I went here with one of my dearest friends, maybe 2 other tables seated at the time. We were first served partially filled glasses of straight out of the hose tap water with mostly melted bits of ice. I asked for an iced tea. It was projected to be 106 that day, no, I would not like hot tea instead. The server proceeded to suggest they could bring an iced, hot tea.....ok sure. 10 minutes later a different server arrived with a steaming mug of tea, I declined and opted for a Sprite. Right, not a good start, but sushi was pretty good taste wise. Unfortunately sitting at the bar I witnessed them in action including repeatedly setting their knives down on a painfully obvious dirty surface on top of the chiller that was covered in dust and bits of whatever that had accumulated in the years since it had last been wiped down. My bowels were not happy the next morning.
Squeeze us in on Valentine's Day with not too long of a wait. Food was great and the staff was super nice.
I used to love this place. We used to have group dinners of our lab here before the pandemic, and if anybody new in town asked me about Japanese food, Zen Toro would be my top recommendation. We’ve heard rumors lately about degrading of food quality in this place, but that didn’t really affect our preferences at all. HOWEVER, what happens today totally reverted our view, and I will never ever have food or recommend this place to anybody again.So here’s the story. It’s Valentine’s Day-me and my husband planned to have a nice dinner. For two people still cautious about covid, we decided to order sushi takeouts from Zen Toro. Now comes maybe the biggest mistake I made today-making the order on a Chinese takeout platform called Xiaocun. We use this platform quite often to order from Chinese restaurants like Chengdu Style and Tasty Kitchen, so thought it would work as well for Zen Toro. The food we ordered is in Pic.2 just to show it is possible to place the order on Xiaocun.And then we wait. Pic. 1 is a timeline of our waiting from placing the order till the order was cancelled by Xiaocun’s stuff. That cancellation is after our call with Xiaocun, and the stuff said Zen Toro has already called us because they couldn’t make it. The truth is, me and my husband literally stared at our phones during the whole two hours of waiting, and we swear there wasn’t a single second Zen Toro ever called or messaged. Instead, without any notification, we stared at the dynamic map of the driver delivering food all around Davis, faking to be waiting for our food.My heart sinked as our Valentine’s Day plan got ruined. But at the same time I have so many questions in my mind for Zen Toro (for Xiaocun too, but it’s the business between Zen Toro and Xiaocun). What exactly was the reason you couldn’t make the order? Why you said you called but never called (don’t say you didn’t have our number cause it’s on the address) ? Was it because we used a Chinese platform? Was it because you felt we might not able to understand your calls so “why bother”? If you are too arrogant to make orders from Chinese platforms like Xiaocun, why do you let them keep your entry available？It’s 10pm on Valentine’s Day, and we are still busy in the kitchen trying to make up the dinner. You can blame it on the platform, Zen Toro, but it’s still your fault if you cannot manage your business collaborations.
I absolutely love this place! They are the best sushi in town hands down. They don’t smell or taste like fish like their competition. The staff is friendly, warm, and go above and beyond for their customers. Don’t bother going anywhere else!
It was my first place to go restaurant in Davis and also excellent experience for my family. Udon was perfect, and Tenpura Don was so crispy that I can emagine :)
Solid Korean owned Japanese restaurant. You get a spoon with your miso soup! Flavors are good overall, Korean-ish-style udon good, sushi was fine. Note: decent variety of ramen is on menu but this is not a specialty ramen shop (didn't try it).
Tucked away sushi restaurant in Davus College town. What a find! Servers were excellent and ALL our food was awesome and delicious.
We had the seared tuna pepperfin, Cucumber salad, Vegetable tempura and spicy tuna roll. Everything was delicious. Although a little spicier than I would prefer, My favorite was the pepperfin!Our waiter was spot-on with his service.
Hard to find as there was no name out front. The spicy tuna roll was great.
Delicious 5 star food, Extraordinary service, welcoming environment, and family like. We will come back!! It was supposed to be a meal for 2 and we ended up delivering dinner for the rest of the family!