Sushi Sakura

Decent conveyer belt sushi. There were not many options for vegetarian but that was kind of expected. Fish was fresh and sake was served cold. Good happy hour prices.

Eeek. The sushi wasn’t fresh and was warm. When it’s been circling around the belt or sometime it doesn’t taste fresh anymore. The prices are cheap, but you can tell in the food quality.

Not the best sushi I’ve ever had, but I do enjoy coming here a couple times a month for lunch. Food is good but service can be sketchy. I do like that they are really good about custom orders if I don’t see something I want on the bar. All in all, great fast food

I have literally never been to a worse sushi place in my life. As an ex sushi chef, this place was the biggest embarrassment I’ve ever been to. Even worse than grocery store, gas station, and buffet sushi; and that’s saying something right there. When we first walked in, no body greeted us. It took ten minutes for us to get any drinks and we never saw the waitress again. She didn’t explain how anything worked around there either. Most of the plates I couldn’t even identify which is sad considering I’m in the business of sushi making. To make matters worse, a lot of the sushi looked old and was falling apart. I decided that a simple roll would be the least likely to be too old, so I tried a California roll. It was sloppily made and was almost room temperature. I was very unimpressed. I then made the mistake of trying what I’m guessing was supposed to be a cream cheese roll. It has been sitting there so long that the fish was slimy, the cream cheese was melting and gooey, the rice was slimy, and the roll was literally above room temperature, almost even warm. Needless to say, serving raw fish warm is not only bad business, but 100% unacceptable and against the law in the food service industry. Absolutely disgusting. I don’t know how such an establishment can still be open and how they haven’t killed anyone yet. I will never go here again and will tell everyone I know in the area to not ever visit.

This place was sooo good! Sushi was fresh, great prices and the service was amazing. I told the server I was allergic to shellfish and he was always making sure I was getting the right plates and even personally brought one to me that he thought I would like (and i did!). Highly recommend it.

This is the worse sushi place I have ever been to in Portland! I can’t believe people actually come here! The first time I went they ran out of rice so they were unable to make any bento boxes and special orders of sushi. A friend of mine ordered a bento box and the rice was hard and not even edible. I asked for a crab salad roll and it looked like shit puréed on top of a rock hard rice. Save your money and your time.

Great for the price and good for a fix in general. Hit or miss service, but you really don’t need much from them.

The sushi was mediocre. Mostly rolls with some kind of sauce or fried something or other. Not much nigiri and some of the sake nigiri didn’t look so healthy. Not much on the light, refreshing sushi.
The sesame balls were yummy. Prices were decent. Didn’t see the waitress in order to possibly order something off the menu instead of the bar, and we were too far from the chefs to order from them.
I’ve had better. I’ll pass.

Very good sushi for Portland, ate more sushi than anywhere!
Lunch rush was busy, its a very popular restaurant. Waiting for ten minutes is usual and keep a look out for opening seats.
More red plates are needed. The way Sakura operates is by color coded plate prices, red being the lowest cost and purple being the highest.
Was really fresh, and really fun to have a choice ride on by and many more choices. I wish we had this back home! Very welcoming atmosphere and one of the best parts of our roadtrip, can’t wait to visit again.
Left full and happy

Honestly, I would have given it 3 stars for their less then stellar food, but service was so horrendous (rude), that 2 stars seems like it would be too much.
Food is nothing amazing, typical conveyor sushi (to be expected), but with so many other choices around, why spend $ 12 for 4 plates of fast food sushi and horrible, rude service, when you can get something much better at the food carts just a few blocks up (for less)

I don’t ever write review, but this is the worst sushi place I’ve ever been. The service is terrible! Only one person running around. We have to wait fifteen minutes to get water served. And of course, food is even slower! The quality of sushi is below average too. Disappointed!

Very good FOOD. The belt has many varieties of nigiri, tempura and so on. On Sunday’s they have $ 1.95 for every plate!
Great service, free refills.
¹⁰⁄₁₀ would recommend.

I come here at least a few times a month for lunch, and that’s really why I’m writing the review. It is a great, quick lunch spot and I love the carousel. They have some good fresh fish and fun rolls. They will also make you anything you don’t see on your menu. Definitely the only solid sushi lunch place around.

There is a measure of convenience that keeps me coming back to Sushi Sakura as my usual bus drops me right in front of it. it has a generous happy hour, daily, with a measurable expectation of what I’ll get for how much I spend. The quality of the dishes vary but are generally quite tasty. One can’t but feel that they lack a certain flair of presentation but its their service and ambiance I feel could be improved.
One time I went in and had to suffer through a radio blaring terrible Christian music, which was… unsettling. Another time I was seated and serviced by a woman who seemed highly suspicious of me for whatever reason. She kept giving me the side-​eye.
Overall this is great quick fix for your average sushi hankering. If you want fancier, you can always scan the area, there are a handful of great places, but happy hour is every day, and pretty damn cheap.

I read the reviews after I ended up here with a few locals and my traveling companion. But I was… pleasantly surprised by the food. The gimmicky, easy nature of this place has got to be a dream come true for the workers here. All they do is plate a few pieces of sushi every time the conveyor belt is empty. We came in the early afternoon, before going to the museum, and it was bare. I guess it was before the lunch rush, on a Sunday afternoon, so that probably had something to do with.
There are barstools surrounding a narrow table, which snakes around the entire conveyor system. Each plate on the conveyor system is a different color-​purple, red, orange, yellow. I can’t recall the pricing on each item, but they start at 1.25 and go up to something like $ 3 – 4, for the better quality pieces. There’s a happy hour deal when you eat at certain times in the afternoon, and I THINK this is acute, but you get half off each plate. I ended up getting about $ 17 – 18 of sushi, but when the bill came it was something like $ 8 – 9, which I thought was great.
The first thing I did was quickly pick up a plate and touch the bottom to see if there was any type of refrigeration being utilized here. I was nervous, because there wasn’t. I have no idea how long they plate the sushi here, or how long it goes around and around on the conveyor belt. Without any refrigeration, and within a relatively warmed-​up atmosphere (because it was chilly outside).
PROS:
Color coded plates made it easy to figure out the cost.
Pretty good variety.
Water was re-​filled multiple times, with a smile.
Quality was decent, with a light to nonexistent fishy smell, and a nonexistent fishy taste.
The wasabi and ginger additions were pretty decent. Not that weird, metallic taste a lower quality can put in your mouth.
Great happy hour deal, but I’m not sure if I would eat there any other time!
CONS:
I’m not really a fan of the conveyor type sushi places. They get you to eat more food, and I’m not sure about the refrigeration aspect. I’m pretty sure some of the less popular sushi is out for a while.
Some of the items on the menu were so small it was hard to see what you actually picked up.
Not so sure about the lack of refrigeration…
THE VERDICT:
I picked something random up, tasted it, and realllly enjoyed it. No matter how many times I eat sushi, I’m pretty much always clueless as to what to eat. It was sashimi tuna, with little to no fishy odor and a relatively fresh-​ish taste. Whatever, I was in Portland, so I took a chance and ate a few more plates, and I’m glad I did. The wait staff is pretty efficient, and good at making sure you have water. I would eat here around lunch (when the happy hour deal is going on), when there’s a higher turnover rate with the sushi being picked up. It makes me nervous about how long the sushi is out… At any rate, I feel pretty proud of myself for being so brave and trying a place like this out. Definitely not the type of sushi place I’d usually go to.

Ok, I love sushi. And the sushi train (conveyer belt) is usually a dangerous situation, like when. I go to. yum cha. I end up with 6 plates infront of me Co I see them as they pass n think «must have!!»
Not the case here. I have never struggled to pick what yo eat due to lack of choice. How about some chicken teriaki rolls, California rolls, something with tuna?
I got two plates n struggled… So I paid and left, hungry.

Having access to sushi served in a slick way is now the standard for which a town is judged upon. Upscale people get something as upscale as good fish. Portland could have more sushi buffets, but Sushi Sakura has a conveyer belt, while being very inexpensive. It puts Marineopolis to shame a bit.
I walked in at around five o’clock. They readily seated me and served me my beverage. The sushi was at happy hour, so only being in $ 1.35 and $ 2 plates. Sometimes, they have more rolls but less happy hour. Either way, the value is good and they still need to make a certain amount of money.
You sit at tall chairs and then take things off the conveyor belt. It was nice and the feel is young. This in being coupled with the transit accessibility of downtown set it apart. It was around $ 30 for two hungry adults.
While there is better sushi, eating it cheaply has come to be a fine urban experience in itself. If you’ve got a job better than fast food, you could more than likely be able to frequent Sushi Sakura.

This place is not bad at all. I’m a fan.
Food tastes great with a good variety. Great deal during happy hours. The train was impressively packed. On other days it might not, but you can order other items if you don’t see them on the train. Been there several times now. The service is good and the new menu card is much better now that they put in pictures.

Came here with a friend during lunch hour as an alternative to Luc Lac because it was crowded. I am a grand lover of sushi, especially when it’s affordable.
I wish it had been happy hour because the prices seemed outrageous for a sushi-​go-​round. The cheapest (red plates) are $ 1.35 and increase about $ 0.50 with the colors of the rainbow. There were hardly any red plates (mostly just sesame balls and edamame) so my friend and I had to splurge more money with the orange plates to actually eat what we came for. A little absurd.
My friend made a good point that during lunch hour they only had more expensive plates out so that people pay more. Not surprised with an Asian establishment. I don’t consider myself cheap, but rather one who seeks a good deal. With their lack of variety in plates, I ended up only eating salmon nigiri – 4 plates to be exact.
Not coming back here unless it’s happy hour (3 – 6 daily with the purchase of a drink).

No greeting when we walked in. Instead, an employee in the far back corner signaled us that there were two empty seats over by where she was standing.
First thing I noticed as I sat down were how sad the sushi moving around on the belt looked. Some of it looked really old. Some looked like it was falling apart. Some looked full or topped with tons of unidentified sauce… perhaps mayo? None of it looked appetizing.
Boyfriend pulled off some edamame which was fine. I ordered a Lion King roll which the sushi chef made fresh. It tasted decent, nothing special. We also ordered calamari which was also made fresh and tasted really good. After looking at the menu we decided to go with bento boxes. First my boyfriend ordered the teriyaki chicken bento and then I ordered the tempura bento. My bento came out about 20 minutes later, but his never came. Perhaps the sushi chef was confused and thought we switched the teriyaki one to the tempura one? Either way it was clear they didn’t understand us and didn’t take the time to clarify.
Not wanting to wait another 20 minutes we decided to order some more sushi. I asked for a Spider Roll and my boyfriend asked for some gyoza. The gyoya turned out fine.
I expected the roll to be made fresh but the chef literally waited until the old Spider roll, which had been going around and around on the belt, reached a point where his back was turned and grabbed it off. He sat it on the counter while he made something else, and then handed it to me, as if I would think it was freshly made. I could only eat half of it as it tasted fishy and made me feel sick.
The vegetables in the tempura bento were good, but it was easy to tell the shrimp tempura was not freshly made as the coating was a much thicker consistency. I suspect the shrimp ones were not made in house. The seaweed salad wasn’t appetizing. The miso soup was edible but not very good. The California roll that came with the bento was 90% ‘crab salad’ (which I think consists of small pieces of fake crab and TONS of mayo) and a tiny sliver of cucumber. They were disgusting and I barely got down two pieces.
Good thing I had a Groupon and only paid $ 12.50 for it all, although it still wasn’t worth it.
Would have been one star but certain things were good (calamari and vegetable tempura). Overall there are SO many other amazing sushi restaurants in the Portland area. If it’s really the conveyor bet you’re after O’Sushi is Hillsboro is really good, less expensive ($ 1/​plate all the time!) and has delicious seared salmon. The difference in food quality is worth the drive.
I’m sure there are many other better conveyor belt sushi joints in Portland I have yet to discover. You should be the one to discover them and skip Sushi Sakura. Don’t care about the belt? Try Saburo’s in Sellwood or Bamboo Sushi.

Excellent sushi, nice place, good service and great price during the happy hour!!!