Banzai Sushi
23508 Calabasas Rd
Calabasas, CA 91302
818-222-5800
I know what you're saying; not another all you can eat sushi review! Well I was in Calabasas and decided to revisit Banzai Sushi. I went there about a year ago and really enjoyed it. But, if I recall correctly the bill for two people with a couple drinks was almost $100. Today I noticed an all you can eat lunch special for $23.95 and I picked that option! They do not offer an all you can eat option for dinner.
Banzai is small restaurant with a good sized patio with a lot of tables. The inside portion has a sushi bar and about 8-10 tables. It wasn't that crowded for lunch the day I went.
The most notable thing about Banzai is the portion size of the sushi! They are huge rolls, not small rolls. Some of the sushi, specially the scallops, but others were very fresh and tasty, like the nigiri!
Crab cake-while their menu says this is house made. I really doubt this is house made. Unless house made means straight from the freezer to the fryer. This was clearly a frozen pre-made crab cake. They used back fin crab and a lot of fillers. Not impressive, but hey it's part of the all you can eat menu! The all you can eat menu says two pieces, when in reality it is a whole piece of crab cake cut in half.
Shrimp tempura- another frozen item. Two large pieces of shrimp fried to perfection! A very good item.
Tuna, yellowtail, and shrimp nigiri.
Lobster roll-steamed lobster, avocado, cucumber, asparagus.
Scallop Nigiri-The scallops aren't fresh and need improvement!
Scallop roll-again, the scallops weren't fresh and just too mushy.
Blue crab roll- this looks like tuna fish, but it is blue crab. The major problem of this roll was way too many pieces of shells in the crab!
Tiger roll-steamed shrimp and avocado outside with shrimp tempura and cucumber inside. A very good dish. Huge pieces of sushi and fresh!
Moonlight roll-salmon, shrimp, crab, avocado, and asparagus with a cucumber roll. This was great and maybe my favorite roll! Six huge pieces filled with fresh fish and veggies. The wasabi sauce added some heat.
Service was good but a bit slow on bringing the sushi. The restaurant wasn't that packed. So, I expected the sushi to arrive much quicker. There is a two hour time limit so maybe the slow service on the sushi is a stall tactic, but I finished well before that time limit.
I would go back to Banzai Sushi, but I would stay away from anything with scallops!
