A long time sushi staple in Long Beach (since 2009), Awesome Sushi has a large menu, centered around their fresh fish, but also having selections for the non-sushi eaters in your party.
There are quite a few lunch specials listed on their current and well designed website (check out the 'about us' tab), which is why we stopped in for lunch on a Monday afternoon, soon after their opening at 11 am. It is located in a free standalone building, with a dedicated lot of plentiful parking. Interestingly, they have remnants of a walk-up/pick-up window in the front (was this building a hamburger restaurant in a prior life?), and with the tinted glass not allowing you to see inside, we thought maybe they were either closed or only doing carry-out. But we found the nearby door, and once we entered, were greeted very warmly by the hostess/waitress and guided to a table for 4. There isn't too much seating inside (maybe 8 tables), so could see a wait during dinner time.
The menu is large, with a lot of options on a 2 sided laminated 8x14 sheet. We got some ice water, which gave us time to peruse the menu. We placed our order, with the appetizer coming first along with the soup and salad, and then main entrees soon after. By using the Yelp check-in, we got 2 pieces of complementary Mochi ice cream.
Spicy Edamame ($6.95) - A generous amount, well-seasoned.
2 Item Combo ($15.95 for lunch): beef teriyaki, white fish tempura. Comes with white rice topped with furikake , pre-dressed romaine lettuce salad, fresh cucumber pieces, miso soup. Everything except the soup came in a bento tray, with each compartment filled. The beef was sliced strip steak, generous in quantity and decent quality. The white fish tempura was OK...bit greasy and needing to be eaten right away. It had been topped with various maki sauces, which made it a bit soggy. Probably not the best representation of what they can do with tempura.
Seared Tuna Lunch Bowl ($15.95 only available from 11 - 3:30 M-F): Came with 5 thick slices of ahi tuna, nicely seared and seasoned on the outside, very raw on the inside. It sat on a bed of white rice, along with various greens, and a lot of homemade onion strings/straws. The dish was expertly put together, with the preparation of the fish top-notch. The fish quality was good...it's been a while since I've had seared tuna, and this version reminded me that I needed to go back to it whenever I can.
Salmon Collar ($10.95) - first time having salmon collar. Have had tuna collar and yellowtail collar before, so wanted to see what the salmon version would be like. It was good, tasted like a salmon steak, except it was a bit more crumbly. There really wasn't any nooks/cranies where you could grab the best tasting fish pieces.
Mango, strawberry ice cream mochi. - it was cutely decorated and was a good bite or two to finish off our meal.
Service was excellent and full throughout, and the check was given and paid at the table. The value was top-notch. As my wife and I were leaving to walk back to our car, we remarked to each other: "THAT was really good"...made the rest of our day that much better. read more