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    Sakura

    3.9 (65 reviews)
    ModerateJapanese, Sushi Bars
    Closed 11:00 am - 2:30 pm, 4:00 PM - 9:30 PM

    Sakura Photos

    SAKURA ATMOSPHERE

    What's the vibe?
    Quiet
    Good for kids
    Good for groups

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    Recommended Reviews - Sakura

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    Reviews With Photos

    Dana S.

    Sakura has an incredible lunch special for sushi, with many options and it's sooo tasty. The waiters are attentive. If you're older though, bring your reading glasses, as it's a little dark in the restaurant. I personally like the vibe of it though!

    Store
    Sandy B.

    Not much left at town center mall, but this gem. STIILL good chicken teriyaki ! Been there a long time. Was good to see open

    Hibachi Steak
    Stacie W.

    Another great experience here. Amazing service. Amazing food. Absolutely love this place. Hibachi Steak Dinners for the win.

    Perfectly done edamame and a super delicious Dynamic Roll
    Melanie W.

    I do miss this sushi spot. I just wish they had different hours so that I would be able to enjoy it. The food is really delicious and the staff are always very pleasant.

    WV rolls are the best...but the lady manger is rude!
    Beverly S.

    The order was takeout...but everyone wore masks and place appeared to be clean. Love the WV rolls very tasty.

    Exterior.
    Jeff Y.

    I left Richmond kind of late and by the time I got into Charleston it was almost 10PM, so I was just looking for a place that was still open for dinner. I Yelped and found that Sakura was open until 10:30PM and was relatively close to my hotel. The interior was quite large and very clean and well-decorated. They were already cleaning up the teppanyaki area so it was too late to eat on that side of the restaurant (what east coasters refer to as "hibachi;" in Japanese, "hibachi" refers to the cooking utensil, and "teppanyaki" to the grill/cooking style). My waitress was very friendly and attentive, so service actually deserves four stars. My reason for a three-star rating overall was because of the food. It was just average/mediocre food. I guess I should give Sakura the benefit of the doubt since this is Charleston, WV (actually several miles outside the downtown area), but the miso soup was really watery and just didn't taste like miso soup. The salad dressing was also a bit creamier and more ranch-like than expected. However, I will say that the dinner bento for $19.99 comes with A LOT of food. In addition to soup, salad, and rice, you get a full six pieces of California roll, a full order of tempura with two pieces of shrimp (this wasn't a combo of meat + tempura, all bentos just come with tempura), four fried shumai, and steamed vegetables under your choice of protein. My teriyaki steak was actually a nice, thick, steak-cut and was actually cooked to medium as ordered, maybe even medium-rare. The shumai, California roll, and tempura were not bad, but not amazing. Oh, and the steamed white rice was surprisingly good. Sakura has a fairly extensive menu and they are running a 15% off special through the end of May 2016, so it's worth coming just for something different, but for those of you who have had better Japanese in big cities or in Japan, don't come with high expectations. P.S. There was a mix of Japanese and Korean music playing during my meal, and I'm pretty sure many of the employees were Chinese, which was amusing.

    Menu
    Joseph M.

    Again, coming from Cali I am always looking for some good places to eat near by so, I stopped here to have some sushi. It's a quiet place and I decided to sit at the bar. I was able to change the TV to whatever I wanted and the server checked on me Multiple times to see if I had questions or was ready to order. I the vegetable spring rolls, which were tasty and very hot when they came out, and that was great. I also had the Honda Roll which was pretty good as well. Very pleased with my visit.

    Receipt

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    19 days ago

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    1 year ago

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    2 years ago

    Clean restrooms! Delicious salad with and miso soup. We also had Shrimp Tempura Sushi and Chicken Habachi.

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    4 years ago

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    2 years ago

    Amazing food, service was great. Amazing staff will eat there again. Very clean and worth the money.

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    5 years ago

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    10 years ago

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    2 years ago

    Sushi is sub par. Not a fan of the food. Sushi is pretty small and not much variety. Haven't been back since

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    4 years ago

    This place has the best sushi around!! Make sure you try the sexy jalapeño!! The Sakura roll is the bomb!

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    6 years ago

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    10 years ago

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    5 years ago

    The Sushi here is the best in town! The service is good & we have never had a bad meal here.

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    5 years ago

    Staff is super nice and the food is fantastic! The sushi is really good & my fiancé loved his hibachi.

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    10 years ago

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    4 years ago

    This places crab Rangoon is to die for and the sushi is pretty good to but the crab Rangoon is the star.

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    7 years ago

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    6 years ago

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    7 years ago

    Always wonderful and friendly service. Sushi is amazing and Hamachi kama is to doe for!

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    8 years ago

    Great sushi very expensive I recommend the Sakura roll and a good drink is the Sakura Punch but over all great experience and eat here again

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    8 years ago

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    6 years ago

    The sushi is always fresh and tastes exactly as it is described. Serves is great everyone is always pleasant.

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    7 years ago

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    7 years ago

    Great service, nice clean atmosphere, and food is always good. Go there couple times per month.

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    Ask the Community - Sakura

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    Kita Modern Japanese - Seafood Charleston, WV

    Kita Modern Japanese

    (115 reviews)

    $$

    I had the A5 Wagyu Filet and the Omakase Nigiri. The steak was perfectly cooked, and the Nigiri…read morecame out nicely plated and the presentation was beautiful. Everything had a great taste, I especially enjoyed the Unagi Nigiri. I had a great waiter, very nice and made sure we had everything we needed. The environment was nice as well, I felt very comfortable.

    It was probably a bad idea to come here but Kita was close to my hotel and I didn't want to drive…read morefar for lunch after just arriving in town. They have several choices on the 3 pages of menus so it made it sort of difficult to pick my poison, so to speak. They bill themselves as modern Japanese. Not sure what that meant, but basically they play modern upbeat music and have a modern interior. They do have lunch specials during the week, but I didn't see many that were appealing as they're a combination of Chinese, Thai and Japanese dishes. They also had poke bowls for lunch, but I'm not so sure about that. Their sushi rolls appeared to be made mostly with cream cheese, which I'm not a big fan of in rolls, so those were out as well. I ended up ordering off of the dinner menu. I chose the grilled lamb chops and a side of steamed rice. I totally missed the 3rd menu which featured the sushi and specialty rolls. The lamb chops were ok, they did have a slight grilled flavor, but also another weird flavor like they weren't that fresh. Maybe customers don't order lamb chops here, as much as maybe they would at a fancy American or Mediterranean restaurant. Either way, I still ate them because I was hungry. I prefer the frenched rib chops better than the loin chop which is served here....since its a much tastier cut. In addition, it's usually more expensive. Overall, I don't see myself ever returning here since I'm also not in the area that much. Service was adequate as our drinks were refilled a couple of times and the waiter made sure to stop by and check on us.

    Hibachi Japanese Steak House - Soupy salad.  The mayo dressing was all the way down the bowl

    Hibachi Japanese Steak House

    (13 reviews)

    I personally just ate here & I'm still at the table. Had to come & leave a review. Stopped by w/ my…read morehubby & son. Had a grill seat & was serviced by chef Eduardo. Amazing

    I am from the west coast. There are hundreds of Japanese eateries in Los Angeles alone. I found…read moremyself in WV on business and was happy to see a teppanyaki restaurant in Charleston. Finding the place was not too difficult using GPS. The facade seemed enticing. Entering the place I could smell and hear the grills which only whet my appetite. I waited about 8 minutes and was shown to a seat. I was the only person at the grill, but was shortly joined by one couple, then another. Orders were taken from the 5 of us about 15 minutes after the last people were seated. I ordered a steak and chicken combo with fried noodles and a salad, and some fried gyoza (dumplings). To drink, I asked for a small Sapporo. The beer arrived shortly along with the gyoza. Then the show began. Anyone who has been to a teppan restaurant knows the drill. The cook makes a big show of oiling and firing up the grill, clanging the instruments on the grill, cutting vegetables and meat in a showy fashion. That part was a 4 of 5 compared to Benihana. I didn't come for the show. I was there expecting some yummy food. Here begins the sad part of the dinner. The gyoza were actually very well done. Fried very crispy with very tasty filling. I was let down by the dipping sauce which seemed to be only soy sauce. The dumplings were good, but the sauce was very lacking. I found that sad because it is so easy to make a good dipping sauce. They should add a little rice vinegar or ginger to the sauce, maybe some green onions. Next was my salad. This looked like some iceberg lettuce and tomato swimming in a bowl of "miso" dressing. Not only was the bowl overloaded with dressing, but the dressing itself tasted like mayonnaise, not the usual citrussy miso dressing I am used to. The main course was beef, chicken and grilled vegetables. The meats were OK, not great. The veggies were seemed only partially grilled as they released lots of water when plated. The really sad part of this were the noodles. These were not asian noodles in any sense of the word. It seemed like they went to Krogers and bought some flat Italian noodles then boiled them before lightly grilling them. Even chow mien noodles would have been better, or at least some semblance of an asian dish. It is almost a sin to call these grilled noodles. It seemed like they were boiled, then warmed on a grill for a few minutes. Want to know what they are supposed to be like? Just google YAKISOBA. I ate the beef and some of the chicken and vegetables, but overall it was not a good meal. I know there are not a lot of ethnic restaurants in Charleston, but this place is just sad. It is too bad that the people in this town can't experience a good Japanese steakhouse. The best part of this $42 meal was the beer and the gyoza. Not interested in eating a bowl of noodle soup. Will not be back or recommend to anyone.

    Sakura - japanese - Updated May 2026

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