Royin Sushi Bar

This place is super bad. The inside is straight up dirty. Not just messy, but actually dirty. The food is generic and better can be had next door or across the street. Not recommended.

I think this is kind of an Asian fusion type of restaurant. They serve sushi, pad Thai and some Chinese options. This place was one of the only restaurants open on Labor Day. We probably wouldn’t have picked it, but didn’t have many options. It was pretty good though! We ordered the gyozas (like potstickers), the egg rolls, and the pad Thai. All were really good. It took a long time to get our order, which is odd since we were practically the only people in there.

The waitress was talking the whole time! Doesn’t seems like they care about service.

I came here for a late lunch, ordered a bento box and had a lackluster experience.
My friend just moved into the neighborhood and we decided to walk around and explore and try a new restaurant. We were lured into the restaurant by their sushi menu but they were only serving lunch. After giving us time to read the menu, the waiter came back and asked if we were ready to order. I was surprised he didn’t ask for drinks or offer tea. That should’ve been my first warning sign.
We both decided to get bento boxes — hers with chicken katsu, mine with tofu teriyaki. We also ordered some crab rangoons as an appetizer. Order placed and the guy disappeared until the rangoons arrived. We were the only people in the restaurant until another couple came in, looked at the menu, complained (probably because there wasn’t a sushi menu), and walked out. That should’ve been my second warning.
Crab rangoons were mediocre. The bento boxes were sadder. It came with a «salad» (all iceberg lettuce (with a strange dressing, white rice, the protein, and 6 California rolls. There was no space or tray to dip your rolls in soy sauce which was annoying. They also didn’t give me chopsticks — just a fork to eat my rice and sushi. The tofu tasted like it was cut up and placed in the teriyaki sauce — like they hadn’t even soaked it. And my friend’s chicken katsu was chewy and bland.
Will I come back? No. Did I regret commuting to this restaurant the moment I saw that they only were serving the lunch menu? Yes. I only stayed because it was my friend’s choice.

It’s just okay. No one was very thrilled with the sushi, but several in our group absolutely LOVED their pad thai. It’s possible that they do a lot better with their non-​sushi dishes.

Excellent value especially Lunch Menu Special/​Lunch Box (below $ 10). As for dinner, $ 9-​$ 15 with a good portion. Kiddie Menu for $ 5.
THAI ICED TEA — the biggest portion I have ever seen. It’s easy to loose my itty bitty straw in the hurricane-​like glass.
MISO SOUP — the clearest broth I have ever seen. Maybe a fluke.
CHIRASHI ($ 15.99) — plentiful of decent fish. Serves 2. Leftover becomes fried rice.
SERVICE — decent. Slight lost in translation moment. Quick to refill H2O. Pleasant. Eager.
VENUE — what a dump! Carpet needs to be ripped out and replaced. Cluttered.

I got the crab Rangoon and they were still cold inside. They also didn’t have celery in them like the menu describes. The staff member was on his phone when I came in and was not overly friendly. Meh. If you’re debating, pick the other place.

Cozy place. Tried a few of the veggie rolls here– which were okay but nothing spectacular.

From two stars to one… will never eat here again.
Credit card minimum MUST be $ 10+ — So don’t expect to order the $ 7.50 lunch special unless you have some cash on you.
Service is still slow and their online ordering platform is NOT credible. (Have had numerous canceled orders.)
Just go across the street to PINTO. Save yourself the trouble.

Excellent good value lunch special. Chicken teriyaki had high quality white meat chicken. Excellent Thai iced tea as well.

I am extremely disappointed with what Royin has become. What was formerly one of my favorite restaurants in Evanston is now a run down little restaurant that serves crappy, overpriced Asian food. I used to go to Royin with my friends almost every day after school. The tasuta Age was my go-​to dish. It was a fun place with a great atmosphere and friendly staff. Three years ago I moved from away from Evanston. I recently visited for the first time since my move and having lunch at Royin was at the top of my to-​do list while in town. I was extremely disappointed. Three years later Royin is nothing like it used to be. What was once a fun modern atmosphere now looks like a run down dump. The service was terribly slow. We were the only ones in the restaurant and it took 30 minutes to get our food. The tasuta age was dry and flavorless. The staff was very unfriendly and didn’t seem to care at all about the customers. Overall I was very unsatisfied. Next time I visit I will not be going back to Royin. I wish I could say my last experience there was memorable in a good way.

Super slow service. Kids thought the chicken Satay and orange chicken was ok but everything else was a disaster. Pad Thai fell short with no flavor except for an odd unappetizing sauce. Beef dish was the worst — was that meat boiled? Disgusting. Thai green curry was ‘ok’. Avoid this place. I took an out of town guest, it was embarrassing.

Royin is warm and cozy place. They provide fresh and clean. The food is great too. I love Orange Chicken. It was awesome, tasty. Server is nice and pretty.

I stopped by on a Wednesday afternoon to pick up a roll for a mid-​afternoon snack. I ordered the spicy California roll, and a tamago. The California roll contents were chopped up, mixed with spicy mayo. One of my peeves is anything chopped & mixed with mayo to make it a spicy roll. Six little pieces were not worth the money. The tamago was a disappointment. It was wrapped with seaweed and NO RICE. What? And that was $ 2! Yikes!
Better to head to Sea Ranch on Dempster!

Not sure I’d eat here again.
Got delivery here because we wanted something fast and warm and cheap that wasn’t Joy Yee’s.
Shoulda gotten Joy Yee’s.
We were pleasantly surprised by the fast delivery via Grubhub, about 30 minutes before the quoted time. However, $ 25 minumum AND a delivery fee is definitely a turn off. Not many places charge both around here, at least where I frequently order. So we added a spider roll and some hamachi to our order and got free gyoza.
Everything was below average at best. The fish had a really not fresh fishy taste, and I’ve gotten perfectly fresh delivery sushi plenty of times. The free gyoza came with 4 pieces, and they were pretty tasteless without the sauce, unfortunately. The spider roll looked a bit small to me. Bf gets that a lot at pretty much every sushi place we go to, and they’re usually big/​tall albeit thin cut from the soft shell crab being stuffed in there. This was small and thin pieces. He said they tasted okay though. I can’t really tell a difference.
The entrees were the real disaster. Drunken noodles usually has a distinct flavor, but this tastes just like chinese food brown sauce badly done with a few thai basil leaves, and some completely soggy green and red peppers. I didn’t want to keep eating mine. Unfortunately bf’s looked the exact same as mine minus a few shady tasting mushrooms in my dish. Aka just as bad.
Like boyfriend said, at least the first few bites of Joy Yees are satisfying and comforting, but this was just bad. If it were just a few low points, like maybe this thai flavor profile just isn’t their thing, but bland gyoza? not fresh fish? Misses on all fronts. It will be a while before I get around to giving this place another chance.

Got delivery for dinner for the first time tonight, and overall a pleasant experience! The main reason why we ordered from this place in the first place was because my boyfriend was craving katsu, and he was ecstatic to find curry katsu on their menu. I ordered the drunken noodles with shrimp, and I was pretty pleased with the food. My boyfriend ordered the katsu (obviously) and he really loved his food.
Only complaint — we ordered via grubhub and were notified that we would get free crab rangoons since our order was over $ 15. Alas, they were nowhere to be seen when I opened my bad :(However, a small glitch in an overall positive experience. I will order again! (but my rangoons better arrive next time).
p. s. this is really random and small, but props for peeling your shrimp properly! As in, I don’t have to have the annoying «I want to get the meat out of the tail stub but I’m too lazy to chew through the shell to get it» moment.

I walked in to get an order for takeout. They took my order and everything was fine, but then when I went back to order a bubble tea the waitress literally pushed me out of the way while I was reading the menu. I was not in the middle of the restaurant, I was at the front and there was one other table of people. It was ridiculous.
Then, my meal came deep fried. My salmon salad that is… if that was even salmon. This is definitely not a place I will ever come back to. Especially when there is a MUCH better Thai place right across the street…

We Grub Hubbed dinner from Royin tonight. J was super excited because he’d just discovered a restaurant that delivered that had katsu curry on their menu. I was happy because it was another place where I could get ten zaru soba (without having to boil water to make it at home — oh, summer makes me so lazy).
The restaurant called to check whether we wanted chicken or pork with the katsu curry. (Pork, of course.) Delivery arrived on time.
Unfortunately, when a very hungry J opened up the styrofoam box containing one of our ginger salads (basically lettuce and tomato with ginger dressing), he found a little cockroach crawling around in the lettuce. All the food then got tossed down the trash shoot within 1 minute. I mean, at that point, how could we eat anything that came out of that kitchen? This is the first time anything like this has ever happened to me. In my eyes, it is unforgivable to send out food like this. The entire experience definitely ruined my appetite and gave me the creeps. Had I been the one to open the container, I would be under heavy sedation right now (bugs and I, we aren’t friends, ever). We’ll never ever find out if they made a good katsu curry or not. Looks like I’ll continue trekking out to Mitsuwa.
(I must say, that when I called GrubHub to let them know what happened, they were superstars. They contacted the restaurant immediately, while putting me on hold momentarily, to request a refund. They apologized profusely, though it was not remotely their fault, and even sent me a $ 10 coupon for my next GrubHub order, which will obviously not be from Royin.)

It’s rare for me to be up at Central Street in Evanston, except for the occasional stop to the Spice House. I decided to come here for lunch on my way to picking up a pie at Tag’s Bakery.
My friend and I both ordered lunch specials, the orange chicken and the tonkatsu curry. The miso was mediocre, particularly from its strange flavor and the firm tofu that was used. The crab ragoon was on par.
My friend’s orange chicken had some good flavor, though the breading could have been better. My tonkatsu curry was pretty good, and the portions were plentiful.
If I worked in the area, I’d probably come here for lunch on a semi-​regular basis. As far as Japanese food is concerned, it’s not good enough for me to travel all the way.

A cozy little eatery on the northern fringe of Evanston, just west of Green Bay Road, with Northwestern U’s stadium a straight shot to the east. The Metra station is in between. There are a lot of toy trucks and cars all around (in the front window seating area and above the sushi counter). It’s probably a collection of one of the owners and works well if they are trying to invite clientele that now frequents this former folk-​music-​and-​antiques stretch of Central Street — families with children.
Our group was mainly interested in a quick and cheap lunch and Royin fit the bill perfectly for us because of its healthy Asian offerings. Since it was after 2PM when we arrived, we were given both their multi-​paged dinner menu as well as the 2-​page lunch menu. The seaweed salad was refreshing and did the trick of whetting our appetites while acting as a nice side dish later. The Ramen chicken was a tasty and filling soup, noodles, and veggies dish, big enough for two to share. And for those with a bigger appetite, one of their Bento boxes (called «lunch boxes» here) was just enough to hit the spot. We had the Pork Katsu version that included a California maki roll, miso soup, a micro salad, rice, and the usual Japanese condiments of pickled ginger and wasabi.
Parking all around is metered. But in this part of Evanston, that’s a reasonable 50¢ per hour. If you’re on an errand, there’s also a pocket-​sized USPS post office right across the street and a branch of the Evanston Public Library west of the restaurant. Pick up a copy of their color brochure/​carryout menu on the way out. It’s got several coupons to use on your next meal here.