Parking is a little pain in the butt if you go during the lunch rush. I suggest leaving a 15 mins early before noon, or take a late lunch. They have those japanese booths where you need to take your stinky shoes off. (Do not wear socks with holes :) When I worked in Sunnyvale about a year ago, I dropped by this place about 3-4 times. Each time mine lunch experience feels pretty authentic. I normally get the bento boxes since they have a variety of selections to choose from. I have tried their array of raw dishes to the cooked ones. It's nice to have authentic japanese food washing it down with a cold bottle of sapporo beer. Two thumbs up from me. read more

Today was my 1st time of going to Seto for lunch. Seto is a restaurant which is located in quite an awkward place in Sunnyvale. I mean...the kind of restaurant which never catches your attention whenever you pass by. coz it's a pretty old restaurant btw. I ordered a beef sukiyaki for lunch. Actually I expected the pot would be served in a stove kind of thingy, but it's not. And a sukiyaki for $11, I would say there were not a lot of ingredients. For the taste, jeez.... the sauce was way too concentrated, it's like having the 100% pure sauce! Obviously, all the vege, mushroom, and glass noodle absorbed all the "strong" sauce. I had to mix these stuff with the rice every time. :\ SOO about the beef, it's weird. They don't use the beef that we typically see in the sukiyaki pot (the thin sliced one), what they use is the type of beef that i can find at Safeway :\ . Despite of the weird choice, the beef wasn't as hard as beef jerky (luckily), it's pretty tender. So i was alright about it. My cousin ordered a Katsu bento box that comes with a sushi roll, and salad. The Katsu was alright, but the coating of the Katsu was not crispy (even i ate it once it's served!!) Overall, based on the beef sukiyaki, i highly recommend Seto to purchase REAL THIN SLICED BEEF, and PLEASE DILUTE THE SAUCE BEFORE SERVING. or MAYBE GIVE US A BIGGER PORTION IF YOU ARE CHARGING THAT MUCH. read more

It is like watching a trainwreck unfolding slowly. This used to be a great restaurant 15-20 years ago. Not any more. The quality of food and service as well as portion size have gone down, but prices have gone up. It is not a surprise that it is no longer packed during lunch hours. As for dinner, it has been quite empty for quite some time. So sad to see my former go-to Japanese restaurant get to this point. read more

What an amazing experience. The sushi is the most authentic and fresh I've had in the area. The nigiri was perfectly cut. Even the order of the rolls was laid out perfectly. Highly recommend. read more

Seto Restaurant - Nigiri plate - Japanese Near Me - Sunnyvale, California

This place is huge, as is the menu. It's definitely more izakaya, than sushi joint. The menu is really extensive, and takes a few minutes to go through. We had great service, and the place looked immaculate.The food was only so-so. I had the miso-glazed hamachi. It was a little too salty for me, I also had their dragon roll, which was a tad too salty. The unagi that was on top was so bony I had to spit it out, (in a polite way.) I know unagi is a bony fish, but this was really bad. I get unagi a lot, and never had it this bony. Really annoyed me, because i love unagi. We also shared gyoza.They were cooked perfectly, but had a little too much green onion for us. (That's not bad, just my personal taste.) If you like green onion, they'd be much better. This isn't really my 'hood anymore, so I probably won't be back. For me, it's the kind of place that I'd go back if someone else wanted to.Otherwise, wouldn't return. There's too many Japanese places that I like a lot better. read more

Went with an out of town guest to Seto for dinner last night. Two of us ordered a 2 person special, with salad, miso soup, tempura, tuna sashimi, 2 skewers of yakitori, 2 skewers of tonkatsu, gyoza and green tea ice cream. More food than what both of us can finish, and both of us are big eater. All this for $35, which I think is reasonable. The food is good, but not extraordinary, unlike the Seto of old. I noticed on a Friday night, it was deserted while there used to be lots of Japanese clients in the evening. Prices are lower, but the more interesting items have been left out of the menu. I suspect there is a recent change in chef/ownership. Too bad though, because I enjoyed the Seto of old better. read more

I've always loved this spot and sushi is always amazing. Had a sushi/Japanese history lesson provided by the chef the last time I went it. He made us dished that were not on the menu. They were amazing, to say the least. The atmosphere is always great and the staff is very generous and friendly. Tip - get the unfiltered Sake!! read more

Love all of the food I've had here. I've probably had lunch 10 times there. I love the cherry blossom role and once they used the best fish that I think I've ever had. For about $13 I think it was a great deal too. Pricier than most places but the quality of fish makes it worth it. I love the ambiance. It's probably my favorite sushi place in the South Bay. read more

"Time/Date: Lunches around 12 pm: Room Reservation; just in case. Type/Quality: Traditional American Japanese food done right. Everything here tastes good even though its just the cliche food items. The only thing I've ever disliked was the Teriyaki Chicken. Price/Quantity :For $15 a person you get a satisfying lunch that is about as healthy as eating out gets; unless you are a horse and salad is your thing. I usually go for the bento box with three items: sashimi, chicken katsu, and tempura. It comes with the soup, salad, and rice. Service/Accessibility: The service is friendly and during the evening they get decked out in full traditional garments. For parking hey have a private lot. If it gets full parking in the residential across the street is easy and close. Structure/Ambiance: The ambiance is what I expect from a decent sushi places. They have a sushi bar, and tables that are close enough but not too close to give a full but uncramped atmosphere. The best part is the three private rooms with the sunken tables. They give you a private area to talk about business or have your own party. read more

I'm from DC, where even the crappiest of sushi is expensive, so I'm not sure why people are complaining that this place is pricey. The prices here were on par with the sushi places I go back home - I don't have enough experience in this area to really say in context. I ordered the Seto Chirashi (basically sashimi on a bed of rice) which was plenty of food. The fish is great, very fresh, and despite the somewhat sketchy parking lot and out-of-the-way location, I will definitely be back. I sat at the sushi bar and the sushi chefs were very attentive, but I can't speak about the waitstaff, since they didn't serve me. read more

Summary: good quality Japanese cuisine with a fairly through menu and friendly service, in the $15 range for lunch. Service: very friendly and good natured Food: good, but not spectacular (for the price) Ambiance: Nice and simple, nothing fancy Looking for Bento boxes in the Sunnyvale area. Could not find any good ratings for single $ pricing, so we ventured out to this place, which was rated well. There is a deli on the other side of the street, but did not look inviting, so we kept going to the restaurant. We walked in and were received warmly. Nice service they have there. Bento boxes are very good ($11 for 2 items, $14 for 3 items). Sushi lunch combinations are all priced at $15+, so I went for the bento box. I ordered 3 items: tempura, grilled salmon and tuna sashimi. Tempura was perfect: crunchy and sweet. The grilled salmon was just ok, nothing fancy about it, but seemed fresh. Sashimi was very good, no fishy flavors and it almost melted in my mouth. Overall, good quality food. But slightly higher price that I'd like to pay for mid week lunch (around $8-$10) read more

Nice neighborhood restaurant with a creative and tasty Japanese menu. read more

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Came here for lunch with some ladies from work. We sat in the tatami room. It was nice, semi-private. I ordered sashimi assorted fish. It was decent. The others mostly ordered bento boxes and it was a lot of food. Service was good. The company paid, not sure I would go back on my own. read more

I am not finding the service to be so great. They are slow and forgetful tonight. However, they did reconcile with a free hot sake. They use too much wasabi in the nigiri. I like spicy but it is interfering with the other flavors. Maybe this is my fault for not being specific by ordering the Sushi deluxe read more

I come to Seto regularly with my coworkers and I also order off of Door dash for dinner. I love the staff here, especially James the manager. Him and his wife are FROM Japan so they truly understand Japanese flavors and attention to detail. The food is super delicious and well prepared. We always ask for extra "this" and "can you do this?" and they are always accommodating to us. I LOVE coming here! One of my favorite Japanese restaurants in the Bay. I also recently became a vegetarian this year, so I highly recommend to get the vegetarian entree. It's a MUST! read more

Came here for lunch with a coworker and it was just alright. Decently priced bento boxes for a quick bite. The portions are pretty small and I was disappointed at the imitation crab in the California rolls. The terriyaki didn't taste that great. Something weird in the sauce, can't figure it out. It was surprisingly busy when we came here, however I don't think there is much competition for sushi in this area, so that's probably why. read more

I've been here several times for lunch w/ co-workers and I'm not a fan. From my experience prices are pretty outrageous for what you get, especially for sashimi. Service can be slow and quality is questionable at times. I think they try, but something's always off. I end up leaving here feeling gypped every time. :/ read more

Awesome sushi restaurant! Toro was crazy good. They also have anago... hipster-unagi. They covered it in sauce, though.... ask for it on the side. The Seto salad only has shrimp and crab, no fish. I was told they would be crazy busy at lunch, but they weren't full when we went around 12:30 on a Thursday. read more

Sushi was ehhh & wasn't the best quality. It came out all looking really really boring. Like a roll I could have made at home or from your elementary school cafeteria. I haven't tried there Bento Boxes. But based on there Sushi, I probably wouldn't come back. read more

I ordered bento with beef teriyaki and saba shioyaki. The fish was delicious, but the beef was too well-done that it was not easy to chew. read more

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Servers are very sweet here and the sushi is delicious. I've been searching for a good sushi place in the Silicon Valley for the past 3 years and nothing good. This place is it! Fresh fish and great rolls. Cozy atmosphere and clean. Thank you for a great dinner. We will be back! read more

I'm a sucker for the wood and rice paper. Food wasn't too bad either. Service was good, they kept bringing water and tea (didn't even ask, just gave us both). I think they are used to the lunch crowd so they started asking us what we wanted to eat about 75 seconds after we sat down. But they didn't hurry us to leave, which was really nice. read more

My most frequently visited sushi place. Fish are always fresh and the owners are very friendly. Especially the female owner, Kaori, always makes fun jokes and my girlfriend loves chatting with her. Salmon and Hamachi are never disappointing. Lunch set are very reasonably priced. They provide free green tea to start the meal and complimentary matcha icecream to finish off, for which some other restaurants charge anywhere between $3 to $7. read more

Had dinner here last night for the first time with a friend. We shared the medium sashimi combo which was absolutely fantastic! The sushi was as fresh as it gets, miso soup was fine, tempura was excellent, and they gave us some free green tea ice cream free of charge. The total for all of this plus one beer was $32.00 - - - it doesn't get any better for that price. In addition to the great food, the sushi chef was chatting with us the whole time and he was a really nice guy, if a bit hard to understand through his accent. I'll be a regular at Seto from now on. read more

Pulling up to this restaurant I didn't have any expectations and assumed it would be a quick bite-n-go. This restaurant truly is a hidden gem. Pleasantly surprised and completely unexpected. I was impressed by the quality of food and cleanliness. We ordered two specialty rolls off the chef's menu and a few other rolls from the regular menu. Everything was fresh, vibrant and tasty. Highly recommend, and can't wait to visit again soon! read more

So every time I go to Seto I swear it will be the last time. I made the mistake of going again a few weeks ago, and really, that was the last time. Here's why: Food: * Not fresh * Yellow tail tastes old (it should be like butter and melt in your mouth) * Rubbery (fish poorly cut) Service: * They brought me a side of avocado when I ordered avocado rolls. The waiter then proceeded to argue with me about what I ordered. I was very specific in ordering and repeated my order twice because he wasn't paying attention. He waved me off when I was ordering and said "yeah, yeah, I got it." No he didn't. * I was with 2 other people and he completely forgot to put the order in for one of my friends. So two of us get our food and 20 minutes goes by and we finally flag him down. We had to wait another 15 mins for my other friend to get her food. He said, "oh sushi you eat fast so you can wait." what kind of waited tells his customers that? * our bill was $50 for 3 people for lunch. None of us could really eat the food as it was old, late, rubbery, smelly. Never again. You have been warned. read more

My parents love coming here, so I have been to Seto quite a few times. Seto is more of a traditional japanese restaurant. The waitresses wear kimonos and really dress up, which is cool. The service is always good and they are always friendly here. They also have tatami rooms for parties of 4 or more, which is also nice. Seto is a great place to go if you are only interested in eating the chicken teriyaki, tempura, udon, etc. Don't come here if you want fancy sushi rolls and a large sushi menu. The food at Seto is good, if you are just looking to eat japanese food that is not sushi. If you come here on a date or with friends, I recommend getting their combination dinner for two or three people. It comes with your choice of california roll or tuna sashimi, miso soup, salad, tempura shrimp/vegetables, gyoza, chicken yakitori, and green tea ice cream. It's a lot of food and it's a great deal. I think it's 40 per two person special. read more

We haven't had really good sushi in a while and so this was a nice surprise. The setting is very bright and clean. I think I may have been too loud. Oops. Everyone else around us seemed so quiet and calm. Maybe they should have sequestered me into one of the private rooms on the side. The waitresses are dressed in adorable attire and the waiter (maybe manager?) who took our order was extremely nice. They start things off with hot towels and complimentary starters. We weren't really sure what we were eating - definitely some tofu and some sort of radish? - but it was free and it was tasty. I had the CA rolls, kappa maki, and spicy tuna roll. All were tightly wrapped, fresh, and delicious. The waiter was kind enough to take a special request from one of us - she wanted to know if they could make an unagi and avocado roll. They did! And it was good! Definitely a worthwhile place to check out if you are craving some fresh fish. read more

Service & food were great! dad was impressed by the amount of food in the dinner bento box with salmon teriyaki & sashimi, johnny roll with seared salmon had a nice smokey flavor, & sashimi combo tasted fresh & delicious. complimentary green tea ice cream scoop size is 2x that of sushi heavens in saratoga, possibly the catalyst in my parents picking a new default japanese restaurant read more

This is a great restaurant. However the only downfall is that the food has been somewhat inconsistent over the past 3 years. Tekka Maki - 2.5 years ago when i first came here, I had my favorite Tekka Maki roll. I didn't know what it was, but the Tekka Maki was great! Many restaurants will not their high quality tuna to make a tekka roll simply because it only cost 4-5 bucls for a roll! A simple tekka roll measures the quality of the fish, the seaweed, and good the rice is. All three of these measurements can help you determine how the rest of your sushi should be for the rest of the night! Sake Marinated Black Cod - This was great before with the old management. It is still good but not the same as before. Beef maki roll with asparagus. This used to be awesome too. Nice just o.k. It's a deep fried asparagus roll using beef slices instead of asparagus. Anyhow, I think the owners changed and the dishes above just are not the same. Lunch is really popular but if you get the tuna sashimi in your lunch box, you might not get the good slices of tuna. You can clearly see they have two different tiers of tuna now, one for lunch and one for sashimithere. This food here is still good. The fish is good quality(if it's fresh) and they have a great selection of authentic japanese dishes. But it isn't so good I feel an urge to eat there and that i need to bring my friends'family to try out their "Tekka Roll". read more

This will certainly be a different review from most of the others on Seto because I'm not necessarily writing this solely on my own behalf... let me explain. I do tons of business in Japan. I (my company) hosts many many Japanese visitors from Japan, sometimes for 2-3 weeks. As a result, we are constantly searching for restaurants to take them to. Sincerely, we have scoured the South Bay area looking for quality Japanese and Asian restaurants that would please our guests. Whether our guests are from Tokyo or Osaka or Kyoto or... inevitably Seto ends up being the restaurant that they request time and time again. Even when we have taken them there 2-3 days in a row, they will choose to go there a 4th or 5th time on their own because it is what they consider to be authentic (and a good price). Personally speaking, my favorite sushi restaurants are House of Sake in Dublin and Osho in Burlingame... but that's another review for another time. But Seto wins the hearts and minds of many many Japanese visitors... so I'm writing this review for them today! So give this review some consideration if you are looking for a true Japanese sushi meal. If you're looking for a more American experience with wild and crazy rolls or quantity over quality, this won't be the place for you. And as several others have noted, the deli around the corner is really really good too. read more

Great meal. Had a combo dinner with some sushi roll and nigiri. All pretty tasty. Will go back for sure. read more

Large posh-ish sushi restaurant with an authentic Japanese feel. They include the touches of nicer sushi restaurants like the warm washcloths and complementary appetizer. The salmon and halibut were decent and priced about average but the real winners were some generously sliced toro nigiri ($14 a pair) and Japanese tea (free, and I haven't had tea of quite this flavor since I was in Japan). If it's any indication of quality, I felt very geigen-san. read more

Just not that good. The rolls are a joke. Ordered Unagi roll which had almost zero Unagi. Step up and add some eel. Nigiri Saki and Hamachi were good but not great. Bento's were medium size with poor salad dressing. Very busy at lunch but I am not sure why. Not a repeat with places like Sen Dai and Ocean Club not too far away from there. read more

Amazing all around.

I love this place. It's the real deal baby. Lunch is great, yes it is crowded, but what do you expect from a place that makes great food? Lately I've been going there for lunch after 1.. no crowds, plenty of parking, fast service. Awesome. It's always good to find places where the sushi chefs are Japanese and not Mexican, Korean, or Chinese. It's even better to find that AND waitresses that actually speak Japanese. Even more so surprising is when you find a place that has real wasabi, not the green flour paste that so many laces use. So hard to find! The wasabi IS dangerous. One of my coworkers came in from Denver. He's had sushi everywhere, but he doesn't knwo the difference between a real sushi place and the Korean ones. Whenever we've eaten together at these less then good sushi places, the wasabi is always weak... we'd both put a large amount into the shoyu. When we were here, he tried the same thing. I warned him that this is real wasabi and he heeded no caution. His eyeballs just about popped out of his head and I swear his nostrils were about to rip apart. It was hilarious. The point of the store is that you need to ph33r the wasabi here. I enjoy all of the sushi here, and for dishes; the katsu curry and yakisoba are my favorites. read more

- Poor service. Not once did a waiter come to attend to us. Maybe it was because we were in a corner tatami room. We wanted to order more food, but oh well! They also brought out our dishes at waay different times. - Dry tonkatsu. - Good tempura. Not too much batter. I don't think I would return here. It's pricey and the service and food doesn't cut it. read more

Seto's not bad, they are definitely authentic and the chefs as well as the majority of the staff is Japanese. I think overall it deserves 3.5 stars However I think they try too hard to please everyone; their menu is so extensive and I think its because they are trying to add the fusion/Americanized sushi dishes in their menu to please their American customers, but at the same time they have good nigiri specials sometimes/occasionally for the "sushi snob" I wanted to keep my order simple since it was a weekday lunch, we were seated at 12:30 pm and the service was great. However..read a couple of reviews and I guess people have received mixed feelings about that, but ours was definitely prompt. I ordered the sushi lunch which comes with 6 pieces of nigiri and miso soup for $12. That sounds like a good deal to me since most nigiri pairs are like $5-6 bucks; also, the waiter was very nice and let me substitute the ebi nigiri for the kanpachi nigiri which was very cool of him. All in all this is authentic Japanese and the nigiri was good, the size of fish were just right and the rice was good. However I think their authenticity may have lacked a little because they try too much to add the fusion dishes to their menu- I guess this is to keep the menu attractive for the employees that work at companies nearby Nonetheless I would come again, it was really pretty decent of a place! Easy parking too! just across the street =) sweet deal for downtown Sunnyvale. One suggestion could maybe be a fresh coat of paint or an up-do. The restroom was clean and up to standards but the interior is just a tad-bit outdated. 1.) Food taste - 3.9 stars Good sushi 2.) Cleanliness, freshness - 4.5 stars Very good 3.) Presentation - 2.5/3 stars Standard/simple 4.) Location/price - 4.5 Location is kinda hidden but its pretty easy to find overall, and good parking. Prices are decent. 5.) Service - 5 stars Friendly people, kept refilling our teas... we had a good experience with this fortunately. =)!! read more

I usually get the daily special for lunch, and leave satisfied. Last few times I had tuna and tonkatsu, with various sides and miso soup. For some reason today's meal seemed pretty small, but I was satisfied and didn't leave feeling full. I guess it was just enough. The service here is good, during the busy lunch hour, with consistent refilling of my water and tea. One time I came here during an off-peak lunch hour, and the service wasn't so attentive. Ironic. read more

I liked the lunches here but I also noticed that the service tended to be a little perfunctory. Sometimes, they even seemed to be trying to rush us - despite the fact that there were open tables and no line or anything. Lunch gets a 4 for fresh food and good, inexpensive box lunches. Then I tried dinner here. The dinner is the key. The food is every bit as yummy but the service was very attentive as well. Dinner gets 5 stars. read more