Uoko Japanese Cuisine

Hands down favorite sushi restaurant in OC! The service is always perfect and it’s just amazing sushi. My husband and I love the atmosphere, it always feels like having a meal at home with a friend.

Real legit sushi spot, not like one of those trendy loud music restaurants where you are paying more for being in a social spot rather than the quality of the fish. Friendly personable service and great quality food. Definitely will be back.

The sides/​appetizers just kept coming for the entrees ordered. First it was the, soup, then salad, then the chicken/​carrot soup. Then came the entrée and closing with some dessert. It’s definitely filling, but the chicken, beef, and salmon teriyaki were a bit on the dry side. I’m guessing because I had asked for teriyaki sauce on the side, but the teriyaki sauce isn’t supposed to make the meat more moist. I’m sure it’ll help cover it up quit a bit though.
The beef sukiyaki was a bit on the sweeter side, could have been less, but otherwise the udon and contents were pretty good.

This place is a hidden gem. I’ve lived on the border of Irvine/​Tustin for 14 years and mad that I’ve never been here before. It was a half day of moving in the heat and on a Saturday night, places were packed. 9:00 pm and they closed in an hour. Nobody else there but four guys.
I felt bad that this small family joint had to serve us instead of closing up but they insisted it was no problem. Great attention.
The sushi and cut rolls were all very good. Good flavor. They didn’t have ono, but the yellowtail had the «finish» of an ono. They also gave us free dessert samples of something that was a cross between custard and flan. I hate flan, but I didn’t hate tihs. You’d think the vanilla custard would have been the right choice, but the coffee flavor was better.
I can’t wait to go back. And I love supporting the family shops. Fish is better than the chains and there isn’t the long line there is at Taiko. Worth a visit.

Came here for dinner last night, saw it had good reviews.
The 4 of us came at 7:30pm for dinner. The server wasn’t very nice, asked us what we wanted to drink. We asked for 2 hot tea and waters. He only gave us waters. I asked for our hot teas again when we ordered food. He didn’t bring it again. Then when he came back we mentioned it for the third time. The waiter seemed very apathetic about his job and not paying attention…
The food was mediocre. I got the sukiyaki combo #4 which had sashimi and salmon teriyaki. The salmon was dry and the sashimi didn’t feel very fresh. The pieces didn’t have much fat in them, lacked the white strips of fat for the salmon, which was bummer.
The Kirin on tap was pretty good. Overall, not a good experience.

Came here again last week while driving through Orange County, and found the place surprisingly pretty busy for St. Patricks Day.
I love the sushi here, the staff is always friendly, but can be overworked at times. Just make sure to speak up if you feel like you’re being ignored.

I tried the location in lake forest and it was truly amazing so why not give this location a try as well. They really raised the bar with their fresh sashimi. It’s difficult to find a good japanese restaurant that is not korean own in oc. The service was great and fast! They have great lunch specials and everything ive tried so far did not disappoint. This has become my favorite japanese restaurant along with fukada and taiko. They even surprised us with complimentary dessert which lake forest location doesnt offer.

This Japanese Restaurant is hidden in a plaza where you can easily pass by it if you’re not looking for it. There isn’t a lot of foot traffic but only because it’s in an area thats more business offices so that their busier times are during their lunch hours when the employees from local businesses visit them.
When you walk in, you’ll notice that the lighting inside the restaurant seems pretty dim. The booths have large back walls that seem to enclose each table so in becomes more private. There are only a few booths like this, then a separate area where it’s more open with the traditional tables and chairs, and then in the middle of the room, are the traditional Japanese rooms with the wooden sliding doors and where you have to take off your shoes to enter (kind of like Honda Ya).
My friend and I ordered some gyozas, chicken teriyaki and rice and a poke salad. The gyozas were super yummy and I enjoyed my chicken teriyaki as well. Afterwards, there was free dessert of either red beans and/​or green tea custard.
Pretty decent meal if you’re in the area and just need a quick meal with decent food.

1. Fresh
2. Authentic Japanese taste
3. Amazingly courteous and attentive staff
4. Best Japanese dining experience in the Tustin/​Santa Ana area
5. Great value.
This place will always leave you with a full belly and wide smile from ear to ear.
It is our go to Japanese in North OC

Sukiyaki is great. The dinner bowl is big size. I always have leftovers or good for sharing with another order of roll. It has tender beef, lots of vegetables, yam noodles, and udon. Taste so good when you are sick. It’s my favorite here. I like little dessert they gave too.

Food: I ordered the beef-​don, which is pretty much a beef bowl mixed with egg and some type of sweet soy sauce base. It was good.
Food rating: 3.5÷5
Service: Service here is good, friendly waiter/​waitress
Service rating: ⁴⁄₅
Price: Expect to pay about $ 10
Overall: I thought the food was decent/​good, service was friendly/​warm, but nothing really caught my attention for me to come back again.

I first tried here with my friend because many of my friends said they really enjoyed!
I ordered udon donburi and my friend got bento,
This place owned by japanese. They give you free dessert which is pudding! The place is quite small but
Lovely and server was kind too :)
I would like to come back at dinner as soon as possible!

My boyfriend and myself come here when we feel like going to a neighboring restaurant with fresh, high quality fish. I love nigiri and oysters and my BF enjoys the beef sukiyaki.
Rolls here are not strong compared to a more modern establishment, not very risky or creative (I’m not a very big roll lady, so doesn’t bother me)
Nigiri– tuna is always fresh and deep red, even if it’s not the MRKT cut. Yellow tail, halibut, albacore, Spanish mackerel, salmon, Japanese scallop, freshwater eel, squid and red snapper are all delicious here! Big thick cuts with little rice!
Oysters: always large west coast oysters not sure what kind but the ridged ends make me assume they are some sort of pacific oysters.
It’s an older establishment but a great place to try. Service is always great and the free desert is always a perfect way to end your meal. :)

I am Japanese who was born and grew up there but I love it here! Hands down. I respect their hospitality. Will definitely come back here.

I mean this in the most positive way. This is three stars, but almost four. Here are my thoughts on Uoko:
I would much rather go to other places. I would never choose to come here. However, if it were suggested, I would never say «no.»
They have a decent selection of food, it’s family-​run, and it’s not terribly expensive. The dishes are standard fare and I’ve never had anything that’s terrible here. Sushi is good and consistent. The live prawns are decent (if you get the fried heads they are a bit undercooked). I like their agedashi tofu and some of their other app foods.
For me, it’s just a solid Japanese option. I’d rather go to other places but I see why people like it.
Cheers!

Uoko is a great, family-​run, authentic Japanese restaurant. Everything here is delicious! They also have a tatami room & sushi bar seating.
They have a good selection of teishoku-​style meals (meal sets that include miso soup, nishime, salad, etc.) and other standard Japanese dishes. The ginger salad dressing is SO GOOD – I would totally buy it if they bottled it and sold it. I also like their oyakodon, yakisoba and crunch roll. Dessert is complimentary, which is a nice touch – your choice of coffee jello, custard flan, or green tea flan – they’re all very oishii! Great Japanese comfort food :)

I really HATE writing bad reviews. I usually try to give establishments at least 2 tries before reviewing them but with Uoko I am extremely DISAPPOINTED & DISHEARTENED. I was referred to come here by a waiter that had worked at Uoko. I def will not come here ever again for table dining… sushi bar is a LOW maybe.
IMO — Tommy’s Sushi, Oki Doki & Taiko is a bzillion times better than Uoko. The 1^st impression counts even though it wasn’t dining at the sushi bar.
—- REVIEW IS FOR REGULAR TABLE DINING —–
We came on a Friday night around 7:15pm. The sushi bar was beyond packed & there a major waiting list as well. Since my friend was dying of hunger we decided to sit at the dining table. WORST WORST WORST DECISION MADE — EVER! We both regretted coming here at all ½ way through our dining. Within the 1^st ½ hour we only got served our drinks & complimentary edamame. Hungry was unbearable so we ordered another edamame appetizer. Then 40 minutes into our dining — out comes our poke bowl. 10 – 15 minutes after that the rest of the sushi. We were there for almost an 1.5 hours with such few items!
: VENUE/​SERVICE :
The venue was small like a typical Japanese spot. Interior was an avg Japanese set up.
IMO — it looked like there were more bar seating than table seating. No one sat at the tatami rooms. Service was just OK. They were polite (that is if you can even flag them down to get their attention otherwise they dart around like ninjas). But the wait to get our order placed & the food out to us was INSANELY SUPER SLOW. There were 3 servers & none were attentive to us (cuz we were new customers?!). It looked like there were to busy servicing people dining at the sushi bar or to their regular customers.
: SO-​CALLED SUSHI :
Thank gawd I told my friend lets NOT order sashimi here. Lets see how regular sushi is first. My friend that I came with worked at sushi bars before & never has he encountered such horrible plating, quality nor service at a Japanese hole in a wall spot. Nothing we ordered stood out at all & they were really simple basic stuff too!
Below is what we ordered & check out the pix I posted. You wouldn’t want to order it. Seriously, we believe the sushi chef did not make our order but who knows. perhaps from the back kitchen by some newbz?! If the sushi chef truly made this & served it to us like the pix I posted– then I am utterly speechless & truly let down.
EDAMAME ³⁄₅
– a little mushy but edible
POKE BOWL (−10÷5) (yes, rating it below 5 stars)
– Don’t ever order it here. WORST poke bowl for the cost of freaking $ 14?! WTF!
– It came out served on a plate… really seriously?!
– Fishes tasted ok but not fresh at all. Came with very little rice.
– Save your money & go to Tommy’s Sushi instead. WORTH EVERY MORSEL!
2 ORDERS OF UNI SUSHI (−8÷5) (yes, rating it below 5 stars)
– Old, not fresh, they gave us like the leftovers. Even the color was gross.
1 ORDER OF SCALLOP SUSHI (−10÷5) (yes, rating it below 5 stars)
– I don’t know what the hell they served us but it was not your typical scallop sushi.
– It looked like crab meat but it wasn’t.
– Tasted like nothing
1 ORDER OF TAMAGO SUSHI (²⁄₅)
– whoever put this sushi together did NOT have any sushi skills. It was poorly put together. Seaweed was not wrapped all around. Someone took short cut on this.
– Tamago itself was not bad. At least it was not store bought but «home-​made»
1 ORDER OF AMAEBI SUSHI
– Ohhh this order NEVER came even after we waited 1 hour on this last order.
– We had the gal check up on it & she didn’t come back to us til 10 min later & by that time we were infuriated with the whole dining experiencing we told her to cancel it. No apologies from her whatsoever or an explanation why it would take 1 hour to get served Amaebi sushi — in which we NEVER got.
COMP DESSERT (3.5÷5)
– Nice variety.
: OVERALL :
As you can see we hardly ordered much. But with that being said it tells us ALOT. Our bill (with 1 bottle of small cold sake, tax & tip) came out to be about $ 70. Seriously?! $ 70 for hardly having anything!
We were still starving after. We ended going next door to Grape Leaf Mediterranean Grill. We spent ½ the price at Uoko and left Grape Leaf a tummy full if yummy food!
Now that I’ve vented out. Uoko is now going on my blacklist.

I would actually rate Uoko a 3.5 Stars, but that isn’t a feature on Unilocal,so yeah.
I had Uoko bookmarked for a bit, and sushi selection and quality looked decent on Unilocal.This is a cute little restaurant, filled with traditional looking, wooden booths.
Everything here was good, but nothing stood out to me to be super amazing. The quality of the fish was good, but the prices seemed a bit steep for «good» quality sashimi. I wish I got to try their Uni, but they sold out.
The SASHIMI PLATE COMBO came with 12 pieces of sashimi: Tuna, Salmon, Octopus, White Tuna, and Albacore. Again, everything was good and tasted fresh enough. The Octopus was a bit chewy for me.
I LOOVE AMAEBI (sweet shrimp), so I was delighted to see they had live Amaebi on the menu. They had both live, and frozen, so we decided to order both to compare. I could definitely taste the difference in the live versus frozen shrimps– the live one had a more meatier, and chewy (yet tender) texture to it, while the frozen one was a lot softer in texture. I personally like the live one better because it just tastes fresher overall (and all frozen amaebi and uni is always softer/​mushier). Flavor-​wise, they were both sweet and tasty. They also fry up the heads for you, and again, I prefer the live one because the heads tasted creamier. But this is a $ 14 versus $ 7 difference, so keep that in mind.
The TAMAGO here is very yummy! Not only does it look like Pokemon food, it actually tastes good, haha. The egg was nice and fluffy, and had just the right amount of sweetness.
Something I did appreciate was that we were given a few options as a complimentary dessert. We went with the coffee custard/​jello, and a green tea custard. Both were delicious, but I preferred my green tea custard.

Came here for lunch on a weekday (make sure you get there in time because they stop taking lunch orders at 2pm — they close and reopen for dinner). I was pleasantly surprised by the quality of food and outstanding service. Uoko is conveniently located off the 17^th Street exit/​55 fwy in a small strip plaza. Inside, the décor is very traditional Japanese. I love the authentic Japanese vibe — even the servers are Japanese. The staff was very attentive and friendly.
The sushi here is very fresh. I really enjoyed their salmon, uni and yellowtail. We also ordered sukiyaki (which is typically a dinner item), salmon belly lunch special, salmon skin hand rolls and some regular rolls. Everything was delicious! They even threw in complimentary dessert — coffee jello and a Japanese flan!
Definitely a fan. I’m looking forward to going back.

A steaming bowl of Oyako-​Don brings back fond memories of ordering this dish from take-​out counters and convenience stores in Tokyo. It’s a very simple comfort dish that can be had anywhere in Tokyo for well under $ 10, a bargain of a meal by Tokyo standards. It consists of boneless chicken simmered in a small frying pan with dashi, a light fish broth, and mirin, a Japanese rice wine used in cooking. When the chicken is almost fully cooked, egg is poured into the pan to coagulate around the chicken. With the egg gently set just so, this wonderful jiggly mass is slide from the pan onto a bowl of steaming rice. «O-​yako-​don» literally translates to «parent and child bowl» to denote the chicken and the egg. Awwww… how cute. Yummmm… how delicious.
Unfortunately, the Oyako Don at Uoko seemed to be missing some of the essential ingredients, namely the dashi and the mirin, or at least I couldn’t taste them at all. These two ingredients typically provide that umami-​ness that makes the dish so fragrant and comforting. At a minimum, the dish needed more salt and yet even a few sprinkles of soy sauce failed to perk it up.
My companion ordered the sukiyaki combo (fyi, pronounced «ski-​yaki», NOT «sue-​ki-​yaki») with veggie temperu and chicken karaage (fried sesame chicken). Each item was satisfactory but none was worth ordering on its own again.
On the plus side, the staff here was kind and pleasant and checked in on us a few times during the meal.
Ironically, the items that I enjoyed the most were the complimentary little desserts that arrived with the bill, the coffee jello and caramel flan. I’m pretty sure I didn’t use the word «ironically» properly but hopefully Alanis Morissette would approve.