Prologue: My fiancée and I have been fans of Akita Sushi in Scottsdale for quite awhile (see our review from 11/21/16). However, we recently discovered this restaurant, which is just as good and is a lot closer to home. The Plot: One of the best parts about all-you can eat is that you get to try lots of different items. We've tried several AYCE sushi restaurants in our area and this is certainly above average with regard to the variety of items on the menu. Our meal began with sharing sever of our favorite starters, including Seaweed Salad, Salmon Teriyaki, Fried Scallops, and Seafood Udon. Following that was some sashimi, including Mackerel, Yellow Tail, Salmon, Tuna, and Red Snapper. Our Nigiri selections included Salmon, Tuna, Yellow Tail, Mackerel, Wasabi Tako, Tobiko, and Ikura. The Maki rolls we tried included Tuna Mango (one of my top favorites), Shrimp Tempura, and the Sakura Roll. We wrapped things up with a taste of each of the desserts, which included Green Tea Ice Cream, Vanilla Ice Cream, and Fried Bananas (which went very well with Vanilla Ice Cream),. The Scene: We both agreed that the number and variety of menu items exceeded any of our previous experiences at this type of restaurant in southern Arizona. Overall, the quality of the food was 3 stars and consistent with, and in some cases better than, what you would expect from an all-you-can-eat sushi buffet. The appetizer highlights for us were the Seaweed Salad, which was a good as we've had anywhere, the Salmon Teriyaki, which was very tasty, properly cooked, with good salmon flavor and not too and much teriyaki flavor. The quality of the Nigiri was all as good as one would expect in this setting, we were pleased with the portion sizes, and the Wasabi Tako is now one of our new favorites. We truly enjoyed all of the Maki rolls, especially the Tuna Mango roll, which has a nice balance of sweet along with the flavor of the sea. The Rest of the Story: We thought it was noteworthy that all of the rolls can be ordered either as Maki or Temaki and all of the noodle dishes can be ordered either as Udon or Soba. Over the several courses we ordered I noticed that the quality of the rice varied. Sometimes it was warm with a nice texture and proper seasoning and at others it was a little cold, a little chewy, and consequently had less flavor. Epilogue: The main ingredient that raised our review from 3 to 4 stars was the price. It's safe to say you will not find a more economical AYCE sushi option anywhere considering the variety and quality of the food. Photo design by Billie Z. read more

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On a recent weekend trip to Phoenix my husband and I decided to do a AYCE sushi double header: dinner #1 was at Junn Sushi in Tempe. Dinner #2 the next night was at Sakura Sushi in Ahwatukee. I picked Sakura to go up against Junn because of the Yelp reviews about their All You Can Eat menu, but when my husband was looking at their website before we went, he noted it doesn't mention AYCE sushi. I called them to make sure they had it and they assured us they did. This made us laugh when we pulled up to the restaurant for dinner: above their name on the building it says "All You Can Eat". I loved the inside of the restaurant. While I am not necessarily a stickler for ambiance, it was surprisingly cozy/lovely, especially for a humble strip mall location. The AYCE menu was $1.00 more than the medium AYCE level at Junn ($26.95), but unlike Junn you could order anything from the entire menu for that price, and there was no limit/restriction on how many of certain items you could order. (Sakura does a restriction by time: you have two hours to order AYCE.) As other Yelp reviewers have mentioned, you can order tempura by the piece there (e.g. one piece of broccoli, one piece scallop, one shrimp, two mushrooms), which I really liked, even though I am not a tempura-centric diner at sushi places. I thought the sushi was of a slightly higher quality than Junn, although my husband thought it was of equal quality. My favorite roll was the Amazing Tuna Roll, which actually was amazing. I ended up ordering a second one, even though I was trying to use the room in my stomach to try as many different things as possible--it was just too good not to try again. Their green tea (made from matcha) was good. Like Junn, the speed of service was extremely prompt and our server was friendly. Unlike Junn, we just had our one server dedicated to our table (which was fine--she was awesome). I declared Sakura the winner of our AYCE sushi double header, while my husband declared a tie. I look forward to heading back to Sakura on our next trip to the Phoenix area. read more

This place has really good sushi and everyone here was nice! The rice is super good too and a great dish to share with another person! read more

Sakura Sushi - Japanese Near Me - Phoenix, Arizona

Good service and absolutely delicious food with so many options to choose from including dessert. Very impressed with how delicious it is seriously! I'm impressed with the big menu selection, really. We went on Saturday night and it was $21.99 for any sushi, soup, noodles kind, and dessert in the menu. Pretty good deal! Service was fast and efficient. I really like the Vegas roll, fried scallion and fried crab stick, and so much more! I forgot what else I got but it was definitely worth it!! I'm definitely going back and recommend people to come here! I love it a lot!! Thanks!! read more

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Best all you can eat sushi place in the valley. This place seems to be from the same owner of Akita sushi from Scottsdale because the menus and options looks very similar to Akita. The service here is fast and the salmon and tuna sashimi is always fresh and cut into big yummy pieces. I love that the all you can eat includes the appetizers and entrees like noodles and fried rice. Most all you can eat sushi places makes you eat nigiri which usually fills you up super fast because of the rice, but this place gives you unlimited sashimi options and that is just the best. After you're done eating all that you still get ice cream choices of unlimited green tea or butter pecan ice cream. Absolute perfect. read more

Sakura Sushi - Sashimi - Japanese Near Me - Phoenix, Arizona

All food and Sushi is made to order! Servers and staff were friendly! Sushi is good but not great. Sushi rolls are a little better imho. I would come for the lunch price but not dinner. Restrooms were clean! Plenty of seating at tables, booths, or at sushi bar. Try a Kirin beer! read more

Sakura Sushi - Menu price - Japanese Near Me - Phoenix, Arizona

Ordered take-out on Saturday. Everything was delicious! Ordered gyoza, spring rolls, assorted tempura, shrimp tempura roll with spicy mayo and a fire dragon roll. Super friendly service upon pickup and the order was ready fast too. I'd like to dine-in sometime to check out the all you can eat option. read more

Awesome place for AYCE! Great prices and awesome selection of food. I like vegetable tempura and think it's cool you can order individual pieces of different veggies instead of whatever random assortment of veggies they just give you. My husband got a few rolls and they were a great size and he said they were delicious We were seated right away and had excellent service read more

We came for a late lunch and didn't know it was an all you can eat place. The workers are super helpful and ordering was easy. I had two sweet potato rolls and the avocado cucumber hand roll. Both were super good but the sweet potato roll was my favorite, it was super crispy and delicious. The eggplant teriyaki appetizer was not very good, and my family had trouble identifying which sushi roll was which. Some of it i'm not even sure we ordered. My sister did not like her volcano roll whatsoever. Overall pretty good! read more

Sakura Sushi - 97. Sweet Potato Roll and 106. Cucumber Avocado Roll - Japanese Near Me - Phoenix, Arizona

The place wasn't packed but the sushi was great. We ordered a bunch of sashimi, nigiri, and maki rolls. Everything was fresh and tasted great. The shrimp tempura could use a little work as I just didn't care for the panko bread crumbs. I prefer a traditional tempura batter. You can see from the pictures I posted that the color on all of the fish is bright and fresh. And the mural on the wall is awesome. read more

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I was craving sushi (a common theme for me lately) and did the ol' Maps search for some all-you-can-eat sushi places in the area. I probably wouldn't have noticed the place otherwise if I was driving by the shopping center it's located in, so I'm glad I discovered it! For an AYCE sushi place, the quality of everything my group and I ordered was very good. I wish they had some more speciality rolls, but the ones they have are worth ordering. The Las Vegas Roll and Sexy On The Beach are my two favorites. You can also order noodle, rice and other non-sushi meals if seafood isn't your thing. The service is good but when it's busy it can take some extra time for the waiters to get to you -- which is understandable, but one of the two times I've been here the wait to take our orders was just a bit excessive. The atmosphere is nice -- very aesthetically pleasing Japanese decor with beautifully designed walls. read more

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Amazing sushi with great choices on their all you can eat lunch and dinner menu. The atmosphere as well is very relaxing and fun. read more

Sakura Sushi - Japanese Near Me - Phoenix, Arizona

Very disappointed. Food was awful. Extremely low quality fish. Then the manager wanted to charge us for the rolls we didn't eat and we explained we didn't eat them as they were terrible. And she said "we'll look how busy we are!" Implying we were wrong! I eat sushi all the time and this was by far the worse! Poor service and poor food! I do not recommend! read more

Sakura Sushi - Terrible tasting! - Japanese Near Me - Phoenix, Arizona

Sashimi is not fresh. Can't really say anything that's good except the fried rice which is ok comparing to rest of the items. Order one round and we are done. read more

This is my absolute favorite place to get sushi!! Great for a groups of people or even a date night! They always care about presentation and the food always tastes fresh. I also love how they offer more than just sushi on their menu. They offer things like salads,soups & much more that are also on the all you can eat menu. read more

Sakura Sushi - 57. Salmon Nigiri,63. Shrimp Nigiri & 85. 56. Tuna Nigiri - Japanese Near Me - Phoenix, Arizona

Best sushi in town. Recommend this place. Ayce menu have been coming for months. Salmon always fresh read more

Sakura Sushi - Lunch menu - Japanese Near Me - Phoenix, Arizona

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Boyfriend and I are visiting from California and came in for all you can eat sushi! We walked in and immediately felt a rush of excitement. The atmosphere was very calm and the wall murals were DOPE. Our table was very clean and all the servers and hosts were wearing masks. I felt really guilty for sitting in giving the worlds current climate but I didn't feel that way for long. Our server was very kind and patient. I would recommend the sex on the beach roll. It's was ... orgasmic? Haha My boyfriends biggest compliment was that our water cups never ran dry. Yeah he's that guy :D we were sad to when we remembered we are in a whole other state and can't just easily make our way back to this place. Dang it :( read more

Sakura Sushi - AYCE Menu - Japanese Near Me - Phoenix, Arizona

First time at Sakura. Possibly my last, which was unfortunate because my daughter recommended Sakura and I really wanted it to be good. We arrived at 11:45 on a Thursday. It was less than 1/4 full, so the four of us were seated right away. We ordered four buffet lunches. Sadly, we had an extremely slow server. She returned with our drinks in about 10 mins. As she delivered our plates, she repeatedly delivered the wrong dishes to us. Looking around, she placed the wrong order at three tables. She also had no personality. It really detracted from the experience. I might try Sakura again on a different day of the week, in hopes of better service. read more

My friend took me here for the first time. Every roll I had was good. My favorite has to be the Sexy on the Beach. The servers were nice, and service was quick. The Sprite had that McDonald's soda machine kick lol. I'll definitely go back Visited 7/15/22 read more

Sakura Sushi - Out of Control Roll w/ tuna, salmon, yellowtail, avocado topped with spicy mayo and eel sauce - Japanese Near Me - Phoenix, Arizona

Went on a very busy Friday night. Fast seating and water was brought to our table right away. Server was there quick too. We ordered all you can eat. Delicious! Sushi was good too but this menu is huge. Something for everyone. read more

Great deals! Came for lunch and it was all you can eat for only $15. The lunch menu had so many appetizers and sushi rolls to choose from. They also had noodles and fried rice options for the all you can eat! I got a little bit of everything and it was delicious! The wasabi was fresh and spicy. Everything came out pretty quickly too. Amazing service! read more

Sakura Sushi - Seaweed salad at sushi bar - Japanese Near Me - Phoenix, Arizona

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All you can eat sushi?! Yes please! This place was so cute and well decorated. The moment you walked through the door, the people were friendly and welcoming. There wasn't a wait when we went so we got seated right away. The restaurant was quiet and ambient, so it would be great for date nights! The all you can eat price is $21.99, kids under 10 are half the price. I went here with hubby and my two younger brothers. There are 150 items on the menu!! Holy cow, what a great deal! The sushi was prepared fresh and to order. We ate over 20 pieces of sashimi and over 10 whole rolls of sushi. (Each sushi roll was 6-8 pieces, so yes, they were actual rolls). Their menu wasn't just sushi, but soba, udon, ramen, and fried rice was included. There were many tempura options as well as smaller appetizers included in. You also order by piece-- so say you want one piece of gyoza, you'll get one piece! I absolutely LOVE this place and will be returning here again. P.S. the XS roll was our favorite! We ordered it three times. read more

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All you can eat is a scary thought reminiscent of a evening in the bathroom. However, I gave this establishment 2/5 stars. The reasoning being that I feel this fine establishment is a 2/5 is I personally look for a few factors in my desire to come back: 1) environment 2) staff interaction 3) food quality. The environment was not date night worthy. It has a classic Asian fast food restaurant feel to it. The decor looks like it was quickly bought just to take up space and bathroom was classically smelly and dirty. There was metal utensils and chop sticks. Water was tastefully cold tap. Soy sauce was classic and nothing different about everything else. Staff interaction was pleasant and nice. The waitress was more robotic and non-talkative. It can be a cultural thing, however I am used to more of a chit-chat and smile. Food quality was OK at best. Very quick coming out l. Makes me feel it was made hours ago and just brought out. The quality of the sticky rice was one step above grocery sushi. The fish was not to fresh however not spoiled as well. The quickness of making the food showed up in the quality. Such as seaweed used in sushi rolls and hand rolls were old in my opinion. The price for the meals were decent. I feel like I left more full with lack of tastes and enjoying my time. This establishment may be a good sushi joint when it lunch our and you work close to it or if you want to gorge and the price is perfect. This restaurant is by my standards a 2/5 and I will not return for dinner, however if I am driving about and by myself I may stop by for a bite, however I don't think I was won over to come back for a date night. read more

Sakura Sushi - Menu and I - Japanese Near Me - Phoenix, Arizona

Overpriced for low quality product. I should have know with it being all you can eat. Everything was meh, and the food is not enjoyable in any facet. The place is well designed and looks nice though. The service was not good either. read more

We have been to Sakura on numerous occasions. Service is always fast and friendly. Food is delicious and a great deal for the price. $18.99 for lunch AYCE. read more

Sakura Sushi - 132. Rainbow Special Roll 133. Shrimp Tempura Special Roll - Japanese Near Me - Phoenix, Arizona

The place is great! For high quality all you can ea sushi you can't beat it. About 20 dollars per a person during lunch and the menu had such a large variety.service was just a good as the food. The second we were finished our waiter was cleaning our plates and taking our next order sheet. Definitely recommend read more

AYCE Sushi? That's what got me to come in! (Yelp check in offer is not valid according to manager) Visited Sakura sushi on a Wednesday night so it wasn't too busy for dinner. When my group first arrived, we placed an order for a plate of sashimi and it came out super quick! The salmon was nice and thick, tasted really good. The Hamachi and tuna also tasted really fresh as well. However, everything changed after the first round. As we finished our first round, I placed another order of sashimi plate and it took almost 35minutes to get to me. Service was lacking and I had to call the server multiple times to check up on the order. When the sashimi plate finally arrived, something was off with the sashimi. The salmon sashimi look mushy and smelled a bit bad, the hamachi and tuna were still defrosting so you can taste it was frozen. After trying to tough it out and finish the salmon, I had to call the server and send back the sashimi plate because it would've made me sick. I told the server that the first round was perfect and that there was no way the second round of salmon was fresh or edible. Overall, the quality of sashimi is a toss in the air. If you get some mushy salmon slices, send it back and tell the server. Try the salmon teriyaki, it's pretty good!! read more

This experience was very unfortunate to say the least the manager was pleasant and adhered to concern of the service of who was very rude and dismissive. She continued to bring out dirty cups. Because of initial impression and interaction with waitress we decided to leave. *The manager deserves another chance* read more

Sakura Sushi - Paper in cup - Japanese Near Me - Phoenix, Arizona

Great food and great service. Love this place and would recommend it to anyone! Been here many times and look forward to the next time.

I don't even want to rate this a single star. Should have known better when going in there were no other customers. I had 10 pieces of sashimi and my wife had the Tonkatsu. I could have gotten better sashimi at a gas station, the tonkatsu was over cooked and the sauce tasted like the water from the Great Salt Lake read more

This is my favorite sushi spot because it AYCE at a good price and it has good quality sushi. The staff has always been very friendly and they take your order slips right away. The food always comes out in a reasonable time. The salmon nigiris, out of control roll, and the eel avocado are some of my favorites. I really recommend this place especially for the AYCE lunch. read more

Sakura Sushi - Out of control roll and New York Special - Japanese Near Me - Phoenix, Arizona

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Got a to-go order and the sushi rolls were very small for the price, the garden salad was essentially iceberg lettuce, and the veggie fried rice was below average. Other than the small sushi rolls, half of the food was not worth eating or saving for later. Even the sweet and sour tasted odd. I felt as though I was ripped off. read more

This place does avocado cucumber rolls right! That's my favorite dish here. Tasty food and food customer service. read more

Sakura Sushi - 98. Spicy Tuna Roll 106. Cucumber Avocado Roll - Japanese Near Me - Phoenix, Arizona

Americanized but Decent sushi, service, and ambiance, convenient if in the east valley

Ordered a little of everything and was underwhelmed . I am not very picky and even this place left me feeling unsatisfied. The food lacked flavor and was tasteless . Our server was nice and attentive and the service was decent . But unfortunately would not come back again . Would rather try another AYCE sushi place .. read more

The dining experience here was terrible. Don't be bamboozled by the low price. The food was poor and the presentation low grade. I ordered a few dishes and really couldn't eat them bc I was turned off. I ate what I could stomach and wanted to order other basic stuff so I could get something in my stomach for the price. Right after ordering the second time the boss came over to give me a heads up that I'm ordering food without having eaten all of my first order. He asked how everything was and I didn't have the heart to tell him the truth that it was gawdawful and he should be embarrassed. Two good things about eating here was that I heard a song that I liked from the music being played in the restaurant and the green tea ice cream wasn't bad. read more

Great place for tasty sushi at a low price! Lunch price is about $13 per person and dinner is about $22. The dinner menu does have more special roll options and allows you to get sashimi. Fish tasted great. My favorite is salmon sashimi. Highly recommend going with a larger group so you can share everything and try all the rolls. The green tea ice cream isn't always available, but it's my favorite of the dessert options! read more

Sakura Sushi - Japanese Near Me - Phoenix, Arizona

All you can eat sushi... enough said. Very mediocre sushi, service was ok, I won't be back. If you don't care about quality... this is your place. read more

All you can eat sushi for 25 dollars. They've got a decent selection that includes nigiri, sashimi, teriyaki, soup, traditional appetizers, fried rice, udon noodles in addition to the rolls you expect. They also have beer and sake, and a large Sapporo was priced fairly at 6 bucks. I tried to pick rolls that were different enough from each other. I enjoyed most the fried cheese wonton, Out of Control roll, and yellow tail and red snapper nigiri. The colorful Out of Control was topped with tuna, yellow tail, salmon and avocado. Still trying to figure what "tuna" is if it's not the yellow tail, white, or spicy they also list. But I guess it's just not fancy tuna? Sushi came out fast but it was pretty empty inside. Still took waaay to long to pay and we kind of just awkwardly shuffled to the front with our credit card. This is my closest neighborhood sushi spot so I will definitely be back. I'm disappointed this is only all you can eat. I was hoping for happy hour specials and small plates when I went in and this is not that place. read more

Tried this place for a late Mother's Day lunch with my son. It's so pretty inside! No idea from outside how big it really is. We were seated promptly and ordered from the all you can eat menu. Miso soup, edamame, gyoza were all good. Spicy salmon roll was good and it has a dusting of panko inside which I could do without. California roll and volcano roll were outstanding. I tried the teriyaki salmon which was a bit overcooked. It is a great value for the price with an amazing amount to choose from. We will be back!! read more

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