Rock and Rollin'

June and I had the chance to dine at a sushi restaurant over the weekend called California Rollin’. There are a couple locations in the city, we went to the one in the Village Gate. There a few restaurants in the Gate to choose from, as well as other fun things to do, and its all within a couple of building complexes. All in all, it's a fun area of our fair city.

June and I like to pretend that we are food critics. In recognition of our skills, here is our assessment of our evening.

Location: Excellent. Probably the best thing going for this place. Entering the restaurant is a little tricky. The restaurants are all on the first floor of some building complexes. The front of this restaurant was a little deceiving, despite there being a doorway and several windows, none of them were accessible. Trust me, I tried. You enter the restaurant through a nearby doorway which leads you down a hallway.  Sushi on your left.

Environment: Eclectic. They did a good job with some of the detailing of the furniture to make you feel like you were near a beach, be it California or Florida. The music selection was enjoyable for any age. Some of the décor was rather chintzy and made me wonder if they bought it at the store in the mall where you can get all the portraits of dolphins and elephant figurines.

Price: Consistent. Same price that you would pay at any other sushi establishment in the area. We got a $30 gift certificate for $15 at Living Social, which is this website where you can get coupons for just about anything (I think). Something June is addicted enjoys doing. Altogether, including the coupon, we ended up spending only $29 with the tip. It was really an awesome deal as a result of the coupon. We bought six rolls, had a mini cup of lobster bisque, and a couple of drinks as well.

Service: Average. I am not sure if they were understaffed, but we showed up at 5:30 on a Friday and we still had to wait about thirty minutes for a table. I heard one of the staff say, in passing, that there was only two servers for the whole restaurant. It was our first time there, and our server did not explain anything or tell us about the specials. We ran out of soy sauce with one roll left to eat.  We waited about ten minutes for the server to come by, and I even went up to the counter to ask the host, but they were too busy as well. I ate the last roll naked. In fairness they looked like they were going insane with how busy they were (or understaffed), yet you go out to be served.  Otherwise we could have made sushi at home. June can roll with the best of them.  

Cuisine: Sloppy. Although there were a couple of rolls June and I really enjoyed, they were made rather poorly. They were odd sizes and falling apart. June may disagree with me on this one, cause she loves sushi regardless of the form. To me though, the presentation of sushi is really what makes it so fun to eat. It is not like we went to an Italian restaurant and order sushi for an appetizer.

Overall Experience: Fair to middling. 

Best part about the whole thing...I got to be out on a date with a fox! We are still sticking with our favorite sushi place Piranha’s. Until next Dine!