SushiBen 2-go

Apparently if you’re craving sushi on a Monday afternoon, there’s nowhere in SE to get the stuff.
…except SushiBen!
I didn’t try the raw fish so I can’t comment on its freshness, but the dragon roll definitely hit the spot with a generous helping of eel. I also had a side of fried tofu, which was huge and only $ 3!
Is it the best sushi ever? No. Too much rice for me and a little too vinegary. But it’s decent enough for how cheap and convenient it is, and the service is wonderful. Run by an adorable Japanese couple, this is the definition of a hole in the wall – complete with Facebook screenshots of their cute pet photos and a stenciled Bob Marley on the wall.
It’s a little hidden behind Plaid Pantry, but it’s there! They take cards at a $ 1 fee, so bring cash if you can.

Good, Cheap eats from the nicest couple in town! I work in the area and I couldn’t hope for a better place to be nearby.

I got the sushi, and my stomach definitely felt a little funny after eating. I wasn’t super pleased with the cleanliness of the place, but maybe that’s just me…

Really great sushi spot in SE, the owner/​chef is so nice and clearly loves his job

I’m giving this place a 5 even though my ramen wasn’t that good, because I had such a wonderful eating experience regardless. and it’s so cheap!
lots of pictures of cats and dogs on the wall, cat figurines around the restaurant.
complimentary pu-​erh tea (one of my favorites!)
The absolute cutest couple serving us food. Great customer service.
I’m coming again to try the green tea cheesecake, and the hamachi nigiri

From the outside I would have never come into this place if a friend hadn’t told me about it. From the inside it was amazing! The sushi is incredible quality, the pieces are big and amazing and the price is great. This is now my new favorite sushi place!

I’m not into sushi; I come here for the soups and the bentos. None of these are anything special, and some dishes need more veggies and less meat. But jeez, everything is well-​prepared and costs between $ 5 ad $ 6. About as cheap as you can get and still get a proper meal.
Charming Issei couple that bow when they take your order and than you when you leave. Usually jazz on the radio.

Decent sushi at awesome prices. We went here to satisfy a sushi craving, and SushiBen 2-​go was pretty successful in satisfying it.
First though, it should be mentioned that their sushi menu is pretty small and basic, so don’t go here expecting rolls with eel sauce, cream cheese, mango, then dipped in batter and deep fried (or something like that.)
We ended up getting the Division roll (salmon, cream cheese, cucumber), dragon roll (bbq eel sweet egg, cucumber), and a crab salad. Both rolls were pretty good. Not the best sushi I’ve ever had, but still delicious. I noticed though that they were very generous with the portions of the fish they put in the sushi, which is pretty awesome. The crab salad wasn’t what I expected, but still pretty good. It came with seaweed, cucumber, the crab, and a light vinaigrette, as opposed to a mayo based salad that I thought it would be. It’s a nice and light side dish.
As for service, the place is ran by an older Japanese couple. When we got there, the wife quickly got us complimentary hot tea, which was perfect during that super cold night. The husband, on the other hand, helped with the preparation of food. They were both super nice and friendly, and they wanted to make sure that we got everything we needed for our meal. Also, since it’s the only two of them in the kitchen, don’t expect your food to come out super quick (which was not really a problem for me.)
Price wise, nothing in the menu is over $ 10. I believe the most expensive roll was $ 7.50, which is pretty darn cheap if you compare it to other sushi bars around town. I think the only thing that was more than $ 10 was a Japanese whiskey.
I did see that they had different types of ramen as well as an okonomiyaki, so I will definitely be back to try those.

This place is a wonderful authentic-​style budget Japanese restaurant. The food is authentically made by an old Japanese couple who are very kind and provide friendly service. The food is incredible for the price point. Not the best Japanese in town in terms of quality, but for less than half the price of premium Japanese; I can afford to eat here every day of the week and thoroughly enjoy healthy, delicious Japanese cooking. The prices are truly incredible for the delicious taste of meals that I am used to spending double to enjoy. I highly recommend the chicken curry for $ 5.50, it can’t be beat and this is coming from someone who has enjoyed home-​cooked curry in Japan. The ramen is very tasty as well for $ 6.50. The sushi is good and surprisingly fresh tasting for the price. I recommend the Alaska roll or the Division roll. Not as good as sushi Mazi in terms of quality, but again for half the price it’s really very enjoyable and not much worse that what you would find at Sushi Mazi or Koji’s. If you’re sensitive about your Japanese food/​sushi, I would recommend playing it safe and going with chicken curry, teriyaki chicken, or ramen which is all very consistently delicious. The green tea cheese cake for $ 2.50 also can’t be beat. This place is far more special than your average budget Asian food restaurant and with a surprising amount of charm and ambiance to boot. The free oolong tea is very warming on cold, rainy Oregon days and nice to sip while you’re waiting for food to go. The value here is tremendous. Highly recommended!!!

Aside from the hours, this place is awesome!
My honey and I stopped randomly as we were driving aimlessly around town. We were starving, saw the signs for a little hole in the wall sushi joint, and on a whim decided to stop in and give it a shot. Seriously, the best $ 25 I’ve ever spent on a meal! An avocado roll (that was made from an entire avocado), six pieces of nigiri (salmon, tuna, and yellowtail), an order of yakisoba, and two huge bowls of miso for $ 25. Seriously. The price is outstanding and cannot be beat!
On top of that, the fish is awesome! It’s fresh, it tastes great, the pieces were huge, and everything was well done, simple, delicious food. We were both really impressed with the sushi because we’d never seen such large pieces of fish in sushi, nor had we seen an avocado roll as stuffed full of avocado as it was here. The miso came in cast iron bowls (they looked like mini cauldrons) and was nice and hot. The yakisoba we wound up taking home, as we were simply too full to eat it after the nigiri, but it reheated really well and was quite delicious.
The couple who runs it is really sweet, as other Unilocalers have mentioned, and they provided great friendly service! Definitely a place to check out for a chill evening of sushi!

This place is really great. I would never have checked it out, but people on Unilocal said it was good so I decided to go for it. Now I’m going to go here all the time.
The husband and wife who run it together are really sweet and really want you to enjoy the food they are making. The food is very simple with no frills and their fish is really good, so the nigiri is amazing.
The only downside to the place is that they close at 7:30pm (which is a bit early for me) and because there are only two of them working they really can’t accommodate big groups.

Hole in the wall mom and pop joint. Understated yet refined sushi. Arguably the best in the city — doesn’t compete on the level of flair and fancy that is the currency of norm of most fine sushi establishments– you get your value here in the wholesome quality of the food presented. Bravo!

I agree, this is definitely an under-​rated, golden, hole-​in-​a-​wall Japanese restaurant in SE Portland. First off, rarely do I come across a Japanese restaurant in this city that’s actually owned by… well, Japanese people. Quality is superb with low prices, almost makes you wonder how they stay in business! You can also find rare Japanese dishes including ‘Okonomiyaki’. Good luck finding this anywhere else: P I also found out recently that they do ramen now! It was the closest thing I’ve had to the ramens I had in Japan. The night time yakitori they do just makes it all the better (ChixStix). Sushi and bento during the day time, yakitori and sake during the evening time… can it get better? The answer is’NO’.

I went to this same location once before and had a bad experience. however, I heard recently that it was under new ownership and decided to give it another try. I loved the idea of having a secret, really good, hole in the wall sushi place a few blocks from my home.
I decided on the ginger pork and a couple pieces of tuna. The tuna was enormous and actually very good. Maybe it’s just been a while since I’ve had really good sushi but it melted in my mouth and wasn’t stringy like some cheap sushi places. Unfortunately the pork bento was pretty gross, the texture felt almost like fake meat and didn’t look very fresh, nor was the brown rice good. I’m not sure how you make brown rice bad exactly but it just tasted kind of soggy.
I’m guessing there soup is probably good and I was just happy that the couple was so nice and the prices were cheap. It’s not the best but it’s definitely worth the low price!

sushiben is ghetto sushi at it’s finest.
let me tell you how i found out.
i had this bright idea to take a walk and get some sushi to blast out this hideous head cold i have right now. on my way i said to myself «i believe this may not turn out the way i planned.» and yes, it did not. i had 2 heaping mountains of wasabi and it just wasn’t hot. i couldn’t believe it. but what i did get was a haystack of sushi served by some nice people and i did leave feeling much better.
an order of sushi is $ 3 for 2 pieces. each of sushi is almost as big as my entire hand, and i don’t mean my palm. i mean the whole hand. (and yes, i am an average sized adult.) a japanese man and woman run the place. they seem like a couple but i have no idea. they’re very very nice. they play jazz and have pictures of their pets on slideshow playing on their computer monitor. it’s all very cute.
there isn’t a big sushi selection and the quality of sushi isn’t chicken of the sea but it aint the bellagio either. they have a sign saying they have japanese tea and right behind it stands a box of lipton green tea sitting right on top of a box of nestle powdered hot coco mix. they also have some soups and teriyake dishes that seemed nice, all around the $ 5 to $ 6 range.
should you go to sushiben? my answer is a resounding YES.
but if you’re a snob, hold on to your high expectations and go to zilla or something

Nothing beats Japanese food cooked/​made by Japanese themselves. I like the flavors very much — taste just right, the way they should be. I was pleasantly surprised by the Alaska Roll. So yummy. Real crab in Cali rolls was a treat.

I can’t believe that somebody would give this restaurant a one or two star its a five star. The food is greatly priced and the gyros are mouth-​watering good.
I have seen the chief cut up fresh salmon and tuna for the rolls etc… I go to sushiben and order the gyros all the time, I still have not yet gone through all the items on the menu but looking forward to it. My gf have ordered everything on the menu and she loves their food. Says it reminds her of home. Its a nice nieghborhood resturant, the couple who owns the place is very nice and remembers me everytime I go. I guess some reviewers have their own taste of «fresh». Sushiben, thank you for being how you are and serving delicious dishes for the SE community.

Great, fresh sushi and miso soup, all made to order by a darling couple who are very friendly… even though it’s a bit scary looking, not your normal sushi joint — there are no fake bonzai trees or cookie-​cutter faux-​Asian (fuaxsian?) deco… in fact it looks like an old bar/​dry cleaning business… but good food need not be in a pretty box to be delicious.
The menu isn’t expansive, but it’s nice to see a restaurant focus on what works well.
RAWR (pro): Inexpensive, made-​to-​order, fresh sushi; friendly staff
RAW (con): Tucked out of the way, hard-​to-​find location; secondhand everything… but who cares?

Having gone there for the first time, I went with the 7 piece sampler platter. Just let me say that this was the WORST sushi I’ve ever had! The squid was so tough that I couldn’t bite it off, even with the use of both hands. The tuna was mushy and I threw up in my mouth just trying to get it down. I was the only person in the restaurant (and at the bar!) during the entire lunch period so you’d think that the owners would notice me trying to break up the squid and my mouth puking noises. NOPE

I totally dig SushiBen. I frequently get their udon noodles with chicken and love it. The broth that comes with the soup is just so flavorful. It’s very warming on a crappy day like today. We have had their sushi in the past and while it’s solid, I don’t think you’ll find any epiphanies here. They seem to be big with the kid lunch crowd, so be prepared for a wait at lunch time. And if you’re looking for atmosphere, don’t look here. But the owners are very nice and work hard. If you’re a fan of Tampopo or just like simple inexpensive Japanese fare, give it a try