25381 Alicia Pkwy #M
Laguna Hills, CA 92653
(949) 830-5051
I was hungry, and I want sushi. So I suggested to have all you can eat sushi for dinner. We found a nearby AYCE sushi place called You & I Sushi. The reviews on Yelp seemed good enough. But our experience wasn't as good as the reviews.
They offered a pretty standard all you can eat sushi menu for $24.95/person. They have a one hour rule that you can only eat for one hour. They didn't really reinforce that when we were there, but I didn't like that rule at all. Even though it's all you can eat, I still wish I can take my time, eat slowly, and enjoy the food.
Green Tea / Miso Soup / Sunomono
Our waitress brought us sunomono and a plate with wasabi. Hot green tea and miso soup were included on the all you can eat menu. She left us one of those paper sushi menu where you check off the items you want yourself, but didn't give us a pen. When we asked her for a pen, she just threw it, not putting it down but actually throwing it, on the table without saying anything. Hmmm....
Crazy Roll
Spicy tuna, fish, crab
Crazy Roll was a vamp up spicy tuna roll with a albacore, imitation crab and cucumber added. It was pretty good.
You & I Roll
Tuna, crab, cucumber, shrimp tempura, avocado
If there's a roll with the name of the restaurant, I always order it because I assume it's their specialty. If this was You & I's specialty roll, then their business must not be very good. This was just a not so good shrimp tempura roll with sweet eel sauce on top. Where was the tuna that was in the menu description?
Green Mussels
Green Mussels were good. It tasted fresh.
Volcano Roll
Baked Cal. roll w/ salmon, spicy sauce on top
Because I like mayo, so I thought Volcano Roll was pretty good. This roll was way bigger comparing to the other ones. We got quite full just from this one roll.
Dynamite
We got really excited when we saw Dynamite on the menu. What a disappointment when we ate it though! This wasn't real dynamite. This was rice with little shrimp and scallops on top with way too much sweet eel sauce. This was definitely a Korean version Dynamite. I had dynamite like this once at a Korean Japanese restaurant.
Salmon / Albacore / Yellowtail / Red Clam / Squid / Red Snapper
They do give you big pieces of fish, but they also give you sooooo much rice. The sushi rice tasted really sweet, like they put too much sugar in it. For our second round order, we actually requested having sushi made with just regular rice.
Fried Dumpling / Scallop Sushi / Yellowtail Roll
This was our second round. We ate the salmon roe sushi before I took this picture. The salmon roe was really salty, which means it might not be that fresh. Everything else was just so-so and not very memorable.
Edamame
I felt we definitely didn't get our money worth, but couldn't find anything on the menu that sounds appealing anymore. None of their roll sounded interesting, and we didn't want to get sushi with way too much rice, either. So our last round of order, just a plate of edamame.
Green Tea Ice Cream
Oh and a tiny scoop of green tea ice cream. This was probably the best item that night.
After this meal, we decided we'll never go to all you can eat sushi again, except Midori in Studio City. I rather pay the same amount of money for way better food!
I'm a very slow eater and if I saw the one hour time limit to eat I would have walked out. It seems like AYCE sushi places put in lots of things (rice, time limits) to keep people from really getting their money's worth....but Midori must be pretty good if its the only one you will go back to.
ReplyDeleteWe like Midori a lot because their sushi and rolls are always delicious.
Service was great the few times we were there.
Only thing is Midori is so far away from us now. :-(
In my experience, "Japanese food" and "AYCE" generally don't go together. Same with "Japanese food" and "buffet." Japanese food needs to be made-to-order, with care, not rushed.
ReplyDeleteThat's so true!
I don't think any of the AYCE sushi restaurant or buffet is owned by Japanese.
Seems like it's always either Chinese or Korean people that operate that type of business.
midori has time limit too. last time we went there with a big group of people, 60 mins really went by so fast, we were like what?? that's it??
ReplyDeleteeven the sushi mon in vegas got time limit, but I would really eat in midori here or sushi mon in vegas for AYCE sushi!! ^^
K.J
Really? They have time limit now? They didn't do that before.
Sushi Mon in Vegas.... I'll put that restaurant on my list to try.
I remember watching a local tv show report on a fancy high-quality sushi place somewhere in L.A. that had an AYCE special....but I think it was something like $65/person! (but the reviewer thought it was well worth it)
ReplyDeleteWow $65/person? That's pricey.
But if you go to a high-end Japanese restaurant,
$65/person is actually quite cheap, especially if it's AYCE.
Do you remember the name of the restaurant? Or TV show?