Miyako Japanese Restaurant

Sushi is a bit on the expensive side, but better than a lot of other places &close to the campus. Every time I came here, service was always attentive and friendly. There’s «Sushi Nights», Tuesday & Thursdays 530pm-​930pm where the sushi is discounted.
My go-​to sushi place up here in Riverside!

I tried this place going out on a limb because I have established Asahi as the all around best sushi place, but wanted to try a place closer to where i lived.
It is located in the Canyon Crest Plaza, close to Ralph’s.
I had one of their special rolls and when i got it i was disappointed. For nearly a $ 13 special roll, there were only 8 pieces and the rice wasn’t good at all. It was dry and chewy. The fish was good but the overall roll was just bland.
If you have no other place to go, then I’d go here, but do ask what rolls are recommended.

Being in Riverside, there aren’t that many sushi places to choose from.
With that being said, I didn’t really enjoy Miyako. I ordered a Chirashi, but it was relatively small considering some of the other places I’ve been to and charged the same price. The fish that was given to me also was just the standard run of the mill salmon, tuna, and hamachi. I love sushi, and I love the places that give you a bigger variety with your chirashi, such as tako, tamago, and unagi.
If you want sushi, just go to Asahi and pay a little bit more to get a much bigger bang for your buck.

I ate here because I was craving sushi before my next class and wanted to see if it was like another Miyako that is in Long Beach. It is not.
The service is good; the waitress/​hostess is really nice.
The food is overpriced like others have mentioned. The food wasn’t that great. I got a crunch roll and it was bland and really tiny. I also got a tuna sashimi and it smelled fishy, eww.

Baked rolls pretty good but my god this place is overpriced. WAY overpriced. If you’re in a hungry mood Asahi is where to go for quality and quantity.

My first 1 star review. :(
Before I discovered Asahi, I used to come here once in a while when I went to UCR. It was a decent place to go to for sushi. The food was usually okay and the service wasn’t too bad. Prices were fair as well.
However, on my last and FINAL visit, I got food poisoning from what I’m sure was a bad oyster. About an hour after we left, I got extremely sick. I’ll leave out the details for you guys haha. Keep in mind, this was during finals week so getting food poisoning was just the cherry on top of a stressful day.
CLEAN UP YOUR FOOD OR JUST DON’T SERVE IT ALL.

I came to update my review. Then realized I never wrote one?! Weird, I used to eat here quite often…
…Back when it was okay. Now it just sucks. Pricey and quality seems to have gotten worse. The philly rolls come stuffed with imitation crab and a lot of cucumber. I barely recognized that it was a philly roll, because I was hardly able to see the salmon and cream cheese… Unacceptable, Miyako.
Service is alright… Workers are always friendly but sometimes rather slow.

Words cannot explain how much I loathe this place! And I can never understand how it is full when I walk by a lot of the time, I just want to open the door and scream in, «There is soooo much better Japanese food in Riverside, why are you eating here!» Service is whatever. It’s the food I’m talking about, it is just so disgusting compared to Joes, Asahi, yes, even Cabin sushi. And other than the sushi, as much as I dont like Teriyaki Bowl, Teriyaki Bowl is at least edible. Whoever is cooking in the back needs either spend some time in Japan, or go to cooking school because I’ve given them two chances and both times it was just so disgusting I couldnt eat, and I never leave a plate empty lol. And it’s expensive to boot. I could do a better job because my boyfriend is Japanese so I’ve been cooking Japanese food 2 years straight so I know what this stuff should taste like! Please, dont waste your money, Boba Café is down the street and much better, they have a little old lady in the back cooking, which is how it should be lol, and it’s cheaper, and it has boba, yum-​o :-)

Recently renovated. This note was written about an earlier visit, but I noticed today that their renovations seemed to be a repainting of the walls, and possibly a new tile floor. The tables still seem to be cramped.
This place always has good, dependable sushi. its not the best in town, but its not the worst either. Service is good and friendly, and the atmosphere is pleasant. The tables are a bit cramped together, but overall, its a decent place to go.

I hate to judge a book by its cover, but I don’t have much else to go by. I ordered the teriyaki chicken dinner and it wasn’t very good. There was a TON of teriyaki sauce on top of it to the point where I couldn’t eat it anymore. The rest of the meal must’ve been forgettable since I really don’t remember what it was (I think it was tempura, rice, an orange, and soup). I think the food used to be better several years ago from what I’ve heard, but I’d steer clear unless you are absolutely craving Jap food and you so happen to be there and you’re too lazy to drive anywhere else. It’s not «horrible,» but I don’t think you’ll be satisfied in the end.

Me and my family are regulars at Miyako. We love the service, and the staff are always very sweet and helpful. I always order the same thing but when I have tried various rolls that my boyfriend orders they have always been tasty. Tuesdays and Thursdays they have «Sushi Night» and some of their most popular rolls and sashimi/​sushi are half price so thats a plus. But they do have more customers on those nights.
We love Miyako and eat here regularly.

It’s prolly not the servers fault bc theres only 1 of her n 8 tables, but, damn, WTF is my drink!!! Food was a 2.5÷5

Much as I love sushi, I can’t say I was overly impressed with this venue.
The service was so-​so and the quality of the fish didn’t seem that great. Who knows, maybe I’ve been spoiled by other larger sushi venues like Asahi and the like.

I tried this place for the first time a couple weeks ago, and its pretty decent! The only reason why I am giving it a ³⁄₅ star is because I think it is kind of over priced for certain rolls of sushi. I ordered the Dragon roll and it came out 12.50 +tax = 15 something. which I thought was pretty over priced compared to places in LA, which is actually worth pay for.
I was actually skeptical about this place from reading the reviews but I knew that if I wanted to experience it myself, Id have to try the food. Which I did. I must say that you CAN NOT compare it with cabin sushi, because cabin is an all you can eat. The QUALITY of the sushi is totally DIFFERENT.
I will be coming back. but probably during happy hour. Which is on T/​TH.

Let me start by saying that I don’t know much about sushi. What I do know is that my wife and I are regulars here and we love the place! The staff is friendly, and the food is good. If you are looking for top notch sushi, everything about this place just looks like it’s not going to be from the top shelf. That being said, I haven’t had anything there that I didn’t like.
P. S. If you come on Tuesday and Thursday night, be prepared to wait. That’s «Sushi Night» and it gets backed up.

This was the third time we had been to Miyako in the past three years. Although we live nearby, our experiences there have never been that great so we never really planned on returning. This particular night, we decided to stay close to home and give Miyako one more try. When we arrived, we were greeted by a hostess and told that we could sit down anywhere. The atmosphere is blah and the décor was just average. We sat down and noticed that they have sake specials on Saturdays and sushi specials on Thursdays. Unfortunately, we were there on a Friday so we would be paying full price. We immediately noticed that the prices were very high for a casual sushi place in Riverside. We ordered the Asian Pear sake. It was pricey but the presentation was above average as it was served in a cool looking decanter. Serj ordered the Rockin’ Roll but it wasn’t very «Rockin.» It was the most boring looking roll we had ever seen and it did not taste much better. I ordered the vegetarian combination dinner. This was a great price for the amount of food I received. It came with miso soup, salad, cucumber rolls, California rolls and Tempura. Both of my rolls were mostly rice and I did not even bother finishing them. The service for the night was horrible. After we received our food, a waitress NEVER came back to check on us. I wanted some hot sauce so Serj had to get up and go to the sushi bar to acquire it. Serj also never received a refill on his water the entire night. In conclusion, I would not waste my time going to this place unless you just go to drink on a Saturday when the sake is cheap.

It was so-​so. decent at most.
Service was good
Affordable, esp. on Tuesday and Thursday with their specials
Rolls were whatever. The rice seemed too sticky/​mushy? I’m not sure what it was but it turned me off and I noticed it the first bite. The sushi was NOT fresh.
The lunch specials seemed like they were worth it (I never tried it, just saw the menu).
It wasn’t «packed» but during my meal, there were at least 4 different people getting take-​out. so they must be doing something right. Just not up to my standards.

Came here the other day from my friend who lives near this place–
It was pretty decent, considering the fact that we went on a Thursday night, which was also HAPPY HOUR! WOOOOHOOO! Thank God it was because the rolls were pretty affordable!
The rolls were pretty good, not too spectacular/​special. Overall, it was a nice sit down dinner to catch up and just eat til the point where you’re satisfied (unlike the all-​you-​can-​eat sushi places where you just stuff your face until you’re a little too bloated).
Environment was decent. Service was decent as well– however, the waitress messed up on our order and brought out the wrong roll; but then again, she practically gave it to us for free since she didn’t want to bring it back to the chefs. So I guess that gesture canceled off the bad service, haha.
Overall, this place seems decent enough to come back if I’m not craving an ALL YOU CAN EAT SUSHI PLACE, especially during Happy Hours! I’m definitely coming back here again.

Before my last time here, I would have given it 3 stars.
My last time here was a NIGHTMARE. There was a cockroach on the table and it freaked me out!!! I slapped hands onto my mouth to prevent a scream from coming out. I didn’t even see it, but some friends/​roommates pointed it out. I was in no way mentally prepared for that. I have not seen a cockroach in my life for years, so it was definitely something. Later, one of the guys used the little placecard things that were on the table and killed it eventually.
I considered giving it 1 star, but the experiences before my last was alright, so I’d feel bad giving it a 1 from just one time of the 3 to 4 times I’ve been there.
Miyako again anytime soon though? NOOOOOOOooooo thanks!!! O_​O

Our chicken and beef plate come out way before the sushi did. I felt like I was at Yoshinoya except with beer.
I was ravenous so I found the chicken to be decent: tender, soft, flavorful. The teriyaki plate was devoured and abandoned for a good 15 mins. before the sushi arrived. The waitress apologized and explained that they were backed up with orders (which basically meant that they totally forgot about us!)
The tuna was a great color so I thought it would be fresh. Wrong assumption, it was definitely fishy and only generous doses of lemon could salvage this atrocity. The salmon was edible, as was the yellowtail and swordfish. The mackerel was very salty. Also, they don’t have low sodium soy sauce, which is bad for our kidneys.
I should’ve guessed from the appearance of the restaurant to stay clear of the raw fish! For a place like this, a $ 65 bill is a little outrageous. A bit pricey for what it is.