience sitting at the sushi bar being served by who I assume is Jin, nice man. The assorted sashimi we ordered was fresh and delicious. Salmon my favorite, was really good here. We decided to order their blue fin tuna which is their special. It was like regular tuna but cut thin and so tender it just falls apart in your mouth. Wow I wanted seconds. $5 a piece but so worth it. I want to come back for chirashi. read more

Fun small neighborhood sushi spot. Fresh and very clean. Super personal service and an at home fee. Chefs Sam and Young are super nice and friendly. Beware it can get pricy if you are hungry. Also the waitress didn't do much. She didn't even bring us water or offer us refills. read more

Expensive for what you get. Service is terrible. For such a small place I don't see how they can't handle a crowd. Asked for water...did not get water. Asked to order...the server walks away in the middle of your order and forgets about you. Food is average...small portions. You might want to get a pizza afterwards. read more

Soooooo I just moved back from nyc....and this place is three blocks from my house! The fish is very fresh...huge variety......they will make the rolls the way you would like them which is nice..I know loads of places that would not do this.....in addition and MOST IMPORTANTLY.....the owner and the people who work there are like a family. They are so incredibly sweet......I love going back because the food is incredible....the service is incredible and the staff is just amazing!!! Well done!!!! read more

One of better Japanese restaurants I've tried, the sushi was very fresh and its a pretty tiny place. We were eating when the staff was having family dinner, kind of funny. Prices are average, should definitely check it out. read more

went back to ariake again tonight and wasn't quite so enamored. my dining companion (my mom!) and i ordered the mango hamachi roll, the ms. vivian roll, and the cherry blossom roll. the mango hamachi definitely wasn't as good as it was the first time (thought it looked lovely), and the other two rolls were strangely spicy. i've had a cherry blossom roll before at other places, and this tasted nothing like it was supposed to taste. i also thought the service was kindof off, though my mom just thought they were being tentative. this is definitely a neighborhood restaurant though, and the waitstaff seems to know many of the diners. kindof sad about this realization since i thought this was a new favorite. just have to keep searching!! read more

The Tuna Tataki here is just to die for. Great fish quality, reasonable prices, small and quaint. Sushi chefs here make some incredible special rolls. ATMOSPHERE: 4 PARKING: 4 FOOD: 5 OVERALL: 4 read more

Living in Oakland makes me nostalgic for ariake. They know how to do sushi right! It's always fresh and the fish changes every day. If you're into it ask one of the sushi chefs what's fresh and they will hook it up! It's not cheap but it is good. read more

Its a small restaurant, however that never doesn't correlate with the food or service. The chef is very friendly. The food is delicious. We were lucky enough to be the only ones dining there during lunch and got their full and undivided attention. We ordered up rolls, sashimi, sake which satisfied our moaning bellies! read more

Great sushi, although i'm beginning to think that you just can't get great tuna in San Francisco (tuna was just OK), the salmon was fantastic, especially in the 49'r roll. Been going to Minami mostly for sushi in the area, but i think this has become a big contender now. read more

Pretty good place for sushi. Solid four stars. Fish is always fresh, service is always friendly. Great selection of specials on the board. Super good Japanese beer, I don't remember what the name of is but it is the only 8 bucks a pop Japanese beer I've tried. They also make Tai kama, which I haven't had anywhere else and it is quite amazing. Oh, and they are open on most major holidays, including Christmas:) read more

Late night dining at its finest. Mango roll and moon dog roll are the best. Pork tonkatsu could use a little work since it was a bit too chewy for my liking. But sake, large sapporo, rolls, and green tea ice cream really hit the spot at 11pm. Best friendly service by the way . Will definitely be back. read more

A party of five of us had dinner here on a recent Friday evening (thankfully we had reservations as seems most every table could only accommodate four adults comfortably). We ordered several rolls and a sashimi platter as well as a few appetizers and udon soup. All of the food we had was good, service was generally quite attentive, and restaurant was well kept and clean. I think the "prices" were in line with other Japanese restaurants however I do feel that the portions here were a little on the small side by comparison. read more

Not open as advertised (3pm). They say it is Yelp's fault, yet they have not contacted Yelp to fix the problem. Either way, a let down and waste of time driving here. read more

This is the BEST sushi place in the Richmond, hands down. Out of all the sushi places in the Richmond, this one is hand's down the best. The fish is really fresh, the service is on point, everyone is friendly and provides great service! I've always had great experiences here and after trying all the other sushi restaurants that are a bit closer to my apartment, I've finally decided to stop wasting my time and money on poor food, poor service, or both. If you don't live in the Richmond, this place is still completely worth the drive or bus ride. Fabulous!! read more

Really good sushi - high quality fish and nice service. Feels authentic Japanese but they do have a lot of Godzilla rolls etc as well as tempura and udon read more

I love this place. Their mango rolls are great. Customer service is excellent. My go-to sushi spot :)

One of my favorite Richmond sushi joints. I usually get takeout here since it's so close to my place. The sushi and rolls are the best bets over the other stuff like tonkatsu. The fish is pretty darn fresh and tasty. I agree with previous reviewer on the side salad, I get that everytime - I think it's their dressing. I'll admit one time I even drank some of the leftover dressing at the bottom of the bowl...anywho...I recommend it. read more

So having just graduated from USF and wanting to celebrate with my girlfriend and friends, me, her, and her roommate walked to Ariake from her place. I've passed by this place many times but I finally had the chance to try it. As we walked in I noticed the restaurant was decorated nicely, and they even had a TV at the sushi bar playing Game 4 of the Lakers-Nuggets series. We ordered hot tea, hot sake, Sapporo and water to start off with, and they gave us edamamme as well without us asking. I started off with an Ariake roll and tai nigiri (red snapper). The roll was great; the seaweed salad complimented the spicy tuna, and the red snapper was soft and melted in my mouth. Next, I had tamago, shima aji (yellow jack) and a dynamite roll (deep fried, spicy yellowtail, salmon and tuna). The spiciness of the roll did not overpower the taste of the fish, the egg in the tamago was fresh and the yellow jack was fresh. Finally, I had aji (jack mackerel). Once again the nigiri was soft and tasty. The bill was not expensive considering how much sushi we had, and since I drank most of the sake and beer, I left full and a little drunk. This place is a great neighborhood sushi joint and I will definitely be back. read more

Been here quite a few times now. The service is good and the staff is very friendly. They will always greet you when you enter! They serve very good quality sushi. The udon was the best udon I've had so far in S.F. Their hours are pretty good. Late night dinners will appreciate them haha. They usually have their TV on for sporting events. This place is great. read more

I have yet to find better sushi in SF. This place is quite small, so if you want to come here for dinner, I suggest coming early. The staff is very nice and friendly and the sushi is delicious. I have tried a bunch of differently rolls and I can't tell you which is my favorite. They all are so flavorful and fresh. If a friend wanted bomb sushi, I would take them here. read more

Officially my favorite sushi place in the bay. Nice variety of standard and specialty rolls. I like how they use lemon on some of the rolls. Also, the firecracker is awesome. read more

So I been once sometime in December to earlier this year so the details are a bit hazy. So my friends and I were looking for a Japanese spot to eat, and ended up here because the place we originally wanted to go was closed or something like that. A small little place that can fit no more than 30 people. I was here with two friends so we were able to order a variety of rolls and dishes. The crown jewel was the fish cheeks, toro and sashimi. The toro had this beautiful glistening shine to it, and ordered two plates of it. The bill was high, but well worth it. read more

Expensive and you are getting gouged for standard non-sushi items. Quality is excellent but be prepared to pay a lot. There are better value alternatives. Rolls and fried food shouldn't cost so much. I give them props for their standard of excellence on SFDPH:http://dph-extranet2.sfdph.org:7777/pls/eeop_htmldb/f?p=132:1:7103381575079481 read more

I'm just honestly confused with how I ended up with my not so nice experience here. I've read the review about this place and I've been trying to try this place out (because of the the reviews) but my horrible timing left me waiting for about two weeks. Seems like when ever I want to eat something it magically happens to be at the same random 2 hours that the place is closed. On that note I still don't understand the whole being open for 2 and a half hours then closing for 2 and a half hours just to reopen. Any way, I went in and asked how long my order would take before I place the order (to go order) as I had to be back at work soon. The waiter/host told me it wouldn't take long at all and so I took him at his word and place my order to go. After waiting and waiting I get my food, I ended up with a few minutes to spare. The sushi chefs just took so long as they were talking to other customers over the bar that the waiter had to ask them multiple times where my food was. My food took so long (i couldn't give you a specific time frame as I didn't time it) that my poor waiter looked upset with the chefs when they gave him my prepared food order. Now to the food. I got about 3 different rolls and all 3 were horrible. The fish didn't have the flavor it's supposed to have and one of the rolls had a chunk in it. I don't know if that chunk was a fish bone or just a random hard chunk but either way if I wanted to find random hard uneatable chunk in my food I'd go get McDonalds. For the quality of food and horrible wait that I had here I found the place to be over rated and over priced. This might have just been one of the most expensive sushi spots considering what I got in comparison to the same rolls at other sushi spots. read more

I admit I'm a bit of a sushi snob, so when I hear of a great sushi place that I must try, I try it! And I attest to the greatness of Ariake! When I closed my eyes, I could almost pretend I was at Tsukiji market in Tokyo. The live scallop melts in your mouth and the the tako nigiri was super fresh. We also got a couple other rolls, all of which were very good, as well as the grilled squid. I've had better grilled squid, but it was pretty good here. I can't wait to go back to try some other seasonal specials! read more

Fish was fresh, preparation was good, service was way distracted. Noticing we didn't get tea upon arrival, I requested it with our food order. No tea. Halfway through the meal, I stood up and accosted a waitress with the request. Still. No. Tea. read more

Rarely do I give any place a 5-star rating. I really only eat nigiri sushi because that is the true test of a real sushi chefs sushi skill set... the rice that goes into the sushi. Most folks think it's the freshness of the fish or all the crazy sauce and other crap that goes into the jive ass rolls aka dragon and rock in this that roll. Yes freshness of the fish definitely counts but if the rice is not well seasoned and prepared then no matter how fresh your fish is its just no good. We did not have super high hopes for this place but considering on a Tuesday night at 830 there was a line out the door we were pleasantly surprised. We waited about 30 minutes and finally got a seat for two at the sushi bar and sushi chef jim served us. Unlike most pretentious stuck up Japanese sushi chefs jim was actually very friendly to his customers said hello and thank you and was overall very pleasant and fun We ordered uni nigiri, Hotate, ikura, kohada, moon dog roll: seared hamachi with tobiko, shrimp. miso soup, + comp edamame. Uni was a highlight of the meal...overflowing with creamy pillowy and very generous portion of uni...$9.00 Ikura was good as well but salty.. it was delicious as usual but at nine dollars was a bit pricey considering other places we generally paid between 6 and $7.00 As mentioned we do not get the rolls with the crazy sauce is but the other table got the moon dog roll and it just looks scrumptious. The role is not filled with tons of imitation crab and no fish like many of the other Chinese own places but lots of fish with good fish to rice ratio and ingredients. The crunchiness of tobiko added a nice crunch and flavor to it which was nice. I'd get this roll again even though I'm generally not a big fan of rolls. Overall a new favorite sushi joint for me considering sushi chefs are 100 percent Japanese, service was good food is good and price is worth it. Yay! read more

The service was a little awkward (the waitress gave me the check even I didn't ask for. What I did was ordering something more expensive and leave the check alone, then she took the check away by herself) but this restaurant is the only one that shows the right amount of tips so far (%*total before tax). I think it's owned by Koreans while the food was good. The chefs were courteous. read more

Firecracker roll, Tataki salad and the Lion King are what sushi dreams are made of.