Tamaya Sushi Bar & Grill

My first consistent sushi place! I get the Grasshopper Roll, deep fried, no tobiko. I haven’t been there in awhile and heard they’re closed now. That would suck if they had. Eating there was always fun as one of the waiters was full of entertainment.

BEST HAPPY HOUR IN DOWNTOWN SAC!
Okay, so now that we got that out the way we can discuss why.
I came here with some friends to try the happy hour and I have to admit the Jello shots for a $ 1 really caught my eye.
We had the amazing Vonica (the bartender) serving us and her hospitality is off the charts! She does an amazing job and even gave us a Jello shot on the house! (WAY TO GO VONICA!)
Happy Hour is from 2PM-​6PM Daily and Friday and Saturday they have a late Happy Hour from 10PM-​12AM! What a damn good deal!
Happy hour includes:
$ 3.50 deals– Edemame, wings, Salmon Cakes, Sushi
$ 1.99 Sake Bombs
$ 2.50-Small Hot Sake
$ 5.00-Shots of Jameson and fireball
$ 3.50 All well cocktails
There is NO-​DOUBT in my mind that I will be returning back when I ever get the chance to go back to Sacramento!
I still want to explore tons more off the Happy Hour Menu!

Meh. It’s good for what you get, basic sushi at decent prices. I’ve had much better, I’ve had worse. Overall the food is decent, probably 3.5 stars. The service was slow, they were serving food out of turn and hardly checked on us. I would possibly go back, but I wasn’t in love.

This is the spot! The Volcano roll… that is all. No such thing as leftovers, because I devour every bite, every time.
Be prepared to be patient because they are usually very busy but the food is entirely worth waiting for. I recommend the spicy edamame and a nice cool mojito to go with the Volcano roll, if spice is your thing too.

I’ve been here twice and both times had great service and some delicious rolls. Also– get the spicy edamame! It’s super addicting!
Prices are reasonable on the apps, drinks, and rolls and it’s open until midnight. They also play the jams in the background and lord knows I love me some jams wherever I go.
Glad I found my first late® night sushi spot in Sactown. It’s more on the casual side which I like in my sushi spots.

I went there for a Sushi Smack down Event and to sum it up on one work, it was disappointing. While the event was fun, the food was pretty bland.
Each roll came out warm, like it had been sitting for a long time and the overall taste of the appetizers were less than wanted. The nigiri was ok but was nowhere to the quality or sizes of other sushi places. The rolls were ok as in edible but nothing I would ever return for. Even their «Chef’s Choice» rolls were basically spicy tuna rolls slightly dressed up.
I will say there was a bright spot and that was the sesame chicken appetizer which was excellent. It was very crispy and had a fantastic sauce.
I sincerely hope that visiting here with a smaller sized party is a much better experience.

Great place to come grab some drinks and meet up with friends. All the staff here are friendly. They have great happy hours specials which included their $ 1 jello shots. Next time when I come back i’m going to try their food.

I absolutely love this place. Excellent customer service! Katie is always wonderful and remembers details about us even when we haven’t been here in a while.
My friend took me here forever ago and I had the Popeye roll which is still one of my favorites!
I can’t believe the quality for such reasonable prices, either!

This restaurant isn’t about the sushi. It’s about the atmosphere. I had a great time at the bar with some friends. Good drink specials, sushi was ok, bartender provided great service.
The rolls came out slowly, but I wasn’t disappointed. Giants were on and I had a tasty beverage.

Wow this place was so amazing. Great deals, best happy hour, great service, and great food. Very flavorful and tasty. The garlic edamames were our favorite. The uni was great here too!

First time here. I got the Sunny side up roll. It was pretty good. The fish tasted fresh but I’ve had rolls at other places where the flavor of the fish just seemed to pop. Not quite the case here. It was good though, I’d come back again. Sushi is my favorite. It came with a little quality egg. I also got a vanilla vodka & coke, the bartender was not shy with the vodka.

First time trying this place out yesterday for a friends birthday party. I rodered the spicy lover roll which was really good. I didn’t realize it was $ 15.50 but it did have all the types of fish and meat I wanted on the roll.
The place is pretty big and I can’t believe I’ve always missed this spot. I’ve always walked past it but never went in.
It has a really wide open feel to it and has a regular bar and a sushi bar you can order from. Plus regular seating as well.
I’ll definitely come back again soon.

This place is decent food and decent sushi. No complaints here. The prices are a little high though. You’re paying for the location and the clean /​cool interior /​atmosphere.
Happy hour is amazing. The Hot Lava, and Ryu-​Don are basically half-​priced and delicious.

This was my second time at this sushi bar, and I am never coming back.
Not only does this place have absolutely horrible service, it is infested with bugs!
The first time I came here my group and I were pretty grossed out because there were tons of bugs flying around. I understand when a fly or two gets in, but there were bugs everywhere.
The second time around, last night, one of my friends food came out with a bug crawling inside of his sushi roll. We quietly and politely called over the waitress to address the issue. She just shrugged and goes «oh yeah they come in when we open the door.» Okay, that might be the case, but thats not okay! Get some fly strips for goodness sakes!
She took the roll and said she would bring out another. The roll didn’t come out until everyone at the table was done! She didn’t apologize or anything. We even told her there was no way we would pay for the roll since it not only came with a bug on it, but was then delivered way too late.
To top it all off the service was horrible. It took 2 and a half hours to get through our dinner because our waitress continued to ignore us. At one point she even came over and tried to get our table to move to a different section of the restaurant to free up space!
Even though the food was decent, I will never be returning!

I really enjoy eating here for many reasons but most of all food and atmosphere. The chefs are very friendly and creative. If you ask them to make you something special you won’t be disappointed. Everything on the menu is really delicious and portions are just right. The staff is really wonderful and check in with you frequently. They also have a lot of regulars but your experience is not compromised if you are not one. It will definitely want to make you consider being one!

I love the set up of this place! My friends and I end up coming here often. Smacked in the middle of Jst you could almost miss it. Lots of downtown/​midtown locals tend to frequent here. Gets pretty packed on Friday & Saturday nights. The bar area is separated which is good since it tends to get pretty loud on the bar side. Son the bartender is awesome! He always make sure you’re comfortable and at home. I really enjoy their Spicy Lover roll. (not even spicy) it has a nice kick to it but my default for me is always the bento box. To the friendly staff and the great food its always a great time at Tamaya’s.

Just when I thought I had explored most restaurants within walking distance from work, I was recommended Tamaya. Today I ventured a few blocks away with coworkers, on our lunch break, to appease our Japanese craving. The restaurant was super busy and only a few tables, plus sushi bar, were still free. Service was so attentive. I had my water filled consistently and the staff checked on our table enough without being too excessive.
I ordered a lunch special bento box with beef teriyake and tempura. Oh my gosh, it was so much food for less than $ 8. Even better was that the food was really good. It came with delicious miso soup, salad and rice. The sauce for the teriyake was the perfect complement with my dish.
When it came time to wrapping up, the waitress voluntarily asked if we wanted our checks split. That really impressed me. Sometime you go out to eat and feel awkward even asking if they can do it. She took the awkwardness out of it and she acted like it didn’t inconvenience her what so ever.

My co-​worker and I came here on Christmas Day. The place was pretty packed and we waited about 15 minutes for a table. Not bad.
I have been here a few times for drinks, but I have never had their sushi. I tried the spicy edamame, Titanic roll and Special Mommy roll. All of it was pretty good. Service was a little slow, but the place was super busy so it was completely understandable.

This is a great place to meet up friends for some drinks at their bar, but I would definitely skip getting sushi here. Friday-​Monday they have $ 1.99 sake bomb specials and they have $ 15.00 pitchers of mojitos everyday which is awesome. My favorite drink here is the lychee martini! So bomb and pretty strong! :)
Food wise, there are definitely plenty of better sushi restaurants downtown. I feel like the sushi chefs here don’t really put as much love and effort into the sushi they make compared to other restaurants. They always seem to fall apart or the rice doesn’t stick? I’m not sure what it is. On one occasion I had a salmon hand roll (which is pretty simple to make) and even the presentation didn’t look appealing nor did it taste good. I would suggest ordering appetizer items instead of sushi. Their tofu salmon balls are amazing as well as their spicy edamane.
Service wise… there’s room for improvement. The other day when I came in with a group friends, and our waitress/​bartender seemed to have disappeared into the bathroom for 15 mins playing with her hair when we were trying to get our bill to leave.

So I returned for Happy Hour… but my rating still remains close to the same as before. But Happy Hour I would give an additional ½ star so 3 ½ for Tamaya Sushi.
Happy Hour runs from 3:00 pm-6:00 pm all week long. Sake bombs for $ 2.99 or $ 1.99 depending on the day, $ 3.50 well drinks and no wine listed. (Boo no wine!)
They have a limited food list. Which includes almost Everything fried! Our favorite is the fried salmon tofu cakes for $ 2.99, but only includes 4 pieces so we usually order 2. these little tasty morsels are full of flavor with a nice dab of sauce, not over powering the cake. These treats are probably the reason we come back. We have also had the Hot Lava, which is fried crab salad cake, and this fried roll with soba noodles and cream cheese. Both OK, but reasonably priced at $ 2.99 each.
Bartenders/​Servers are great, they check on you often and tend to all your needs.
Between the service and Salmon cakes we will be back every once in awhile! Maybe they will expand on the food, and add some wine to Happy Hour.. .I would come more often… hint hint…