Bob San

So sad. I moved to Wicker Park basically right out of college in 2002. Bob San opened in a rougher around the edges, right before «turning» neighborhood two years earlier. This was my sushi spot basically any time of the day as it stayed open late night on the weekends until 2am (and I took advantage of that). I was at closing night last night and Bob was there. He told me that the bank wouldn’t even give him a loan to open it up as they didn’t believe the neighborhood was a good place for a restaurant. How’s that for foresight? He put up the building that Naniwa is located in as collateral. Great story.
While Bob San cost might have been a little higher than the new sushi places that popped up daily, you could always count on high quality, fresh sushi prepared in the traditional style.
Bob San, you will be greatly missed.

This review is for the karaōke bar-​which is awesome. Décor and furniture are very cool and stylish, bartenders are always friendly, there are always drink specials and they have a huge song list. I always have a wonderful drunken time there, and sing my ass off. I definitely recommend it!

The food is great! The Staff rocks! Warm towel when you sit down is a nice touch:-) Clean and modern!

This is one of my favorite no frills sushi spots in Wicker park. While it’s not somewhere I take visitors whom I’m trying to impress with crazy rolls or a unique menu. the sushi is always fresh, reasonably priced and very tasty. We order delivery or dine-​in at least three times a month and have yet to be disappointed.

Approachable, reliable, fast, delicious sushi restaurant! The service is fast and friendly and the food is great!

The sushi is decent, but for the price, it’s not worth it. I’ve been to Bob San probably 5 times for sushi, but the last time I got really sick. While I was eating the sushi, I thought to myself «hmm…this doesn’t taste the freshest. oh well.» I should have stopped eating because that night I ended up having the worst intestinal cramping, pounding headache, and racing heart rate. The last two were probably because the tyramine in the old sushi reacted with my antibiotics.
I still recommend them for karaōke though! Alex, the guy who runs the karaōke, is a lot of fun and will jump in to do some Dr. Dre/​Eminem every once in awhie.

I will say that this place is hands down one of the best sushi places in chicago. I come from a long chef and sushi career and everything here is extraordinarily fresh and consistent every time. My girlfriend and I come here once a week. Everyone here are amazing and so nice and personable. Bob himself and his son Alex are so friendly! Always a pleasure to come here and if you live in the neighborhood you should love this place as we do and support our neighbors who have been here for 14 years!

Interesting place i have to say. I’ve been to Japan and wow was it quite a experience. The Japanese are obsessed with karaōke. LOL!!! and that it is how in Japan. Everywhere you go karaōke. I am not a singer by no means so my visit was to try the sushi. Every sushi place has the same kind of rolls, fish, etc. some fresher than others. Bob San i will say is very fresh and a little more creative with their sushi rolls. A little pricey but worth it and you get karaōke along with it. A good place for a group of friends to go. You can even dance. It’s really close to a real Japanese visit. The staff is very nice and courteous. A unique experience I must say, plus i had 10 giftie dollars to use.

Bob San has a really cool vibe goin on, but I’m not the biggest fan. The main reason being that the prices are much higher than you’d find elsewhere in wicker, for around the same quality. Luckily, it’s never too busy so the two times I’ve been there I haven’t had to wait. If money ain’t a thing, I’d come here more. Otherwise, save some money and go to one of the other 1,000 sushi places in the area.

I can’t comment on the food here because me and a group of ten of us came here for the karaōke. The karaōke here was the best, great crowd, the staff was cool especially the DJ he even joined in. There’s a fair amount of room to dance so if you don’t feel like singing in front of a bunch of people you can just dance. I had a blast and will be back if I’m in the area.

There are much better sushi options in Chicago for similar prices (and a couple of the best in the city are very near by). I’ve only been once but my experience was pretty negative. The night I went wasn’t particularly busy so it can’t be blamed on that.
Our waitress seemed to be in a rush to take our order, coming back 3 times within 10 minutes to see if we were ready (she didn’t seem to notice that we were still pouring over the menu). However, the sushi chefs and the hostesses were very friendly on the way in and out, so they’ve got that going for them.
The tempura was ok but fairly expensive, and the sushi rice was very mushy and the rolls very poorly rolled. Even the naturally delicious unagi was pretty disappointing.
I’m sad to say that I live right down the street but I will not be back.

Not bad if you want to satisfy a spontaneous sushi craving. For a local spot in the area, I thought the sushi was a little bit above average. Granted, I don’t live in wicker park, but my friends do so I’m in the area quite often. I just don’t think I’d go out of my way to come here.
The menu is quite extensive, and caters to both vegetarians and carnivores.
A few items I tried:
The shrimp gyoza tastes great, and the sauce that comes with it is flavorful. I could have that sauce with any meal.
For sushi, I ordered the hamachi cilantro jalapeño roll, which was probably the spiciest roll I’ve ever had — to the point where my palate was almost ruined. My friends all agreed that it was too much. It is labeled as spicy on the menu so I can’t really complain. Then again, I’d like to see anyone eat all five of these pieces and not break out a sweat.
The original rainbow maki was good, and def hit the spot.
Had a couple of pieces if sashimi (unagi and hamachi). It was just ok.
I also tried my friend’s chicken teriyaki which was light and sweet. Thought it could have a little more kick to it. The chicken did have a weird texture.
I didn’t see anything appealing on the cocktail menu so I just asked for an old fashioned. I thought it was decent, not amazing tho.
I’ll prob be back, but only because I’m in the area a lot. The price is decent if you stick with the basics. I’d probably think more highly of this place if it was BYOB because of the quality of the sushi.

This review is for the deliver service only.
I ordered a spider roll and spicy mayo tuna roll, my friend also ordered a few rolls. The delivery guy was quick, but very rude. Called my phone 5 times (yes I answered every time) and told me he was at my building. He did not come up to my floor. I go downstairs (already I’m annoyed this is delivery he is supposed to come up), and he is no where to be seen. I call him again and he tells me he is about a block away and asks if I can walk over and meet him. What? I couldn’t believe he asked me that! This is delivery! After about 5 more minutes he comes by my door and makes me wake to his car to come get the food.
The food. I’ve had sushi in alot of places. I travel a lot and have had great sushi and terrible sushi. This sushi was barely average. Spider roll was not like any spider roll I’ve ever had, and not in a positive way. The spicy tuna roll was average. Nothing great. Very disappointed in my first experience with this place.

There really isn’t anything good i can say about this restaurant. There are so many sushi places in Chicago, I wouldn’t recommend trying this one out. Not too mention the prices are high.
Oyster shooters smelled bad, I didn’t take the risk. Edamame was fine, cooked a bit too much and dry. There was nothing spicy about the chili spicy tuna crunch roll — and there was a sauce in top that had a funny taste. The spicy salmon crunch roll was spicier, but only had salmon inside? My friend ordered the sashimi combo, couldn’t finish because his stomach felt queasy from the oyster shooter. We both left half our order on our plate, and we are faithful members of the clean plate club.

I have to say that I love me some sushi and I’ve been to most of the sushi places that our wonderful city has to offer, some that I keep coming back to and others, well I’m just checking them off my bookmarked list never to really visit again as there are always new one arising. Bob San, well you were definitely a nice experience, but I’m not dying to come back anytime soon. I made reservations for a party of six on a Saturday night around 8:30pm. When we got in, there were still quite a few empty tables and by 10pm things were much more full. Considering, it wasn’t super busy tells you something already about how this place will be. The atmosphere is nice, modern and definitely not a hole in the wall type of place. We got sat at a nice table and our server approached us right away. The nice thing about this place is that it’s not overly loud and you can easily have a great conversation with a date or with a group of friends and to me, that’s a huge plus, so two stars right there.
Now onto the important stuff, the sushi. There are a lot of simple rolls on the menu like salmon avocado, unagi avocado, white tuna avocado, tuna cucumber, shrimp tempura, etc but they don’t have much of a selection of special rolls which didn’t bother me since I prefer the simple rolls to taste the fish, but my friends were looking for a similar experience to Coast. Okay so we ordered a bunch of the simple rolls that ran from $ 7-​$ 9 which was a tad pricier than other places for simple rolls. They were good in quality and like everyone before me, you should definitely try the crunch roll. It’s very simple in that it has shrimp tempura, spicy mayo, eel sauce and tempura crumbs. Nothing special, just tasty. Get the raw fish rolls by themselves without any fillers like avocado or cucumber, because this way you get much more fish. So overall, the rolls were tasty but nothing extraordinary.
Now onto the service. Our server was nice but kind of a dodo bird. I mean she took my order and then left and my friends had to wait for her to take their orders, kind of annoying. Then in the end of our meal, we asked her to split our bill since there were 3 couples and she was like «well you should have told me in the beginning since now I don’t remember what everyone got.» I’m thinking okay, no biggie. We’ll divide it ourselves. Then she brings are checks and splits the bill after all, which was a nice surprise but then why say no in the first place. Bob San, I’m happy I tried you out, you’re on oldie but goodie, but I won’t be back anytime soon. However, if you live right next door, definitely come on by.

This is only for karaōke. After what was supposed to be a casual Saturday night with dinner and some wine, my friends and I felt a need to keep the party going and decide to head over to Bob San to check out the karaōke. We had an absolute blast. We performed several songs and were dancing when we weren’t singing. It wasn’t too crowd and had great energy. They had a good selection of drinks and a variety of red wines.
I would have given it 5 stars but the bartender was super rude to me which put me in a bad mood so I closed my tab and went to the bar on the restaurant side to see if I could get a drink from there. Unfortunately it was closed but the bouncer was nice and apologized for the bartender and another employee apologized as well later on in the night. The service was good outside of the disrespectful bartender. Note: I could understand if the bartender was having a bad day but was smiling and laughing just before I ordered my drink and was decent during the first few orders of the night but got meaner as the night continued. He was also rude to my friend later in the night.
Despite that, I will definitely go back with my friends. It was the most fun I have ever had a karaōke.

Burt says Bob is «da Man». And his restaurant is «da Best».
FRESH FISH is the name of the sushi game and Bob’s got it.
When u walk in you are usually greeted by the coolest sushi chef in town. Bob is the greatest. If you don’t know him say hi and become friends because you will be back.
Great room. Comfortably elegant bar. Very nice outdoor seating area on Division with awesome people watching.
*Great super white tuna. A must-​have.
Burt recommends — Kani su, Beef asparagus rolls, jalapeño tuna sashimi –appetizers.
Spicy mayo crabby dragon Hand rolls. Super white sushi. Dragon roll. Spider roll. Unagi, Kani, and salmon sushi pieces. Toro when they have it.
And make sure you drink a couple bottles of Karatumba cold sake.
Bobs is not pretentious, and uptight like a lot of sushi places. You feel very comfortable and at home.
Relatively cheap, compared to the super high end sushi houses. (Sushi is never cheap, if it is, you shouldn’t be eating it. Burt said — relatively.)
Burt says over-​all Bob San is his favorite sushi spot!

This is for the sushi restaurant. I like sushi and thought this was only okay. The tea was very good but I found the sweet potato roll and cucumber avocado rolls underwhelming. Service was only okay once we got one order. Water refills were good but if we wanted more tea or drinks, we had to wait or yell to get someone to help us.
Splitting the bill was a nightmare – I am not deducting any stars for that though.

Those who know me know that I am far from the biggest fan of sushi. It’s not that I don’t like sushi, it’s just that I don’t think there is enough variation of taste between specific sushi items or between different sushi restaurants.
So anyways, I’m probably a bit overly critical of sushi joints, but they are pretty ubiquitous and homogenous. So when one like Bob San offers nothing special but charges significantly more, I feel it is more than deserving of a below average rating. It’s not bad, it’s just not especially good and it’s expensive, and with all the sushi options there are in Chicago I see no reason to go to Bob San.
As an aside: I used to live right around the corner at 1137 N Wood St. One weekday night around midnight (hours after they closed) I was walking home from somewhere and there was a line of about 50 people waiting to get into Bob San. This bizarre mystery haunts me to this day and I’m hoping that someone can shed some light on it. Please, someone tell me what they were waiting in line for! The curiosity is slowly eating away at my insides.

This place is amazing! There are really no amount of words to fully convey the distinguished amenities that Canto offers. Attached to the sushi restaurant Bob San, Canto acts as the cooler, more casual little brother and after hours spot for those looking to kick things up from a standard quiet dinner out. The space is beautifully decorated with neon hues illuminating the bar area out to the rich hard wood floors and the funky pink orbs that line the wall and ceiling of the performance area. There are three main televisions that feature the performer’s song of choice so everyone in the crowd can share in the often time frightening and liberating experience of singing in front of strangers.
I have seen other reviews that state the song choices were a little slim but as an avid music lover I was amazed that they had so many varying artists, from Kiss to Kanye I’m sure you’ll find something within the two huge vinyl books. The only thing I found bothersome was that they were testing a new karaōke system so many of the songs I chose to sing couldn’t be loaded so that was a bummer but I got to sing and sing and sing some more, so there was no problem there. The Dj, Alex was very fair with song order and played some cool light music between sets. But my favorite portion of the night was not getting up to crone songs of the likes of Lady Gaga but gaining the liquid courage to give my fiery rendition of Paparazzi.
Canto just may hold the best bartender in the city. There I’ve said it! And he isn’t even a native. When it comes to sampling intoxicating drinks and even better conversation there is one word in alcohol expertise, Dave. If you should ever step foot within these walls, head straight to the bar and ask for Dave. He’s the kind of guy that makes you feel good about tipping and he’ll also provide a lot of insight into nightlife helpful tips. There is just no way around it. You have to visit Canto and see for yourself. Now the best night depends on what you’re looking for. I like the more quiet, casual atmosphere so Wednesday was the best night to go. There aren’t a lot of people out but still enough of a crowd to justify a night out. If you like a huge crowd then Thursday or Friday is more your speed. I’m sure whenever you go, you’ll love it!
Check out my blog review on inexpensive local vacations featuring Canto as a great low cost entertainment option: