Monster Chef

If you’ve never had authentic sushi before then perhaps this place might be worth 2 stars.
This place shouldn’t be labeled as sushi/​Asian fusion, it’s more like knock off Asian food.
If you’ve ever had authentic or near authentic japanese food then this place is mediocre at best. And that’s me putting it nicely.
Service is meh. No host/​hostess was even present leaving us waiting around for some time before being noticed.
Ceviche tasted like what I imagine baby food might taste like. Udon noodles were so over cooked and mushy it’s as if it had been sitting in the pot for hours before being served. Getting scolded for not finishing this poorly put together food was just perfect (they charge extra for leftovers). Perhaps if we had not force fed ourselves this mush we wouldn’t have given up on the last three pieces of fish that we left at the end of the meal. Everything about this place felt felt cheap as if they were cutting corners left and right to save a few cents.
I was hoping I could end this meal with some ice cream to lift my spirits but frankly even the ice cream tasted like cheapie bulk soggy cookies and cream.
I wouldn’t eat here if it were free.

If you guys don’t feel like reading through this long paragraph, I’ll summarize the main points first, lol:
–Very slow service for large groups
–Make sure to check order slips for items you didn’t mark down
–Skip on fried foods, portions are crazy big
–Fish is frozen, not fresh
For those of you who don’t mind reading a long review…
Our group made sure to call the day before our reservation to preorder our first round so we wouldn’t waste our 2 hour time limit, the restaurant assured us food would come out fast regardless. We had ordered a lot of sashimi, but it didn’t arrive until 20 minutes into our meal, even a steamed custard egg and udon came out before sliced fish. They told us that orders come out quick, that didn’t prove to be true at all. Waiters were attentive but forgetful, we had to ask for refills on tea and napkins several times before they actually remember to bring them to us, and make sure to wipe your cups! I’m guessing they don’t scrub their dishes, after wiping out cups the napkin was brown, no joke… We also found items on our order slips that we never even marked down, so make sure you keep track of what you’re getting or else they might add on additional items. Skip on the fried items, the portions are way bigger for fried foods because my guess is they want you to get full off that instead of eating the sashimi. But the sashimi would be a hit or miss anyways, fish is definitely all frozen, not fresh, our salmon was icy and crunchy. After we were finished with our meal and we’re ready to go, or so we thought, the waitress notified us that we still had Unagi Nigiri that was coming out, and that took 30 minutes to come out. And that’s not an exaggeration. Maybe if they were faster with bringing our food out, and the sashimi wasn’t frozen, I’d give this a 4 star rating…

I am impressed with this restaurant. I’ve heard so much good stuff about this place so I’ve decided to round up some friends to try their AYCE. We were able to make a reservation, and here comes the neat part, the manager told me I could pre-​order the food via email the night before my reservation. How neat! That means I don’t have to wait as long for food when I arrive.
We arrived a bit early and we were told we can be seated when everyone in the parties arrived. As promised, the food came pretty fast after we were seated. Good to mention there is also a AYCE menu, we opted for drafted Sapporo! We were also reminded that Uni and Toro are not part of the AYCE menu, which is understandable given their price point.
Anyhow, overall the experience were good, I am most impressed at how they have sashimi in AYCE menu, not nigiri or rolls, just sashimi! The sashimi boat is very impressive, all their fish are very fresh. We tried a couple of hot food which were decent too.
I will definitely come back.

AYCE right off the freeway in Half Moon Bay. They have apps, sashimi, noodles for you to order. Sashimi was fresh and most apps were tasty. The servers are all very nice but the serve time after you place in your order is a bit on the longer side. No time limit. Bathroom was super clean. Plenty of parking in their parking lot.
** Note: Uni is an additional charge.

Truly a hidden gem off Highway 1 next to the Pacific Ocean. I imagine this is why the quality of the their nigiri and sashimi is seriously on the up and up. Random thought… how is this place only 3.5 stars?
One of my friends has been raving about this place for quite some time now, so the 10 of us decided to take a trip up here just for a late Sunday night dinner. You have the option to order from the menu, AYCE, or AYCE AND Drink for an additional $ 7. However, they won’t seat you until your entire party arrives even if you have a reservation in advance.
The one good thing about having a large party is you get to order a ton of food and sample just about a little of everything. Needless to say, we all opted for the AYCE (and a AYCD option as well), and I must say… this is the first AYCE sushi place I’ve been to where the quality does not go down as you order more. Each slice of sashimi and any rolls we ordered remained consistent throughout the entire meal, although some slices were definitely thicker than others. My personal favorites were the salmon carpaccio, smoked salmon, and salmon with truffle oil. Sense a theme here? ;) The chef’s recommendation Monster Within Roll was amazing as well. Other rolls I highly recommend on trying at least once is the Monster Dragoon Roll, Monster Kai, Monster’s Tears, Monster TNT, and Monster on Fire.
We didn’t try any of the «Classic Rolls», they mainly consisted of rolls you can find among other sushi places and didn’t really appeal to us. Definitely take advantage of their sashimi options; there’s an abundance of choices! And if you have room after, they have complimentary green tea or coconut pineapple ice cream for dessert.
Our group was seated promptly around 7 PM, and safe to say we closed the place down. They close at 9:30 PM on Sundays, and our group finally devoured everything and stepped out the door a little after 10 PM. All in all, we ended up with 117 orders, so safe to say we definitely took advantage of the AYCE option. Expect to dish out about $ 43/​person with tip included. If you plan on adding the AYCD option as well, you’re looking at about $ 50/​person.
I think I’m all sushi-​ed out for the forseeable future… =D
Some Tips:
— Make a right BEFORE the restaurant; the only way to get into the parking lot is from the back.
— They do take reservations, but ONLY if you have a party of 6 or more. If you do have a reservation, you can pre-​order your first round and they’ll start prepping as soon as you check into your reservation. That way, once you’re seated, your party can start deciding what you want for your second round.
— They do charge extra for «fatty tuna» and «sea urchin», which isn’t stated clearly on the menu. The servers will let you know before you decide you still want the items or not though.
— After you get the first order, it’s recommended that you start thinking about sending in your second order… the food does take a while to come out, we spent some time just waiting for our food. Just a thought!
— Each person can only order 3 items at a time, so for example if you have a party of 4 people, you can order up to 12 items off the menu per round. Choose wisely!

Great AYCE menu! We thoroughly enjoyed all of the food. However, there were two issues that detracted from the night a bit:
1) Service. When they give you a time limit (2 hrs) for the AYCE menu, they really need to be more prompt in coming to check if you’re ready to place another order, or need anything. There were way too many times that we needed to go out of our way to flag down a waiter to get more water, or give them our menu, or tell them that we had been waiting quite a while on a couple dishes. It got annoying.
2) Knife cuts. All the fish tasted great, but when you’re serving sashimi, there’s really nothing poor knife skills can hide behind. We had many pieces of fish that were more «hunks of raw fish» than «sashimi.»
That being said, the quality of the food, and of some dishes in particular, and the nice general atmosphere of the place, made up for those shortcomings. I was definitely expecting less in these departments from an AYCE «buffet» place.
Onto our meal: I came with a group of 4 on a Friday evening, and we were able to walk right in. All the staff were super super friendly. We all got AYCE, and we ordered a ridiculous amount of food. I’m not even going to try to list it all — just look at our receipt! There were many yummy dishes, but my absolute favorites were the following:
1) SALMON WITH TRUFFLE OIL (NIGIRI): I love salmon nigiri, and I love truffles, but I’d never had them together before. OMG. This was AMAZING. We kept ordering more because I couldn’t get enough! So decadent.
2) SCALLOP SASHIMI: Great quality; these things were like butter. I fell in love… And placed a second order ;-)
3) FRIED TINY OCTOPUS: First of all, these little things (literally tiny octopuses — yes, that is the plural — fried whole) look absolutely adorable lined up on the plate. So cute I could just eat them right up! So I did. And they were wonderful. We also got more of these.
I also enjoyed a bunch of other stuff, but there’s just too much to list! One thing I loved about this place is that they have a great balance of traditional, simple, and classic dishes, alongside funky and modern ones. And it was all yummy!
I’d definitely come back.