Benten Traditional Japanese Restaurant & Sushi Bar

Good sushi sadly today there last day being open. So if you read this after 2÷1÷2015 you are out of luck. I hope someone comes in and keeps it sushi

GO TO THE SOGAN PLACE INSTEAD OF THIS SHIT.
below average. really crappy place.
what the heck we have to wait for 25 minutes to order and another 20 minutes for the food. the chicken teriyaki is freaking salty and the sushi came after we had finished the main dishes. i mean what the heck. I ordered the california roll and the pieces are not equally cut. the sushi was bad omg

Very mediocre food with lots of oil and slow service. We tried Sushi, tempura yakitori and chicken cutlet. Giving an extra star because we loce Japanese culture. The sushi rice did not seem freshly cooked. Overall very disappointed.

If traditional Japanese food means slowest service ever then don’t bother coming here. I’ve tried benten twice Recently. Once on a Saturday afternoon and once in a Saturday night. How can they only have one waiter in this place?! On a slow afternoon and on a busy night both times I got terrible service. Both times I asked to sit us at the bar he tells me that they aren’t seating people there but as soon as a group of six comes in they get the bar. Half Hour after ordering I’m still waiting for my edamame and drinks. We got parts of the order first. I’m eating with my hands because it would take too long to get utensils. People who came in after us got thier food already. I’m embarrassed to not leave a tip but I’m never coming back. FAIL.
Update: it shut down

I have eaten her several times over the previous 10 – 12 years and was satisfied. My most recent visit was the first in about a year. Either my visit was an anomaly or it has gone down hill. Let me wrap this up in a nutshell… the food was just Okay and the wasabi was as if was green tasteless mayonnaise.

Me and my husband where looking for a nice lunch and we came across this place! The food was great! Our server was very nice ! I ordered the lunch combination with beef teriyaki and shrimp tempura! It was great along with a Sapporo beer ! We will be back im sure !

Not bad! Miso was good, cold soba was okay (the noodles were a bit dry on the inside for some reason), unagi don was yummy but a tad too sweet, and the chirashi was decent. Nothing special, but pretty solid. The service was quite good, since the food came out in good time and the waiter was very friendly, but he didn’t ask to refill our cups of water at all.

Inattentive staff. Food was mediocre. A bit expensive. There was only one waitress and she was passively rude and slow moving. We wished we would have left in the 20 minutes we waited to order our food, receive our water, and frankly a greeting.

Best sushi in town! Fish is great, service is good and it a the only non-​Americanized traditional sushi in town!

My wife and I came here and each had the Benten lunch special.
It had a lot of variety and was flavorful. I really liked the nigiri in it.
The waitress was friendly and kept our tea hot and full.
The price was pretty good given the type of food, location in downtown, and quantity.

I love the atmosphere here! I can’t review the sushi, but the Unagi don and miso are to die for. Whenever I go back to Santa Cruz for a dose of home, I’ll be including Benten for at least one meal!

BEWARE: The fish here does not seem fresh, and if you think it is, you definitely lacked trying better sushi places.
**AFTER EATING THEIR SPICY CALIFORNIA ROLL, I BROKE OUT IN HIVES**
Must I say, I’ve always eaten sushi. AVID LOVER OF SUSHI! This was the first time I’ve experienced an allergic reaction to spicy California rolls.
They only had one waitress who worked really slow. The service took forever to get our food out. My friends ordered the chicken and beef plates, and the chicken came out cold.
TRY A BETTER SUSHI PLACE.

This place was by far one of the better sushi places I have been to in Santa Cruz!
The food gets five stars. However, I have four stars for a couple of reasons.
1. There was only one waitress serving the entire restaurant on a Sunday afternoon. She was super nice and did a great job at trying to please everyone.
2. Due to that, it took quite a while to get our food.
A couple came in about 20 minutes after us and sat at the bar top. They were served by the older lady behind the bar and left before us.
THE FOOD WAS WORTH THE WAIT!
The place looked like it was family owned, and the chef took time and pride in his creations. This made for good food. They probably could have used more help serving tho!
If your looking for fast food, this is not the place.
If you are looking for quality and reasonable pricing, and you have some time to spare, it is the perfect place.

I only realized they close at 8:30PM on Sundays when I came on Unilocal.I walked in at 8:15. Sorry! And sorry to the waiter who actually had his backpack on and was ready to leave when the boss made me pick up the credit card and charge it before he left.
Benten is a quite little restaurant with a very Japanese-​y feel. When my friend and I walked in at 8:15, we couldn’t tell if we were being greeted. No one walked up to us. I didn’t even see the owner at first. She was leaned over the back of the sushi bar and gestured for us to sit twice. A bit awkward. I was a little surprised at the prices. It was a little higher than what I am used to for Japanese food.
I originally wanted some rolls or sashimi, but the day had gotten so chilly I wanted something hot. We ordered a beef sukiyaki and a bento dinner box. You can choose three items for the bento box. I ended up choosing the sashimi, the chicken katsu (or something similar to that), and tempura.
Miso soup came with the box. I wish they had more tofu in it. And where’s the seaweed? The tempura was a generous sized portion and quite a variety of vegetables. The chicken, tempura, and the sauce were pretty standard. The sashimi was four pieces of hamachi. I was a happy surprised since its usually salmon or tuna. It wasn’t that fresh, but not bad either. Just a little sad that the pieces came out to be more like chunks and unevenly cut.
Now the sukiyaki. That’s a completely different story. It came in a flatish wide rimmed bowl that was extremely hot. It didn’t come with the huge amount of broth that I’m used to at other places. Plenty of beef and vegetables in there. I wish there was more soup in the bowl because I absolutely LOVED the soup. I was just a bit disappointed that there weren’t enough noodles in it.
If Benten weren’t so far away from me, I’d happily come back just for the sukiyaki.

If being owned and operated by Japanese makes this place authentic, it is authentic.
I just had a bad experience. My chopstick at my table was already used. Therefore, I asked the worker for another one. The «grandma» at the restaurant started to talk smack in Japanese about how come a customer needs two chopsticks. She didn’t know I understood every word out of her mouth to the other workers.
I didn’t confront, I just listened while I waited for my food.
To be fair, the other worker did say «he probably just dropped it»
This was the first and last time I visited this place.

A sushi restaurant that belongs on my NO-​GO list.
This place really annoyed me.
One being the menu. The menu looks super cluttered. Too many things on it and their «specials» aren’t even distinguished. When my friend ordered one of their special bento boxes, the waitress said that they RAN out. WTF? Sorry but when we dined there it was only 6pm. Not sure how you RUN out of a bento box when peak time for dinner is around 7pm.
Another being there was literally ONE waitress serving like the whole restaurant. The day I went, it wasn’t entirely packed, but there were several filled tables. The waitress looked overwhelmed and kept forgetting things other people were requesting. For example, when we ordered our meals, our sushi roll came out first. We didn’t have small plates and wasn’t about to eat the sushi roll over the table to have it crumbing everywhere. She basically took 15 minutes to give us the small plates. Even after the 15 minute wait, the Spider Roll was pretty bland.
Third, I ordered an Unagi Don which was the TINIEST thing ever. I paid $ 16 for it? I swear, the amount they gave me I could have gone to an actual Japanese super market and got the same thing for $ 6. I do admit, it was tasty. Loved the soft rice.
Lastly…my friend and I split the bill. The OVERWHELMED waitress charged ME twice and not even my friend! I didn’t even notice until a few days later. I called and in order for me to get my refund, I had to call my friend and tell him to call the restaurant to pay his portion. Honestly that’s awkward. I am not going to CALL my friend to tell him to call the restaurant to pay for his part of the bill. I just took care of it. What bothers me is that the manager said, «oh you guys probably have the same looking card so the waitress got confused». UHH NO lady. I know what type of card he has and what I have. If you hired more people to handle the tables, the one waitress wouldn’t have been tired and not paid any attention to who she was charging.
I think how the situation was handled was annoying. Even writing about my experience is getting on my nervous. I don’t mean to be harsh but this place is just needs a makeover. Literally.

Woo-​hoo! I made the SF Bay Area rounds today! Benten is in Santa Cruz CA: This restaurant’s cuisine surpasses Tokyo, Japan’s Shibuya District’s restaurants! I know-​I didn’t find a restaurant I liked in Shibuya but, I found Benten via my daughter, Joy’s recommendation as outstanding.
Down home Japanese Family comfort food!

This is the only place in town that serves authentic Japanese ramen (made w/​Chinese style noodles).
My family and I ate here for lunch and we all had the Saporro Ramen w/​egg. It was everything I expected and more!
I slurped viciously till there was nothing left…
The atmosphere is also very nice. It’s a pretty small place, nice and quiet on a surprisingly busy street.
Arigato!

Meh.

I am a big fan of this place. It is small and simple, but has a great selection for vegetarians at a reasonable price.
I sat at the sushi bar and received excellent service. Several people were always paying close attention to what I may need.
The miso soup was good, warm house sake was adequate. But what really makes this place for me is the number of really inventive vegetarian sushi options that also turned out to be quite tasty. I love sushi but I don’t bother going to places that just serve cucumber, carrot, avocado, kampyo, etc.
I had the vegetable tempura roll, a roll with cashews and shitake mushrooms, one with inari and hijiki. They were all excellent and had a few different flavors going on in the same roll which complimented each other nicely.
They have some fun Japan and sushi facts on the menu, along with words and customs while ordering at a sushi bar. It was an overall pleasant experience made better by the well thought out selections and excellent preparation.