I'm not normally drawn to inexpensive sushi/hibachi takeout, but you guys were raving (4.6 stars?!?) and it's right across the street, so curiosity got the better of me and I visited for takeout dinner. My experience can be summarized as: You almost get what you pay for.
This is a very inexpensive (cheap) place. There are only two tables so it's designed for take-out. I took out the Steak Hibachi dinner ($10.50) and the 6-piece sushi ($9). Both would have been even more disappointing except...what do you expect for $10.50 and $9? Not good, but not terrible. The steak on the hibachi had a decent dark steak flavor but the meat itself was very low quality - about half of the 1/2 inch squares were filled with gristle, and some pieces had to be spit out. The fried rice was okay, but the sauteed vegetables were actually quite good. It came with a non-descript salad which was basically a hand-full of lettuce with a few slices of cucumber. Both the steak and salad were accompanied by a very thick dressing/sauce that was mostly mayo - orange for the steak, white (ranch?) for the salad. Not good, but, again, not awful.
So, 6 pieces of sushi for $9? That's both intriguing and scary. Turns out the sushi was neither - the pieces were small and lacked the bright flavors and snap of truly fresh salmon and tuna. At $1.50/piece they were overpriced and I can't recommend them - anyone who likes sushi will find this disappointing.
I concluded that there was a small chance that I'd be back for the hibachi, but not steak - maybe try the chicken or pork. But then I went to Akashi for lunch the next day and had their bento box for $12.95. It's infinitely better - real food prepared well, with soup, salad, AND a California roll - and it's only $2.45 more. There's really no reason to go to Hibachi Express. read more