Hachi Japanese Fusion Sushi & Tapas & Sake Club

I would like to add that I went back to this restaurant a few days after reading the totally inaccurate and very offending response from the owner to my honest initial review.
I wanted to politely ask for his/​her comments on Unilocal to be removed as the owner or manager who wrote the response obviously had me confused with someone else, but never had the opportunity to voice my request as the waitress who welcomed me did not event let me talk to the manager… as he/​she was supposedly to busy!
Oh well, this leaves me no choice but to reduce my rating for this restaurant from a generous 2-​star down to a merely appropriate 1-​star!!!
I could care less about what goes inside the head of a schizophrenic restaurant manager/​owner that can’t differentiate between a review from an honest customer and his imaginary restaurant fugitive, but I care about the Unilocal community so I hope you will find my review and comments useful and you will think twice before considering this location for your next ‘Japanese’ meal…
Cheers!

okay, first of all, they are very much open as of today, 6:15pm, Monday Feb. 03, 2014
The French Kiss Roll is a must try! Although I’ve never had anything here that wasn’t good, it’s just that the French Kiss roll is phenomenal!
As for the service, I see that other’s have had less than stellar service & that bums me out to read that. I’ve probably been here a dozen times now & I’ve always been waited on promptly & with courtesy, no matter if they were busy or slow.
Is definitively my go to place, even though it’s not close to my work or my home & there’s a whole bunch of other sushi places in between!

2.5 stars
I’m torn with this review. My food was good, but the service was poor. How do you score that?
My first dish of hamachi $ 13 was fresh and a healthy-​sized portion. But, then I had to endure a 25-​min wait for my small salmon kama $ 5. There was a mention from the wait staff (owner) that it was coming, but no warning it was going to be 25 mins! I sat patiently and watched the table of 6 next to me get plate after plate of their meal.
So, do I rate the food (4 stars) or the overall experience (1.5 stars?) I 3 stars is generous and rounded up. I was so pissed, I went to the kitchen to get my check. I orderd some takeout rice to eat with my leftover curry in my motel room fridge instead of waiting for another order of food at this place! After all, i didn’t have until till midnight!
I can’t imagine how this place handles lunch time or a busy rush. It was me and a table of 6, basically 25% full and the kitchen was struggling.

Came here with some friends for their $ 1 oysters during HH (6−8pm Sun-​Thurs). The oysters were pretty fresh!
For the rolls, I recommend the French kiss roll; love the spicy ponzu sauce! The pork roll is decent, and the mango piece was surprisingly good with the pork. The karage was okay; the ginger sauce that came with it was good, but I wish the chicken were crunchier, and the pieces were a little small. I wasn’t a fan of the Japanese pizzas we tried. The unagi pizza was too salty, and the lobster had onions. :P
Service was rough, and we were only 1 of maybe 3 tables there. The time between our dishes was too long and made our dinner service last 1.5 hours total. I’m hesitant to come back due to the service, but if friends wanted to go, I would consider it for just the HH oysters.

This is a hidden gem, don’t get deceived by the location and what the place looks like from the outside.
Signature rolls are absolutely terrific. Red cowboy, vampire, french kiss and royal flush are my favorite, but basically every signature roll is delicious.
Their newest addition to the menu, fish or seafood nabe is really worth trying too. For a little bit over $ 20/​person you get a pot of miso broth on a heater and plenty of fish or seafood, mushrooms, noodles and veggies to boil yourself in the broth. Try the crab legs version — close to perfect.
Love the sake drinks too, White Geisha being my favorite. Great sake selection and sake samplers too.
Overall good place for a romantic dinner or a bigger dinner with friends. The place doesn’t get crowded too often, which is good too.

Was definitely in the mood for sushi and made a reservations for 4 since this place was central to where my friends and I work. You definitely don’t need reservations as the place was pretty empty around 6:30pm.
So my first issue is with the lack of cohesiveness. The name, I mean, it’s really long and has waaay too much going on and leads to certain expectations. When you enter the restaurant and look at the menu, you don’t get a feel for any of that except sushi. Also, Fusion typically indicates a mixing of several cuisines but this was very Japanese; yes, different styles of Japanese cooking, but Japanese nonetheless.
The service was good and we did have a few pieces of excellent nigiri, but overall, I walked away unexcited. I was stoked for the $ 1 oyster happy hour — they did not have oysters. Ordered a few of the soju cocktails but they were just SO sweet and took quite some time to get even though no one was in the restaurant besides us. Tried scallops for the first time though and loved them so that was a plus!
The veggie options here are also non-​existent. I designed a few veggie rolls for my friends that were coming and I definitely credit them for being flexible and actually listening to me (hence the 3 stars instead of 2). They ended up coming out good, but it would be great to accomodate for the diverse eating community in the Bay Area.
Honestly, probably won’t make it out here again but they have promise if they re-​do their menu and come up with a cohesive concept for the restaurant. The food is really good quality but the place was pretty underwhelming.

I’ve bookmarked Hachi for quite sometimes. Finally, I went last night with my sushi-​eater friends.
From the outside, the place looked very sketchy. As we were pulling over, my friends were like.“errr. is this place open? it’s so dark.” The restaurant was indeed open… it just needed extra lightings outside. And what a different atmosphere inside. It looked simple but modern. There was only one table of two. and later a couple other tables after we were seated.
The server was very friendly and throughout the night we had a chance to talk to her a little bit. It took us about 2+ hours from the time we got there until we finished dinner because the food came out very slowly. Service was attentive but the food came out way too slow. The server later told us that they were short of staff that night. She received our feedback very well so I’m not going to ding the score for the slow service.
Their infusion cocktails were delicious and $ 5/​drink, not bad. We ordered white geisha, Lyche in heaven and peach and heaven. The drinks were not strong, well it’s japanese cocktails so no hard liquor there. My friend later got their potato based soju (I think) on the rock. and he thought it was still not strong… o well!
I must say that I was a little bit disappointed that their «buy one get one 50% off» promotion was only offered for their Nabe (Hot pot). The sign outside and the menu on their website still had the rolls but they were not offered last night. I wish they would be a bit more consistent. Don’t take this the wrong way, I don’t mind paying full prices, just don’t advertise otherwise.
We did get our free baked mussels because we checked in on Unilocal and our food orders were more than $ 30 (their prices are not cheap so it was very easy to go over $ 30!).
However, the food that we had were very delicious. Certainly, one of the best Japanese food I’ve had in the area. The flavor and taste of their sushi are certainly a lot better than the other cheaper Japanese (sushi) restaurants in the area.
We ordered the hamachi belly special. We didn’t realize it was «nigiri.» $ 7.95 for two pieces, a bit steep BUT the flavor was out of this world. We loved them so much!!!
The pink lady roll was delicious and flavorful. The server advised us to eat the sushi with soy sauce but honestly, we didn’t have to. The sushi rice was very well flavored and most importantly there weren’t too much rice!!! The fish was also very fresh, yumm!
The lobster island roll was a tad pricey ($ 17.95) but we really enjoyed the roll. Probably our favorite roll of the night. The lobster was sweet and not fishy. I personally am not sure why it took so long to prepare this roll though. since nothing was cooked. well. except the lobster tail shell that they baked/​torched for presentation only.
The vampire roll was also delicious. We were a little bit nervous it would be too spicy for my friends since they both don’t like spicy food because it came with jalapeño and sriracha sauce. However, there was no heat at all so everyone was happy munching into this roll.
The mango shrimp tempura roll, certainly had the mango flavor! A bit sweeter and probably the least enjoyable since we thought if they would have put sliced mango vs mango pureed it would add more texture to the roll. It was still pretty good though :).
We also had their salmon and ikura pizza and garlic butter lobster pizza. The pizza were more like crispy crepes. The dough was thin and not doughy. The lobster pizza was the star of the dinner. We loved it soooo much. It was simple, and it had some sliced peppers on top but again, not spicy. The salmon pizza came with cream cheese on it and a little more complex and rich. The ikura gave extra saltiness, could be weird for those who aren’t adventurous with their food :).
The baked mussels were a bit overcooked, in my opinion. They were complimentary though so I won’t complaint about this hahaha!
We also ordered 6 of their fresh oysters. They tasted fresh and delicious. My friends and I go to Tomales Bay oyster farms a lot and though the oysters here were smaller and they were already dressed in some sauces and seasonings we really enjoyed them… very much!
They kindly gave us complimentary dessert which was green tea ice cream dressed with plum wine. I’ve had green tea ice cream before… but not with plum wine. The flavor was «interesting.» My gf thought the wine made it tasted like cough medicine :). I found that mixing the ice cream helped to tone down the «sting» from the wine (that gave the cough medicine like flavor).
We certainly would like to come back to try more of their food. Our total for the night was about $ 145 for three people. Not dirt cheap but we knew we had quality food and we appreciate the friendliness of the server throughout the dinner.

4 stars for food quality. 2 stars for deceit.
The checkin offer said 1 free dragon roll w/​purchase, but when you actually checkin, there is a clause that says (valid with purchase of $ 60 or more of food per party). I thought this was a bit deceiving on their part.
The sign outside the door said 50% Off (Buy 1 Get the 2^nd with equal or less value). When I inquired about it, the waiter mentioned that it was only available on weekdays.
I decided on the Lion King Roll since I thought it would be the most filling since it’s so heavy. At $ 12.95, it is a bit pricey, but the quality is good.
The service here was okay. The waiter wasn’t very friendly and for how small the restaurant is, I would have expected the service to be quicker.

As I drove by on El Camino a couple times, I noticed the huge signs that say «50% Off (Buy 1 get the 2^nd with equal or lesser value).» When I looked up the restaurant on Unilocal,I saw the check-​in offer for a «Free Dragon Roll With Purchase.» I thought I’d try it out because I didn’t want to miss out on the specials, but once I got there I was quickly disheartened.
First, as soon as I got seated, I checked into Unilocal to redeem the offer, but the fine print says you can only get the free Dragon Roll if you spend over $ 60. After the first disappointment, I was hopeful that I could still get a second roll half off. The waitress quickly crushed that dream when she said that was only available on weekdays. On that note, my impression of the restaurant went completely downhill.
We decided on the Lion King Roll and the Rainbow Roll. The food took a while to get to the table, considering there were only 4 groups of people at the restaurant. The rolls themselves were pretty good. I’d probably give this place 4 stars if it wasn’t for all the disappointment.
The food was definitely good enough for me to come back again, but I’ll make sure to bring enough people to reach $ 60 or on a weekday to get the second 50% roll. Their sake and soju collection is also quite comprehensive so I may come back sometime for a drink.

tapas plus sushi = mayonaise mess!
Happened to be in the neighborhood after a meeting and the idea of Spain meets Japan was intreaging! Some izyataki staples like fried chicken balls and crispy tuna skin were over salted and served with the exact same «unagi sauce». The creative sushi options were all just plays on the same dragon/​spider/​49er rolls like anywhere but with added mayo and added sauce and added salt. Indeed this place managed to over salt the seweed salad which I ordered to cleanse my palat! Drink specials were all night since we WERE the customers. The redeeming quality was the friendly service. Another sad and forgetable sushi innovation attempt… maybe the classic got it right the first time around!

Cheap deal on oysters when you check in on Unilocal.Too bad i’m not a fan of raw oysters so I didn’t care too much for them, but my friends seemed to enjoy them. They had some good rolls, but nothing was too memorable to me. Food overall was decent, but nothing special.
The restaurant is really small and the service was mediocre.
I hear they have good happy hour specials so if I was ever to come back here, it’d be to try that out.

Service was good, it was really empty when we got in, but got crowded by the time we left. The parking lot is HORRIBLE, and I saw that before I got there, so I just parked in the plaza right next to it. Service was fine, there were no problems with that.
We came for the happy hour, but we didn’t realize it was a Chef’s daily choice for the 30% off roll, which was still $ 9 for 8 pieces. The Cherry Blossom was the special. it was alright, nothing special. I just had a cherry blossom somewhere else about 2 weeks ago and it was much better. The food quality was okay.
We also tried an unagi pizza, that had an interesting texture to it but tasted decent, if only it wasn’t like $ 14 and smaller than a personal pizza.
Overall paid $ 24 each for 7 people, pretty pricey. They also have $ 5 cocktails for happy hour, and an order of edamame for every 2 cocktails?
My friend also checked in and got us an order of oysters (order in half dozens or dozens, one order per check in), which was 99 cents per oyster (so a dozen for $ 12), that was a great deal.
I don’t think I’d come back though. :\

+Open late (I hear)
+Friendly enough service (albeit new)
+/​-​Club/​lounge vibe
–Dishes lack attention to detail
–Taste leaves much to be desired
–Overpriced for what it is

We came here late on a Saturday night. Didn’t have a lot of options around 10:30 pm, but you don’t need many when you can go to Hachi!
It’s such an unexpectedly hip vibe… The exterior, next to a Domino’s, in a tucked-​away strip mall, you wouldn’t expect the dim, neon lighting or the sweet beatz that are booming in the restaurant– or the super-​hip, stylishly dressed clientele. It’s small, but well-​designed, so you’re not crammed at any of the tables.
The menu has a lot of variety, but my fiancé and I decided to go for three of their specialty rolls: the mango shrimp tempura, the I Miss You roll, and the sweet and crunchy roll. We couldn’t decide which one was our favorite, at all. The mango one was so sweet and delicious, the I Miss You was creamy and wonderful– you could really taste the avocado and the salmon. And the sweet and crunchy roll was incredible; it had so much in it, and it all went together so well. We were licking the plate clean on all three, between full-​mouthed commentary on how imaginative and unusual and special the three dishes were.
The waitstaff is really friendly, and the service is fast. We’d love to come back here with some friends for some drinks and small plates. Rephrase: we WILL be back here (and soon!) with or without friends, for drinks and small plates. (Maybe after the next paycheck though… the place is more than a little spendy!)
I Miss You, I Miss You roll! …and the other ones I tried… and even the ones I haven’t…

Yum Yum!
I can see how this small resto becomes more of a loungey-​after-​hours sort of hangout… but if you come early in the evening, it’s really cozy enough to bring the kiddos. It’s actually quite family friendly. If you come for an early dinner. ;)
We ordered:
Yam fries, Edamame, rice and Chicken Karaage for the kiddos. They enjoyed all of their dishes, in fact they ate them all. Yay!
Hubby ordered the Scallop Dynamite Roll. It is such a large serving, it almost filled him up!
I had the Ahi Poke Salad and Spicy Garlic Edamame. Both were perfect, exactly what I was craving.
We shared the Kurobuta Chashu «pizza». It’s basically a puff pastry baked with chasu pork, mushrooms, kimchee and cheese on top. It was very crispy, salty and delicious!
Prices are very reasonable and service is wonderful! Very friendly. My only complaint is the parking situation. Hachi is located in a very tiny strip mall, with only about 8 – 10 parking spaces. As long as you know this ahead of time, it’s not so frustrating trying to find parking. So, plan accordingly! ;)

I’ve been to Hachi a couple of times, and it has become my new go-​to sushi place in Palo Alto. The prices are reasonable — especially a delicious bottle of Soju — and the food is great! I’d say 3.5 stars, but rounded to four so it stands out, as it’s the best I’ve found in the Palo Alto /​Mountain View area along El Camino.
Try the Uni Pie — soo good! I’ve loved every sushi roll I’ve ordered, can’t go wrong, especially the mango summer roll. I also recommend the Yogurt Soju.
They take reservations and can accommodate medium-​sized groups (up to maybe 16 or so). There’s a tiny parking lot in front so it can be hard to see, but also lots of street parking.
Most importantly, they are open relatively late, I think 1am on the weekends, which is hard to find in sleepy Mountain View.

This place is a total hidden gem tucked away in a tiny plaza next to a cheap haircut salon and a Dominoes pizza. It’s small and oddly décor barren, but has a charm to it like they tried their hardest.
The service was really great! They were relatively busy on a Wednesday night, and only had one waitress (who’s part owner) running around yet she was able to give us a ton of attention — suggesting rolls, informing us of their specials, chatting with us about their new loyalty program. Apparently, if you buy ten rolls you get your eleventh on the house.
The food was surprisingly delicious!
The highlights:
The sweet mango roll was so good I ordered an extra to go at the end.
The creamy salmon sweet soy pizza, though small, is not too oily or heavy.
And the crowning jewel of this establishment is the custard toast. Please, please, please save room for dessert because the toast is not to be missed! The banana custard they add to the toast makes it extra creamy and gives it a unique quality that separates it from the other thick toast desserts I’ve tried.
I could go on about dessert, but you should come and try it for yourself. On my honor, you will not be disappointed. :)
Edit: I really wish this place would open for lunch, but I hear that’s happening soon. I can’t wait to come here for my sweet mango roll! Please open for lunch soon!
Edit 2: Yay! They are open for lunch. :)

Hachi is more like fusion Japanese, sushi and HK style snack food. Having Japanese and Tapas in the title may disappoint many, as izakayas are held at a very high standard.
Our meal was good, I just didn’t LOVE that my clothes smelled like all the fried food they were cranking out in the kitchen. There’s a TON of fried options on the menu, which are not my favorite thing.
Fresh fish in the rolls and especially need to highlight the hamachi carpaccio, which was unbelievably buttery and delicious. I personally think the price of the rolls are a bit high, but yes, they are large, but $ 17.95 for the True Love is hard to swallow, it’s a small strip mall in Mountain View.
Rounding up my stars, the quality and execution at Hachi are better than others in the immediate area.

Its been about thirty minutes of waiting (for 3 rolls of sushi) and it seems the chefs don’t really know what their doing, heard some of the staff speaking mandarin. I’m not there’s any actual japanese people in there. & as they’re making the sushi rolls they keep having to look at the menu to see what’s in the rolls? Or because they forgot our order… But it should not of taken 30 minutes when there were only 4 other people in the restaurant. I would give it 2.5 if I could because the waitress seemed genuine when we walked in and there was a nice decoration within the togo box that I didn’t expect. but the sushi was ok, :/​definitely not worth the wait…

Japanese Fusion Tapas. Pretty cool concept.
My whole experience here was nothing but pleasant. The service was fantastic. The food unique, yet nonetheless delicious. My only gripe is that it’s a bit on the pricey side. $ 83.62 pre tip for 2 people. Disclaimer: We ordered waayyyyyyyyyy too much food, but we couldn’t help it coz we wanted to try everything!
First, let me just mention something about the service. My water glass never even came close to running ¼ empty. Our servers were so attentive. The nice lady who works there kindly and patiently explained their signature dishes on the menu and even suggested a few specials that aren’t on the regular menu. Here’s a list of what we ordered categorized by «get it» or «skip it.»
GET IT:
1. FUSION TONKATSU CUTLET (tonkatsu stuffed with bacon and cheese)
2. UNAGI PIE (baked puff pastry fill with unagi)
3.BEEF TATAKI (torched beef with garlic soy and peanut dipping sauces)
4. SALMON CREAMY SWEET SOY (japanese style thin crust pizza w/​salmon and cream cheese)
5. TORCHED SALMON BELLY NIGIRI — NOT on MENU! (salmon belly nigiri, marinated and lightly torched)
SKIP IT:
1. Chicken Kara-​age (beer batter chicken nuggest with 5 dipping sauces) Nothing special here. The chicken wasn’t crispy like how chicken kara-​age should be and the sauces weren’t spectacular either.
2. Tuna Poke (too «typical.» Save room in your belly for something more unique on the menu)
3. Kurabuta belly robatayaki (this is a grilled skewer. I’ve had better pork belly elsewhere).
Overall, a very unique and delightful experience. I recommend coming here with at least 4 people so you can share plates and get the most bang for your buck.