Sushi Tani

Booo have to give them one star. they are closed down! Everything is boarded up. :(

No, no, no, just no.
Avoid at all costs unless you enjoy:
1) waiting an hour to get your food
2) bad sushi
Never in my life have I had such poorly cut pieces of fish. I got the Chirashi Bowl which was $ 17.95 and I probably got 2 or 3 «pieces» of only 4 different fish. Typical pricing, for not very much food/​high quality food. Why did I put «pieces» in quotation marks? The chef did a total hack job on the fish and I got some pieces that were thick on one end and thin on the other and some pieces that were the size of a dime. Sorry, did you just give me leftovers from the rolls you made for my friends?
I get it, a group of 5 of us came in on a Wednesday and there was only the hostess/​waitress and the sushi chef, so yes I expected there to be a bit of wait time for food. But there was literally no one else in there AND in instances like this, you should always bring the hot food last, not first. All of my friends waited (even though we told them not to) until everyone got their food, which meant that it was cold before they got to eat.
They do have good tea though! But I won’t be coming back.

I’m getting ripped off.
Whenever I order take out I can’t help but think I’m getting jipped. Last time I ordered a New York roll, yellowtail roll, and sweet potato roll and it was $ 17.50! The New York roll contains shrimp and there were tails in the roll when there aren’t supposed to be… I ended up throwing it out.
Sadly, won’t be going back. Sorry Tani Lady.

Won’t accept
certificate and did not have info on how I could get refund. This would have been my first time trying this place and it’s right in my neighborhood but there are so many other places that I will probably never bother.

The sashimi was decent. The service was okay overall, although the lady could be more congenial in her greeting of people.
The one thing that I didn’t like during my recent visit was her saying that the restaurant no longer honors the
certificate that I previously purchased. I can’t find comprehend her expanation, but at the same thing I never received notification from the website that they’re no longer a participant. In fact, I checked online afterwards and found that the website is still offering certificates for this restaurant. I wasn’t too happy about that. Very poir practice. They should have notified
if they decided that they’re not participating anymore. On top of that, there’s nothing special enough about this place to make up for that in my mind.

Want sushi after 10 pm… Not this place which even said close at 12am. My friend and I went there at 9:45pm and was told the kitchen close soon 15 minutes later, the rolls we ordered were super spicy which exceed I expected and the rice falling apart with seaweed, I can’t believe what chef it is? Late on, I realized the sweet waitress and the chef are the owner, thanks for the kindness service. BUT NEVER COME BACK, Eek… SUSHI
PS:Philadelphia Roll… they give fresh salmon INSTEAD OF Smoked Salmon SHAME ON YOU… CHEF…DO NOT FOOL AROUND

Sometimes after a particularly long day at work, I come here to treat myself to some healthy and yummy rolls.
Yes, that means by myself, late at night before I go home and go to bed on a work night, when I can focus on the food rather than on someone yapping with their mouth full. I enjoy doing things with others too, but sometimes I just feel like catching a movie myself, dining out by myself, shopping by myself, and sometimes even using the toilet by myself.
It’s a really comfy atmosphere, yummy rolls, and the server is incredibly sweet and warm. She’s like the mommy we all wish we had, lol.
It’s not a dirt cheap place, but this is raw fish we’re dealing with here, and you get what you pay for, which is presumably not a tapeworm.
I’m a creature of habit, so I consistently get the Dragon Rolls and the French Kiss (sweet potatos, mmm). Always perfect.
And bonus to them for being open late! Night owls may not get the worm, but they do get the sake.

California hand roll. Best I’ve ever had.

The 4 star rating goes for the first visit I had here in December 2010 — Cozy atmosphere, friendly service, pricey but quality and fulfilling portions and of course this place is always memorable because I had my first amaebi with fried heads (very yummy) and it’s been one of my favorite dishes ever since.
However my past 2 visits, including tonight would have to bring rating down to 3 stars.
First of all, the rice was wet and mushy – we ordered the «Tokyo Tower» but there as nothing «tower» like. it was just a mush of rice, scallops and avocado… it was literally a treasure hunt trying to find a role intact, I wanted to complain. Also, from what I recall on my first visit, they had larger portions for some of the dishes but this time it seemed less but the prices remained the same, so of course my boyfriend and I left unsatisfied. Lastly, on my complaint list isn’t directly food related is the gross coughing of the sushi chef. It was obvious he had some mucus built up/​a big lougy in the back of his throat he tried getting out at the sushi bar. I mean I know it was 11ish and we were the only ones there but geez, cover your mouth or go to the bathroom, and it doesn’t help that he looks very mad and angry with life (or people who eat sushi late at night?) whatever.
So where are the star qualities?
The 69 Roll was made very well – tempura, unagi and crab united toped with tobiko (ther wasn’t much rice in this so I forgot about the mushy texture, unlike the others), the server/​co-​owner offered a fast and friendly service, and it’s open till midnight 7 days a week… oo and if you are a big fan of Jelly Beans, you get them at the end and you can always ask for extra.
Bottom line – if you are in the area and want sushi and willing to spend a little more than needed give it a shot, maybe this particular chef we had won’t be there, but don’t get your hopes too high.

A friend and I were driving around Geary and spotted this place still open a little bit past 11pm. We went in and to see no one was eating in here. Maybe a sign that this place isn’t that great during late nights. There are a lot of rolls and food selections. We tried ordering udon, but the waitress said the kitchen was closed already since it was about to close in an hour (seriously?). So all we ordered were sushi rolls. The rolls ranged from $ 13 – 15 in price like most sushi places, but these rolls are super small. Each roll was eight small pieces, totally not fulfilling for the stomach. Don’t get me wrong, the sushi tasted great, but quantity was not enough.
As far as service goes, it’s pretty quick since we were the only customers. The waitress seemed like she was rushing us to order, but pretty understandable since it was so late and they were about to close.

One of my favorite sushi joints; back in the days anyways. It seems as the economy has impacted every restaurant including this one.
The waiters/​servers were great, loved the service, and the endless flowing piping hot green tea. The food here is overall from my experience from the past, awesome.
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However my last visit really tainted my view of this place.
I had a craving for sashimi, specifically super white tuna or better known as butter fish. I decided to go here considering that the fish was always fresh from my past experiences.
The sashimi dish came out with 6 good size pieces of tuna perfectly layed out in front of me with some type of oil drizzled on top. It smelled like sesame oil and the fish itself tasted like sesame oil. I am no sashimi connoisseur, but ain’t sashimi suppose to taste like FISH? and not sesame oil?
I requested that they redo my order without sesame oil. They told me 10 minutes and I said okay. 10 minutes later, I find myself with another sashimi plate with 6 good size piece of tuna in front of me. The first bite tasted like sesame… so I smelled it, passed it to my girlfriend to smelled it, and It still smelled like sesame. The waiter returns and explains. They claim they threw out the previous order and to prove it, retrieves 1 piece of the tuna from the garbage bin in the back.
Assumption: They took 10 minutes to re-​chill and clean the fish? They used the same knife that had sesame oil to cut the new pieces? They used the same plate? I don’t know what was fact, but I do know what I tasted and smelled. With all consideration, I think they could have been more attentive to a customer’s request, especially if someone was allergic to sesame.
ALL I WANTED WAS SOME SUPER WHITE TUNA SASHIMI WITHOUT SESAME OIL. HOW HARD IS THAT?
Note: In Japanese traditions,“Sashimi is a delicious Japanese delicacy that is often served in the beginning of a meal as a palate cleanser and appetizer.”: keyword, palate cleanser!
Might as well put sesame oil on all your raw fishes!
DONE with this place. Thank you for the good times and delicious food in the past. I’m moving on.

The first time I ever came out to Sushi Tani, it was a few years ago for my friend’s birthday dinner. Sadly, I don’t recall too much about the experience, but that was probably because:
A) I couldn’t make it to the dinner portion and
B) we did sake bombs the whole time after I arrived.
As such, it was a bit tough to write a review beyond «we came, we bombed, we went home». In fact, I didn’t even think of it as a Japanese restaurant, just as «that place we did sake bombing». I should have stuck with the sake bombs…
My buddy and I dropped in for a quick dinner one night, and the place was pretty quiet. Other than us, there were maybe just a couple of other tables there. Oddly enough, we both ended up ordering the Chicken Katsu dinner special along with the Rock N Roll and the Pink Lady Roll to share. To be honest, none of it was that impressive.
— Chicken Katsu — a decent sized portion for the money ($ 9.95-ish with soup and salad), but it was pounded pretty thin and the breading was flimsy too. The flavor wasn’t bad, but kinda «ehh» to me. I may have had worse, but I’ve had A LOT better.
— Rock and Roll (eel and avocado with tobiko) — the best of the bunch, mostly because it was average. You can find the same thing at a lot of other places… anywhere.
— Pink Lady Roll (Tuna, Yellowtail, Salmon, Crab, Avocado and Ikura wrapped in Soy Bean Sheet) — doesn’t that filling sound pretty awesome? In reality, the sashimi didn’t seem that fresh to me and the taste was a little off. It could be a good roll, so maybe it was just the night we went… but still, that’s what we had.
If the sashimi had been better, I could have seen myself liking their rolls, but not sure I can say the same about their cooked food (or their katsu at least). Maybe I’ll make it back one day to try their rolls again, but not sure when since there are so many Japanese alternatives in SF (especially in the RIchmond). Otherwise, Sushi Tani will just go back to being relegated as «that sake bombing place»

Wow! I’ve been here before but I don’t remember it being. well, memorable!
My coworkers and I decided to have dinner together so I looked through
for a restaurant that we should all try. I got the 25 off 50 and when we got there, we were told that the gift certificate does not work on the special rolls or sashimi entrees (among other things)! Luckily, since we were 6 people, we didn’t mind ordering $ 50 worth of appetizers.
We got: Hawaiian Poke, Ocean Trio Cocktail, Soft Shell Crab, Ika Yaki, and Hamachi Kama. And also on top of that: Crispy Shrimpy, Godzilla, Crazy Roll, Orange Blossom, Richmond Roll, Kappa Sashih and several other rolls, the names I can’t remember. Everything came out beautiful! AND not only that, everything was fresh and very tasty. I love fried stuff so the Crispy Shrimpy was my favorite. Plus it has a cute name! There are tiny fried shrimps and fried bits covering the entire roll and I know not everyone will love it, but I ate it all up cause I’m a fatty. Anywho, I would definitely come back with or without the
certificate!
Oh FYI: the bill came out to be $ 194-​ish, including tax/​tip/​gift certif. That’s about 30 – 35 per person. Not bad for all the crap (not) we ordered!

Sushi Tani is the same distance from my house as Tsunami used to be from my old apartment. Therefore, Tani has some big shoes to fill!
After a stressful day, I decided to treat myself to some sushi, with a budget of $ 20. I was tired because it was around 8pm already, and Tani was the closest sushi bar around.
I was happy about finding parking right out front. When I walked in, the waitress immediately saw me, approached me and kindly greeted me. She did however jump to conclusions and asked «order to go?» I said «sure!»
Snow White Roll — a version of the California roll with better-​quality crab (not the white/​orange artificial crab), fresh avocado and topped with hamachi and slivered green onions.
Hokkigai Nigiri — Surf Clam over rice. I usually go for the Sake or Ikura nigiri and wanted to switch it up. Great fresh flavor, not chewy or tough.
Wakame Salad — $ 4.50 for a seaweed salad is decent. Especially for the size of the portion. I’d say it was around 5 oz. of salad.
Admittedly, I went a tad over my budget (by $ 1.87 to be exact). I’d definitely come back for their happy hour special.

Came here last night after two weeks of walking by and seeing their new happy hour special from 5pm — 7pm. 20% off rolls, drinks… mMm! It definitely got me wanting to come in since my main reason I don’t come as often was pricing.
It just reminded me of how much I missed this place. Hawaiian poke was yummy! Their uni was fresh. Their rolls were the same from my memory. DELICIOUS.
Love!

This place has gone down hill, actually, they went downhill, dug a hole, and went down further. When my friends and I discovered this place years back. It was actually good and had us kept coming back.
Fast forward to 2011, my boyfriend and I ordered: Baked Mussels, California Handroll, Baked Tower (or something), and Lion King.
Baked Mussel: the BEST thing on our table. It was decently good.
California Handroll: It only had imitation crab meat, avacado, and rice. I’ve had better ones with sprouts and more flavor. This particular one lacked, taste, texture, and appeal.
Baked Tower: I hope I got the name right, it’s one of the baked roll topped with scallops. Never had I had a sushi roll that tasted like Chinese rice porridge. It was literally a mess, I couldn’t even tell if there were pieces of sushi underneath all the mush. Where’s the tower in that?
Lion King: BY FAR, Lion King is still the best from Sushi House in Alameda and everytime I see something similar somewhere else, I have the urge to try it to see if I can find something similar in the city. This one does NOT come close. It had no taste at all, I didn’t know if I was eating salmon other than the fact that the fish looked pink and dry. The roll was baked beyond overdone. It was so well done that the bottom rice was crunchy and stuck to the foil (like that burnt rice you find from Chinese rice clay pots).
So there you have it, I couldn’t recommend this place to anyone, you can find something better within a few blocks radius. I should have stayed home and ate a ramen instead.

This was our first time here at Sushi Tani. We came because we got a $ 25
certificate. However, we did not know that we HAD to spend at least $ 50 in order to redeem this $ 25 certificate. Nor did we know, until we came to the restaurant, that the $ 50 limit was restricted to a selected group of dishes only, which is basically appetizers, combo dinners (like Teriyakis, Udons, etc), and 2 Sushi Combo Plates (6 tuna rolls, 6 california rolls, and 5 or 8 nigiri sashimi). This seriously restricted the choices of dishes for us. We could not order any sushi or special rolls, except for the sushi combo dinners.
The Miso Soup we were served were not warm and tasted like left over. The sushi combination dish was not good at all for $ 23. The 8 pcs nigiri is up to the chef to make, and the sashimi were not fresh.
We order $ 55 worth of food. Got a $ 5 tax. Another $ 10.8x for the required 18% tip, which was based on $ 60 (food + tax). We had to pay for the 18% tip regardless if we liked the service or food or not.
This was a total let down and we will not visit again.

There’s absolutely no way this place is worth the price we paid (and that was $ 25 off the actual price!)
I had a
coupon for this place. I didn’t read it properly before I bought it, but apparently you can’t use it on individual rolls or sashimi. It’s my fault for not reading it, but what’s the point of not being able to get rolls or sashimi at a sushi place? Luckily, the combinations were on the list of things we could use it on. So we ordered the Tani special (which is sashimi, nigiri, and roll of our choice, so we got the Super Spider), the chirashi, and a Katsuo Tataki. We figured that would get us to the $ 50 minimum to use the coupon.
They ran out of the Katsuo Tataki. We ordered the Hawaiian Poke instead. The waitress returned and said they didn’t have Maguro, and suggested we get the White Tuna Poke instead. We agreed, and then waited eagerly for our food. And waited. And waited more.
It took us at least 30 minutes to get our food. We were STARVING and had to amuse ourselves by looking at pictures of mushrooms (Okay, maybe that was just me, but it was the only way I could get myself not to think about how hungry I was).
The Tani special arrived first. The fish for the nigiri and the sashimi were cut in strange wedged pieces. Like, super thick and rectangular on one side, and tapering off. The rice was also totally off. The fish wasn’t super fresh, but it also wasn’t super awful either. But the whole package together was a huge fat MEH. The spider roll was the only mildly enjoyable part, and that’s because it was in a roll with other things to distract from the bad rice and also because it wasn’t fish.
The Poke appetizer was really strange. Lots of lettuce and tons of Sriracha just all over the dish. It was really spicy, but there wasn’t much else there. The sriracha and lettuce distracted from the actual fish.
When the chirashi came, I wasn’t expecting much. It was more of the same style of fish. But it was at this point that I figured out precisely what was wrong with the rice.
Let me explain. My friend Andrew likes to hold sushi rolling nights at his place a few times a year. He buys a bunch of fish from Nijiya and Josh K. makes sushi rice and we all roll various types of seafood in a horribly non-​authentic way. The rolls are probably horrific to actual Japanese people. The problem is, the rice always has a little too much mirin, sugar, or something that makes it not quite right. I never complain because really, we’re not trying for a real sushi experience. We roll for fun.
Tonight, however, given how expensive everything here was, the least they could have done was gotten the rice right. But they didn’t. In fact, it tasted just as if we had made the rice ourselves. And there’s no reason to pay what we did for rice like that.
The total came out to $ 60 (tip not included). The portions were not enough for 3 hungry people and without the coupon we would have paid $ 20+ a head. With the coupon, we paid $ 45, and I still think we overpaid.
Really, the only saving grace of this restaurant was that our waitress was very attentive and made sure we got our tea refilled regularly. Between the slow service, the crappy food, and the expensive bill, it’s pretty obvious to me why this place needs
coupons to get patrons.
Don’t bother coming here. There are so many better places to get sushi in SF.

The lady and I used to come here all the time when she lived a few blocks away.
Bottom line: decent sushi open late. Sure there are other sushi joints that are open later, and sure there are sushi joints that are better, but for what you pay, it’s not bad. The Korean couple who run it are very nice and remember us whenever we come. The place is always super clean and the sushi (rolls/​sashimi/​etc.) is well done… not über fresh, but again, decent.
Parking is all street, but it’s never bad the times we went.

Ambiance: For some reason the Japanese restaraunts like playing r&b/reggae. I vividly remember listening to Pon de Replay. Anyways, the interior is really cutsie. There’s a bar and tables that are seperated by those Japanese looking movable wall things? Those things made of paper and wood? Idk if I’m explaining okay but if you know what I’m talking about then good.
Food: Really good bentos.
Price: A little over 18 bucks for a bento box? At first I thought, «Geez…$$$$$$$. Most bento boxes I get are around $ 10?» THEN: out comes my food and uhhh… thing is MASSIVE. WORRRTH IT :) I got the bento with california rolls and chicken teriyaki and wow. I had leftovers, which is a first for bento boxes for me. Box also included. fried…something? Idk. I just know it was good. Also of course had the rice and salad and some other stuff. The salad was different. Not that great but not bad either.
Parking: Only on the streets baby so you might need to walk for a little bit. Of course it’s up in the city so what’d you expect?
Service: This was another highlight of my night. During the meal our waitress came to our table and refilled our tea cups everytime and did all things good service people are supposed to do. I can’t really think of any examples but the tea cup refills but I know I was not at all dissatisfied. At the end of the meal my friend and I went to the bathroom and as we left and passed by the bar… and I’m not lying, ALL service personel waved and bid us a good night. It was def a creepy moment but in a good way.
This review is based only on my one and only experience. I’ll be back if I’m in the area but unfortunately it’s a little out of the way. Came here with my best friend on Valentine’s Day and had a really good experience.