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767 W Blaine St, Riverside, CA 92507

Sushi Station is located about 2-3 blocks down from the UCR campus, in the same plaza as Tapioca Express. The place is easily overlooked since it is in the corner of the plaza. Once you enter Sushi station is a whole different story. You would never expect the place to look this nice by looking at it on the outside. As soon as you enter the waitress usually tells you to sit wherever you want.

The place has a lot of pictures of their items to give you an idea of what their dishes look like. Their menu also has a nice amount of pictures as well. I’m a visual person myself and I would like to see what I’m ordering before I order it. Not only do they serve Japanese food, but they also have some Korean dishes.

Before we even ordered our waitress brought us each a bowl of miso. I already knew what I was going to order before I stepped in the door. I always see people order the Spicy Chirashi-Korean Style($10.95) and I’ve always wanted to give it a try. It consists of rice on the bottom, a bed of salad in the middle, assorted fish on the top, and then topped of with some roe. Our waitress then gave me a red squeeze bottle full of the spicy sauce that you would normally eat with bibim bap (I’m not sure what it is called so if anyone can correct me on this I would glady appreciate it). This item is pretty much bibim bap with sashimi pieces on top. The different types of fish made it really enjoyable to eat and I would constantly switch off between the tuna, salmon, albacore, tilapia and tamago. If you are extremely hungry then this is the item to order and trust me the portion for this is huge.

Since the Spicy Chirashi bowl was so good I decided to try their regular Chirashi($9.95). Sushi rice is layered on the bottom and then topped of with sashimi slices. I’m not a big fan of imitation crab and I would have rather they not add to the bowl. I didn’t enjoy this as much I did the Spicy Chirashi and was kind of a dissappointment for me. Although I did get more fish in this one then I did in the Spicy Chirashi. If you are in the mood for sashimi and not that hungry go for this item.

My friend ordered the Spicy Chicken($6.95). The chicken is lightly battered and deep fried and then topped with their special spicy sauce. I particularly liked how they plated this and their use of a clear square plate. If you are on a budget or a student then this item is for you. It will fill you up and not leave your wallet empty!

Taste: 7/10
Service: 3/5
Presentation: 4/5
Total: 14/20

2721 Canyon Springs Pkwy, Suite 101, Riverside, CA 92507
http://www.onohawaiianbbq.com/

This place is similar to L&L, for those of you who are familiar with L&L. However in my opinion I think Ono is a lot better than L&L. Most of their combos/meals come with 2 scoops of rice, a side of maccaroni salad, and some lettuce. I especially like their big portions and I always end up taking leftovers home. Their prices are really good for the amount of food you get and if I could I would live off of Ono’s my whole college career.

Luckily we got there before the dinner time rush. Check out that line out the door!

I always get the “Curry Chicken Katsu $6.49″ everytime I come here. The katsu is crispy on the outside and juicy on the inside. The curry is served on the side, so that the chicken katsu won’t be soggy by the time you eat it. I always order an extra side of curry because you can never have enough curry. I always finish off my maccaroni salad first because it’s best when cold and no one wants to eat warm maccaroni salad. I then move onto the lettuce underneath the katsu just so that my katsu won’t become soggy later on.

Today I felt like getting something different than my normal curry chicken katsu, however I still needed my curry fix. I settled with the “Island Curry Chicken $6.49″. The island curry chicken was definitely good, but nothing comparable to the curry chicken katsu. The bbq chicken was succulent and tender, but I was still missing the crunchy texture that the katsu has. Since the curry was served on top of the bbq chicken, I felt like I was getting ripped off on curry. There just wasn’t enough curry for my liking. The curry hit the spot and had just the right amount of heat. It has a good blend of spices and wasn’t too overpowering, so I was still able to taste the chicken. The only complaint I have about the curry is that I wish it had some potatoes in it.

For those of you who can’t decide on bbq chicken or katsu, I reccomend the “Chicken Combo $6.49″.

Their “Kalbi short ribs $6.99″ is marinated with their Korean Style bbq sauce. The problem that I’ve always encountered at L&L is that my short ribs are always overcooked and extremely tough, however I never had that problem at Ono.

They also have musubi, noodle soup, hamburgers, and seafood items. I’ve been meaning to try their “Loco Moco $6.69″, but I wasn’t craving eggs that day. I’ll get it next time and a side of musubi of course!

Taste: 8/10

9555 Magnolia Ave., Riverside, CA 92503

Joe’s Sushi is known for their all you can eat sushi special, although you can still go there for individual orders as well. You might as well get the all you can eat special because it’s only $23 per person and you end up spending that much or more at other sushi restaurants. Whenever going here, I reccomend eating at the sushi bar because you get to interact with your sushi chef and occasionally he’ll make you “special” sushi. They will make you anything you want right on the spot, but the only thing is that if you want the more expensive stuff like toro or uni then you have to pay extra. Joe’s Sushi is more of a korean restaurant than anything because all the workers and chefs are korean.

some of my friend’s decided to drive up to Riverside because they had a craving for Joe’s. Unfortunately it was a friday night and the restaurant was packed. We were not able to get a seat at the sushi bar because our group was way too big to seat everyone. I apologize in advance for this post because everyone was extremely hungry and I was not able to take a lot of the pictures before my friends devoured the food. I will do another post soon when I get a seat at the sushi bar. Occasionally the chef will be impressed by how much you’ve eaten and make you one of his special rolls. You can try asking what the name of the roll is, but even they don’t know what it’s called or they will just make up a random name for you.

They felt bad because we had to wait so long for us to get seated, so they brought out a boat of sushi as soon as we sat down. It had a lot of various kinds of rolls that were very tasty! I was not able of obtain the names of each roll as they were consumed rather quickly by our table. I was even surprised that I was able to fend off the vultures for a picture.

We were brought 4 carafe’s full of sake and 4 bottles of Asahi beer. All of the alcohol was on the house because we were regulars and the manager felt bad for us having to wait so long to be seated. I had quite a few sake bombs and shots of sake. Free sake definitely makes your meal so much more enjoyable!

The crunchy roll was ok and nothing special. It just had some eel sauce and chili sauce over it.

This was the deep fried shrimp drenched with some spicy sauce and eel sauce.

The spicy scallop hand rolls are my favorite. You get a good amount of scallops and a nice hit of chili. Usually when we sit at the bar, we request a pice of salmon be added to the roll. The salmon makes the roll 10 times better.

The salmon was good as always and melted in my mouth. I would say the slices of salmon were a pretty good size. Luckily I was able to snap a shot before everyone took all the pieces.

The hamachi that night wasn’t as great as they usually make it. They must have made them in a rush. The slices of hamachi looked bad in my opinion.

Look forward to a more adequate post of Joe’s in the future. Since we had such a big party they were rushed to get all our orders out and the level of quality was not there. I will definitely get a seat at the bar next time. I was not able to order what I wanted, since what we had was more of a consensus due to our large group. It was not enjoyable this time around because we weren’t able to interact with the chef’s. They are always fun to talk to especially when they get loud and yell random words.

Taste: 7/10
Atmosphere: 4/5
Service: 4/5
Total: 15/20