Samurai

I will miss you :(

All you can eat!!! Service has been great in my experiences, in fact, I felt like the waiter cam around too often.

Average sushi with Asian ambiance. It’s tucked away in a little shopping strip corner. The service isn’t bad, but it can get crowded for dinner. If you decide to do the «all you can eat» make sure you only order as much as you can eat or prepare to pay more. There was one sushi roll that had mushroom in it; it’s not advisable to order. Everything else is good. A fun place for a group of friends.

This place was great. The sushi was of fantastic quality especially considering the price of the all you can eat. The service was slow which is why I’m giving the place a four, however our server was very pleasant and accommodating of our 10 person party.

Typically talkative wait staff. Real wasabi (which tastes like green chili and less horse radishy) upon request. Their super white tuna and salmon are so fresh they seem to melt in your mouth without being too firm.
Ambiance is always there for dinner. Peeps in the tech center know this place well.
Economical.

Believe me, Samurai — this three star rating hurts me more than it hurts you.
My first experience with Samurai was something like 13 years ago now. Yeah, they’ve been around that long. I had just taken a community college course in Japanese and our group came here to celebrate. Whether from nostalgia, youth, or novelty, the memory of the ambiance then borders on magical. Sliding wooden doors, interesting lighting, and Japanese paraphernalia all over the walls lends (lent?) this place a unique vibe. The food was good, if a tiny bit pricey, and I marked Samurai in my mind as a good place for celebrations.
Fast forward about ten years. Now they are offering an all-​you-​can eat sushi-​and-​other-​stuff dinner for about $ 25, which really is a pretty good deal. It’s not the highest quality sushi and they tend to go a little heavy on the rice, but it’s hard to complain at that price point. When I first visited again three years ago I would’ve still given it a four for value alone.
Jump ahead again to just a few days ago, my most recent visit.
Oh, Samurai, where has the magic gone?
The first thing my friend and I both noticed was how barren the place was on a Saturday night at 7pm. All but maybe a half dozen tables were empty. It also felt like they were relying on customers to provide warmth for the building, and without their human heaters the place was frigid. I never took off my jacket for the whole meal and still felt cold. I can’t say whether or not this one night suffered because of the cold outside or because it was restaurant week, but it certainly makes you wonder how much they’re relying on the lunch crowd.
The food is still… okay. I don’t know if I’ve gotten pickier with time and experience, but the sushi just doesn’t satisfy the way it used to. There are really only two components to most pieces of nigiri sushi — rice, fish — and Samurai stumbles on both. The rice is served too cold and is dry and tasteless. The fish: rice ratio is skewed to save cash and the blandness of the rice overpowers the so-​so fish almost entirely. This probably won’t bother most customers, but if you’ve had the opportunity to eat a lot of REALLY excellent fish, all-​you-​can-​eat here will leave you full but oddly unsatisfied.
The non-​sushi items are decent hold few surprises, though you feel a little weird ordering anything else when you can have unlimited sushi. Expect to get more of cheaper items (ie. miso soup) in an attempt to fill you up.
One shining spot is the cheap Japanese beer at only $ 1.25 per pint. It’s usually Kirin, but they were pouring Sapporo for the same price last I went. I don’t know if you can find those prices anywhere else in Denver.
Finally, the service is glacial. In spite of the place being damn near empty, any warm items we ordered took forever long to come out. All their manpower is focused on sushi, and even that wasn’t exactly brisk. I wouldn’t suggest coming here in a hurry, but then again, all-​you-​can-​eat doesn’t exactly lend itself to haste in any context.
I’m kind of hoping to come here again with some friends and prove myself wrong if only for old times’ sake. As it stands, it’s a good place to gorge yourself on mediocre sushi and cheap beer, and that’s about it.

We’ve been coming here for years and have watched Samurai decline over the past year. Last night was the worst. The Sushi was not fresh and one of my favorite dishes, Dynamite, had absolutely NO flavor. While we have never expected great service at Samurai (one of their crutches), there was only about 6 tables seated when we were there and our service was extremely slow and food took forever to be served. We also didn’t receive everything we ordered.
To add to all this, we were here about 4 weeks ago and they were having problems with their heat. There was still NO heat and although they had little space heaters around the restaurant, it was freezing! I will end my review with the cleanliness of the restaurant, dirty plastic wrap on the floor that was never picked up by staff and dirty restrooms. My husband commented on a nasty dirty spot in the men’s restroom that was still there from our visit 4 weeks ago. Did I mention no hot water to wash your hands with. Waitress running her hands through her hair right before picking up a tray of sushi to deliver to a table…
I don’t think we’ll be back.

Good food, ridiculously slow service.
They have a good menu, their sushi is tasty, and the all-​you-​can-​eat is a good value. However, I’ve always had a problem with the service being molasses-​slow no matter what time I go here. I’ve been for both the all-​you-​can-​eat lunch and dinner, and I felt like I needed to order everything upfront because finding a waiter to get another wave of an order in was next to impossible.
The latest debacle happened over this past weekend when we were at an event at the venue next door, and I ducked out to order six rolls to go – nothing too fancy, and I was told it would be ready in 15 minutes, which I figured would be a good timeframe especially considering the place had just opened for dinner and was about ¹⁄₃ full. Except when I came back in 15 minutes, my order wasn’t ready… it took over 40 minutes, and me constantly asking about my order while my 2-​year-​old melted down in their foyer didn’t seem to light a fire under anyone (though you’d think they’d want to get us out of there quickly). When I was finally given my food, I was given an extremely perfunctory «sorry it took so long.»

As many have mentioned before, they have a fantastic happy hour menu. They have select rolls on the happy hour menu and also an all you can eat option. Their draft beer is $ 1.25, which is an excellent deal and their house wine is aggressively priced as well.
The service has always been quick and the owner is usually waiting on tables too.
The miso and salad are fresh and tasty. The tonkatsu is very good as well.
The setting is cozy and this is an excellent option for sushi in Centennial.

Samurai’s happy hour is the bomb!
We sampled a new roll — their Disney roll — which is an anaheim stuffed pepper with crab, and OMG tried their thai soup for the first time. The soup was filled with gorgeous pieces of fish, prawns and mussels and was perfectly seasoned, served with a sauce that you can use to spice it up… not sambal, but something a little smokier and really tasty!
Their house-​smoked seared ahi sashimi is just perfection! Order it along with thei Drylands sauvignon blanc — YUM.

Never again!
Suffice it to say that we will NEVER return to this restaurant again.
One star is generous, since I don’t have to option to choose ZERO stars!
We came here to celebrate one of our employees birthdays.
The service was atrocious. We arrived at 11:30 (so as to beat the crowd), asked for the check at 12:15 and we finally got out of there by 1:00. There was ONE waiter who was obviously overwhelmed as the restaurant started to fill up with the lunch crowd.
My employee ordered the «all you can eat», but since there was so much rice and very little fish, he wasn’t able to eat it all. David, the very rude and very overwhelmed very abruptly told him he would have to pay for the 4 or five pieces of the California roll plus the overwhelming amount of rice that was added to the rolls) that he had left on his plate. $ 15.00 ?? Really?
The chicken teriyaki was bland and not visually appealing.
They charged for more Sashimi than ordered (which wasn’t fresh, and it required a lot of extra wasabi and lemon to cover the poor taste.) Plus, it took David 10 minutes to bring 3 tiny slices of lemon.
When we pointed out the errors on the check and that we were overcharged for extra food that wasn’t ordered, we watched as the overwhelmed waiter angrily threw the check at the Sushi chefs since he had to figure it all out again. (hey David, if you are mad at patrons, go in the back to throw the check at the wall instead of in front for all to see)
The lighting in the restaurant is so poor that we could barely make out the amounts on the check, so we were lucky to catch that they overcharged us.
So, the good news is there are several Sushi restaurants in our area and we will never have to return to Samurai
I wouldn’t recommend you do so either.

I have been coming here for a while and it is OK, nothing to write home about but certainly had worse and better. What they do have is a great happy house menu and this is when I take my kids. The price ranges from 1.50 to 3.50 depending on what you get. They have some decent rolls ranging from basic to spicy.
They do have a all you can eat menu that is $ 25 p/​person if I remember correctly. The catch you have to ear everything before they bring you the next dish and this includes rice and no sharing.
They have $ 2 beers and that is always a bonus.
All in all come and give it a try especially with kids and with the happy hour menu.

Our family and friends went here for an all you can eat buffet
We eat a lot of sushi and this place was dismal on service and food quality
We ordered all at once and they sent out the inexpensive sushi out first, so by the time they got what we really wanted, we were stuffed.
Service was curt and pushy which can leave a bad taste in your place
But that aside, the food was pretty terrible.
Not a lot of meat and lots of rice.
Then they double charged our credit card for the room. We got charged for extra food on the plate — the way they calculate it is pretty arbitrary. I hate wasting food, but why would you push all the cheap stuff first?
It’s unfortunate
Not recommended

Ick. This was my second time here, first time was underwhelming but I decided to try it again. Very poor quality fish used in their sushi! We shared 3 rolls and Nigiri. The rolls were all different, with different fish in them but somehow they all tasted the same! The fish used on the nigiri was awful: texture was strange and the fish was obviously very far from fresh, likely recently defrosted. 3 rolls and 2 orders of nigiri — $ 55! Overpriced, poor quality ingredients and the service leaves something to be desired. There are a number of much better sushi places close by with fresher ingredients, higher quality and worth the spending the $ on. I don’t mind spending the money on quality food so I’ll go down the street for better sushi next time.

I am now updating a past review, in which I gave Samurai 5 Stars.
At this writing, I now have to remove some stars to: 2 Stars.
I’m not sure if they went through an ownership change but something has definitely changed for the worse!
We went on a mid week night and it was not crowed but it took FOREVER to get seated. Then the service was bad and slow.
The portion of the sashimi was less then before and the quality was bad. The sushi rolls were horrendous! The nori on the roll was so sticky our kids almost choked a few times they had to pull it out of their throats– gross!
This honestly was a few months ago and we never returned and haven’t referred anyone to go there anymore. It is so sad to see a place that was truly special and awesome fall down a deep dark hole of AWEFUL.
I am leaving my past post as a reminder to them, how great they once were…
_​_​_​_​
First of all we are not big on foofoo, shi shi sushi restaurants. We judge on the «nakedness» of the fish, and Samurai rocks!
We found this restaurant on Unilocal when we were living at a hotel in the DTC area when we moved here and we return time after time bringing guests with us.
Our favorite is their Sashimi plates. naked, thick, and plentiful! Like no other place you’ve ever been. The specials, rolls, tempura, miso soup are our kids favorite. They also had an all you can eat sushi special that came with a starter crab legs… oh my, so delish! There is a great selection of Sake which we try something different every time.
The sushi bar is not huge so don’t worry if you are starving and you choose to sit in the dining seats. The service is quick and friendly.
Kanpai!

This place is awesome, they take competitor coupons!
Also ask for jessica, she’s so nice and sweet. You’ll definitely be happy :)

A year ago it would have been 4 stars as I was a fan but the quality seems to have slipped. We went the day after Christmas and had a 5 pm reservation. We arrived at 5 and the door was still locked — we were a party of 4 adults and a 1 year old there was one other couple there and we had free reign of The joint for a while. Unfortunately this did not mean we got any service — we got drinks after about 5 minutes but it took another 15 mins to get the all you can eat menu and our order was not taken until 15 mins after that. We were catching up and chatting so not a huge deal but also had a 1 year old with us so knew our time was limited. We tried to be understanding but our waitress was standing nearby chatting with the other staff so we finally walked our order form up to the sushi bar as the place began filling up by this point and we wanted to get our order in. We too were warned to only order what we could actually consume and agreed to their terms.
The sushi came after about 20 mins and we enjoyed the first round easily eating the much smaller portions of nigiri — which I appreciated as there is always way too much rice. My plan was to stick to the nigiri as the rolls are quite large and fill you up quickly. We polished off the first round and flagged down another server for a reorder sheet — our server seemingly disappeared by this point. We rapidly filled out the sheet as the restaurant was almost full at this point. Again with our drinks dry and our server not in sight we brought the slip to the host and asked him to please turn it in for us and then we waited… and waited… and waited… About 30 mins after that our server reappeared and we remarked that it was quite busy to which she said oh I am not busy but the chefs certainly are — OK? We did not say anything because there was no point and politely asked for more water and beer. The beer was $ 1.25 for a draft so can’t beat that! After an hour and 10 mins our 2^nd round of sushi arrived but it was already too late — the first round of our all you can eat had very much ballooned in our tummies and eating the second round was painful. In the spirit of the holidays I agreed to help out the others and eat some of their share but it was not comfortable!
Our waitress showed back up once more to give us the check and we never saw her again — the host took our bill and we left. The table behind us was there for over an hour and had only received their miso soup so we were pretty lucky we got our second round.
So how to have s successful experience at Samurai?
— go with a low expectation for service.
— go with people you enjoy spending time with as you will be spending a considerable amount of time with them.
–know your limits and order that amount of sushi all at once.

Great Sushi, the tuna wasn’t as fresh as i prefer, however the yellow tail was amazing, ask for the collar of the yellowtail if you want the best in the restaraunt. I also got the creamsicle martini, amazing!!! I do like sweet though.
The seaweed salad was fresh. The soft shelled crab was ok and so was the tuna poki. The gyonza was terrific. I enjoyed all the rolls we were served.
Phillip was our waiter. If you can ask for him. He hooked it up great and was an amzazing server, made the exipierence great. Although it looks from the outside like a hole in the wall, it is nice ambiance on the inside and great company. Food is a 4 out of 5 and cleanliness is 5 out of 5.
RECOMEND HIGHLY!!!

FINALLY!!! Delicious shabu-​shabu in Denver!!! That was all I needed to hear in order to run (sprint) right over. I decided to pass on the sushi, due to the slew of negative reviews about it, so this review is solely based on their shabu-​shabu.
Met a friend for dinner and convinced her to get the s.s. dinner with me, because it’s a 2 person minimum ($ 27.50/person). For that price you get a ton of food: Choice of app (yakitori, tempura, barbeque rib, or sashimi), soup, salad, rice, and of course the platter of awesomeness that is shabu-​shabu. Now let me take a moment to explain what this is, for those of you who don’t know; it’s like the Japanese version of fondu. They bring a broth filled hot pot to the table, along with a large platter of thinly sliced beef, mushrooms, carrots, onions, cabbage, tofu, and udon noodles to cook in it. Samurai even serves the traditional ponzu dipping sauce with it. I enjoyed everything about their shabu-shabu…from the broth, to the meat and veggies, and that delicious dipping sauce. The miso soup and salad served beforehand weren’t that great though. Soup didn’t have much flavor, and the salad was watery. But you really shouldn’t fill up on that stuff anyways, because of how much food you get with the shabu.
So… yes, I am a happy happy girl having found this place. Don’t pass Samurai up based on their sushi reviews. Give the shabu-​shabu a try, and I promise you won’t be disappointed!

The sushi is decent but I’ve had better. Good taste but rolls fell apart, something I hate.
Service was slow and our waitress waited until nearly the end of the meal to bring out the extra wasabi we had ordered. Which is unfortunate, as neither my boyfriend or myself enjoys sushi without flushing out our sinuses at the same time.
We had the shrimp and veg app which was very good. Tempura was light and fluffy and veggies were perfect. We then had the spicy tuna and crab inari (good), some kind of shrimp tempura roll (just ok – shrimp tempura was soggy), the albacore tuna sushi (boyfriend said the fish wasn’t fresh) and the philly roll (good). All in it was fine but there are a lot of other places I’d prefer, such as Go Fish on Broadway.
Last, I have to agree with another Unilocaler who voiced his unhappiness with their «All You Can Eat» offer. Yes, if you do not eat ALL of the food on your plate (meaning every last scrap), the $ 24 All You Can Eat charge may be changed to reflect everything you DID eat, which, if you eat sushi for sport like me, could end up being very costly.
This policy is rude. All you can eat should NOT be contingent on whether you finish every last rice kernel. I can understand having a problem with someone leaving an entire roll or two on the table — but when was the last time anybody did that?
This Samurai policy is ridiculous and unwelcoming.