Jinbei

great sushi

Enjoyed the sushi bar, great friendly service, fresh fish, and cool recommendations of authentic dishes we haven’t had before. Will definitely go back.

Jinbei’s a lovely restaurant. Nestled away near the foothills, it’s located in a quiet plaza.
Now the food on the other hand is quite the opposite from unassuming. They insist that you should try their specials, dishes that feature less popular fare, like squid and sea escargot. Dare to be a little daring – not a bad way to live when you’re in the burbs and need a little extra excitement.
They also have a nice assortment of fish as sushi or sashimi (yes, toro too), as well as more regular options like udon and bento boxes.
Well I tried the uni spaghetti special. One of their «top» items, and I gotta say that it was pretty awesome. This also coming from someone who’s not afflicted by/​deathly in love with uni. Somehow the creaminess of the sauce and the fresh oceany taste come together for quite a refreshing pairing.
So yeah, try their specials! You won’t be disappointed.

We tried their lunch. The sushi rice for Chirashi is very good.

Can’t believe there aren’t a lot of reviews about Jinbei. BF and I came here twice now and loved it both times. It has become our go to sushi place in Irvine.
The service is great. Food can take some time, but I don’t mind because the food is great too! A lot of more traditionally Japanese style dishes on the menu if sushi isn’t for you.
We’ve tried a LOT of things. And practically loved everything. Sushi, uni pasta, omelette, sake. Loved it all.
The restaurant is fairly small so I wouldn’t recommend going with a large party!

OMG, this place is awesome for genuine Japanese food! Their sushi is delicious and fresh. I just took my Japanese friend here and she loved it too. Their maguro (tuna) nigiri sushi is so flavorful and just melts in your mouth. Their tonkatsu is crispy and cut thick. Their menu is very extensive so you’re guaranteed to find something you like. I grew up eating a lot of Japanese food so I’m constantly looking for quality Japanese restaurants. I was very impressed with the food here, you can tell they really take pride in the food they serve. I know I’ll be coming back again and again.

I shall give a five star for their gorgeous uni spaghetti! It’s so creamy & delicious, if it can be served with 2 pieces of garlic baguette, it would be perfect ever, cause I can use them to clean up the plate:)

My new favorite sushi place in Irvine. We tried their Charishi bowl for lunch and it was very authentic. We also ordered some pieces of sushi which were all beyond what we expected! Tasty and excellent fish! Service was a little slow and there could be some updates to the interior but overall food was great. Definitely will be back! Prices are also very reasonable.

Ordered the deluxe bento box and it came with chefs special sashimi. Had 4 types of fish. Tuna, salmon and not sure what the other two were. The salmon was delicious! Looked very fresh so I had to try (I normally eat rolls, afraid of mostly raw. even steaks) There are many items on the menu i’d like to come back to try. The food is great but the service was kind of slow.

Great fresh sushi and service at the sushi bar. Had a great time! Friendly staff and reasonably price. Ordered house special sushi, so good, have to order second one.

The food is good for the most part, but the service gets really slow sometimes. Sushi is fresh and their appetizers are good. I like that they always have a new menu everyday and rotate interesting items in. I like their uni pasta a lot and their udon is yummy too. They also have homemade desserts like apple pie and crepes. It is a little more on the expensive side but overall a good spot for Japanese food. Look out for coupons from the Irvine Company!

Always my favorite sushi spot.
Their fish are fresh and the cut is great as well.
Just have no complaints about their food
I think it’s one of the best sushi bars in oc.

The food was okay… but this has to be one of the most inexperienced wait staff. We both ordered the lunch special and my husband also ordered some additional sashimi. The water took 20 mins to arrive at our table, and then the waitress forgot our order and asked for it again. Another 25 mins before my bento box arrived but my husband’s didn’t. He stated he just wanted the miso soup and a salad. As we waited another 20 mins for his meal to arrive… we were just about done with this place. Than I asked for the check and then they brought the sashimi??? I said we cancel this order because you couldn’t bring it with either my meal or when you brought his miso soup/​salad plates. That took another 15 mins to get this off our receipt. I know this place has gone through many managements but go somewhere else if you can.

Without a doubt, best place to get sushi in Irvine. Staff is amazing!

I really like the freshness and quality of the sushi and sashimi there but the chicken terriyaki sauce was way salty! This sentiment was shared by my wife and another mutual friend of ours who recommended this place to us.
If they can tone down on the saltiness of the bento sets (both chicken terriyaki and the pork cutlet) it would be awesome. They serve a pickled black fungus side dish inside the bento and it was very salty as well. I don’t know if it was intended this way but just fyi if you don’t like salty food.
Now on to the good part. We’ve also ordered the 3 kind of fish sashimi and it was delicious. I had to close my eyes to savor the taste.
We also got the number 3 roll. I already forgot what the name was but the prefect balance of spiciness and sourness scored a home run for me. My wife enjoyed it as well.

I read in another review that the Uni pasta was cooked al dente… I just got it and not true. The Uni also doesn’t look fresh. I also had a teka maki. It was average. Don’t think I would repeat.

We decided to come here for lunch as we were in the area and the reviews appeared to be good. We walked in to find a single female server rushing around frantically to an almost full restaurant, will multiple tables/​sushi bar still dirty from previous guests. There was also an odd smell at the entrance too, I’m not sure where it was coming from, but almost like dampness/​wet dog. Anyway, we were in a hurry so we told her we’d just sit at the sushi bar, as we were about to be seated, one of the sushi chef’s told her we couldn’t sit on certain seats, but the seats he wanted us to sit at were still dirty, so we again had to walk back and wait at the entrance. We ordered the lunch combos, I had the niku udon with california roll and my husband the sushi lunch with california roll. We also ordered 2 scallop sushi. The food came quite quickly. The chef’s were quite heavy handed with the wasabi so we didn’t enjoy the sushi quite as much as we would’ve liked. Presentation was pretty and we admired the sushi plates. Apparently the scallops came straight from Japan, however we’ve had scallop sushi elsewhere which tasted alot fresher and «melted» in our mouth. Unlikely we’ll go back again, it wasn’t bad but it wasn’t great either,

Best sushi place in OC imo, if you are up to real sushi. Great fish, great chef. Do listen to the chef’s suggestion on ordering and how to eat the sushi. Also grilled salmon belly is great.

Decent sushi but the service wasn’t great and it took a while to get our food. I was still hungry so I ate after.

Came here on a Sunday night at 7 they took our phone # and called us when ready 40 min. We sat outside under heaters in plaza area so pretty with lighted trees. We were a party of 4 and got Kirin pitcher of beer $ 18 got sashimi platter (5) types of fish $ 30 and teriyaki chicken box and $ 13 and 2 udon noodles $ 4.50 The freshness was incomparable to any other sushi places we have been … I think Taiko has meet their match by far. This is quaint and service is outstanding … I will be back very soon! Also plenty of parking and brand new center comparable to Newport Coast.

Sashimi platter — BOMB! came with salmon, snapper, halibut, albacore, yellow tail and tuna that all just melted in your mouth.
Uni Pasta — bomb (and i don’t like uni regularly) — the pasta noodles were al dente and the sauce was savory balancing out the uni with a creamy sauce.
Chirashi bowl — bomb; the bowl looks small but the portion they gave me, i could barely finish. i think it’s a really good deal.
Udon — looks pretty good and heard its pretty good by fellow Japanese friends, but have not tried personally
Karaage Chicken — no thank you. it was way too bland and soft. the skin/​batter on the chicken looked very crispy but was soft as soggy tempura flakes. the chicken was very juicy though! I like my chicken karaage a little bit more on the crisp side to balance out the juiciness. the sauce for the karaage was alright as well.
Service — definitely needs work. I’ve been here twice and the food never comes out at the same time. there’s always some sort of lag and sometimes workers seem a little lackadaisical. I was hoping that I’d get my chicken karaage at the same time as the sashimi plate so i could mix between flavors and textures to make my meal a little less boring, but it came at the very very end of our meal and wasn’t as appetizing for such a wait. the first time i was the last one to eat my meal at my table.
Besides that… the food is worth it. I would recommend this spot.

So imho 90% of the rating for any sushi restaurant is the fish. These guys start out with a 90. It’s that good. Super fresh.
The rice is another 8 out of 10 points and they get a 6.5 for that. Very flavorful but lacks a little acidity and not quite sticky enough (it doesn’t adhere perfectly to the fish).
But you know what? Who cares? The fish is awesome.
We had Spanish bluefin chutoro, which was the bomb as well as another Spanish bluefin cut (also awesome). Santa Barbara Uni. Hokkaido scallops. All awesome. Not too much wasabi.
Softshell crabs and chicken gizzards confit for appetizers.
The yellowtail roll was good and I can forgive the silly shaven bonito flakes on top.
They have some silly white boy 2 inch tall rolls, but whatever. Avoid those.
Lots of Japanese people along with the local white people (eating the previously mentioned giant rolls).
Service is good and normally great but they were mobbed tonight — my guess after the OC weekly #1 Japanese rating.
I’ll be back fo sho.

One of my favorite restaurants in Irvine. Food is authentic and of high quality. I especially enjoy the uni pasta and spicy chicken wings. The sushi here is great, with Toro and Yellowtail being some of my personal favorites. The desserts at Jinbei are crafted to perfection and always bring a smile to my face. I can tell that the gentleman who usually brings the dessert out is passionate about what he does. Such a nice guy!
Why 4 stars? Please update the menu handed out to your customers. Chocolate Cake and Crêpe were both on the menu but when I ordered one, the waitress found out they no longer served it. The dessert they changed it to was apple pie, which is not even on the menu.

This place is pricey and authentic. It doesn’t have a lot of options for bento boxes and they are smaller portion than the other restaurants that you would get. For $ 14-​$ 16, chicken karaage and teriyaki chicken respectively, the bento box came with a salad, miso soup, rice, 2 cold chef choice appetizers and chef choice sashimi.
We came on Friday night and the place is pretty packed. The staff is very friendly and will try to get you seated as soon as possible.

Jinbei is a great place if you want decent sushi but don’t want the wait. Irvine’s surrounding areas are home to many great sushi restaurants, but they tend require reservations or hours of waiting.
Their nigiris are fresh and of quality, so they’re probably my favorite on the menu. They pack in wasabi under that fish, which is perfect for me because I love the feeling of wasabi punching my nostrils. Salmon is awesome. They have toro, blue fin tuna, and one other tuna I can’t remember, and all are good. I still think Nana San’s scallop is unrivaled in OC, but Jinbei’s scallop is decent. Jinbei’s halibut nigiri has a lot of flavor, so I would recommend this as a must try. All other nigiris I tried were good, but I wouldn’t say they blew my mind away.
Jinbei’s chicken wings are amazing by the way! I would highly recommend. They are crispy and a deliiiiicious sauce is poured over them.
I would rate Jinbei as a 4-​star restaurant, but I deducted a star because they no longer offer the spaghetti dish. Very atypical for a sushi restaurant to offer, but Japanese spaghetti is amazing. I can’t find any other Japanese restaurant in the OC that offers spaghetti like Jinbei’s. I would have to go to Spoon House in Gardena to find something similar. Jinbei, if you are reading this… PLEASE CONSIDER BRINGING IT BACK!

When you’re craving Japanese, it’s dinnertime (5pm) and there’s a decent authentic restaurant you’ve never tried 2 miles from your house, well I call that a no brainer!
Located in the neighborhood of Orchard Hills, this little enclave could become a regular habit. I don’t know why I’ve never tried this spot since I’ve been past it dozens of times, but figured I was really craving noodle soup and maybe nigiri (sushi), or see what else they had that’s even more appealing.
It’s Izakaya which means traditional, homestyle, full menu. Literally, «a place to eat and drink, sitting down, comfortably.» So they also had rolls, sashimi, salads and a host of other dishes I was trying to familiarize myself with. About half the menu changes daily, which is another feature of this type of place.
Since I already knew one of the items I wanted based on other reviews, I picked the Beef Udon Soup (9.50) and a couple of nigiri (sushi) choices — albacore, and big eye tuna. Fish is flown in at least twice a week direct from Japan’s biggest fish market, as I understand. So you might pay a bit more here than other local sushi places but you know it’s going to be very fresh and somewhat more authentic selections than you’ll find at your average ‘whatever’ sushi joint.
Highly recommend the udon which was my main course. Practically a meal in itself, the perfect mix of tasty beef, seasoned broth, onion, and crunchy stuff had me in savory salty tasty delight. You can also get it with shrimp and additional choices, which really would make it a full meal. Nevertheless I was impressed with the taste and texture and will order it again. Sushi was fresh, nicely cut, and served at the ideal temperature and sushi rice was nice and firm but flavorful.
Hot tea was free and hit the spot, which I greatly appreciated. Sat at a table and service was superfast and on point! If you have places to go and people to see after your meal, this is a pretty nice option to have. Granted it helps if you go off-​peak hours to save time. Before 6 or after 9 is best for dinner. It turned out one of the items I inquired about, mini poke bowl of the day, is only available for lunch so I’ll have to go back during the day to try this. Bummer!
No TVs to check the score but you can easily access the Peet’s free wifi from here, since it’s directly next door. I was streaming the MLB playoffs audio on my phone and peeking at the scoreboard while dining.
I think if you’re looking for a full service, full menu, traditional Japanese restaurant and want a mom n pop feel close to north Irvine /​Tustin, this is a place to check out.
The verdicts:
Ambiance 3 (Hawaiian music, bootleg wifi, pleasant staff, not much else)
Prices 3.5 (order carefully and bring your wallet)
Freshness 4.5 (fresh!)
Taste 4 (nom!)
Service 4.5 (fast and accurate!)
Menu /​authenticity 4.5 (origato!)
Overall 4.00 — Honestly good!

It can get pricey but it’s good authentic Japanese food. I would recommend putting your name down/​making a reservation as it gets busy. The Japanese staff is very friendly but when I was there, there were only 2 ladies waitressing for the entire restaurant so it was impossible to get service. Not their fault, and they do the best they can, but it takes a while to flag one down and get things done.
Still, the taste of their dishes is authentic Japanese. Fresh fish. They also have a craft beer that I’ve never seen before which looks like it comes straight from Japan. Had some sake as well, the drinks were flowing that night as they paired well with all the good food.
Their sushi/​sashimi is tasty and fresh. They also have a uni spaghetti which is worth trying and sharing. We enjoyed our meal so much that we ordered more sushi to come with our dessert.
Dessert was good too, we had the chocolate fondant which was recommended by the waitress.
When in doubt, ask the waitresses for help on what to eat/​drink. They’re very helpful and I can’t wait to come back.

Most authentic, and affordable Japanese restaurant in OC! Food is always fresh, service is always spot on, and the fun always starts here.
Jun is the most artistic sushi chef in town, and Stacey is always on top of the orders.

You will be left still hungry, but the food was alright.
Uni pasta, a few pieces of uni on top of a bed of cheesy pasta. Personally a bit too cheesy for me. I could do with less. Uni itself tasted fresh great!
The 3 fish sashimi combo tasted good as well.
The chicken karrage (sp?) was good, good chicken to breading ratio.
The egg omelette was as described, layers of egg folded together in roll form. Nothing special, although certain portions were fairly salty.

I’ve been coming here every weekend for lunch with my bf ever since I discovered this place months ago. The service here is exceptional. They never fail to greet us in Japanese upon arriving and leaving. I love how accommodating they are whenever I call in last minute for a reservation to make sure that my party of 2 gets the booth. We are both becoming familiar to the waitresses that they know that it’s me when I call in to make a reservation and they know my order before I utter a single word.
Whenever we go there, we always the teriyaki chicken bento box and the niku beef udon with their mini bowl of the day. The teriyaki chicken bento comes with miso, salad, rice, teriyaki chicken, two mini sides of appetizers, and chef’s selection of sashimi. Everything about that combination is exceptional in flavor and quality. Jinbei has hands down the best teriyaki chicken I have ever had and the fact that they have mixed in there grilled onions, really compliments the teriyaki chicken. The sashimi is fresh and has always been fresh every time I order it. The mini bowl changes daily and I recommend it. The salmon poke bowl and the spicy chicken karaage bowl are delicious… pieces of heaven in little bowls. Oh and if you go there for dinner, you can add a dessert to the teriyaki combination and it’s the perfect end to the meal.
Cons: the drive there is a bit out of the way from where I live, but I still manage to go there every weekend. It doesn’t stop me. The menu can be simple because there aren’t a lot of items on the menu.

Found Jinbei under Unilocal’s hot and new restaurant, and we decided to try it out. My husband and I are always very adventurous when it comes to restaurants, and we really enjoy the omakase style to try out new dishes. So when we were told that we should try today’s special menu, we got excited and just decided to go with recommended special dishes. (They are all definitely on the more expensive side, but hey~ they are special right?)
We end up order octopus with seaweed salad, omelet with cod rod, and fried soft shell crab from appetizer, blue fin toro, mackerel, and halibut from nigiri sushi menu. Plus a Niku udon with poached egg to wrap things up.
As we were the only table in the restaurant, everything came up really fast… And I have to say, I was a little bit disappointed. Things don’t taste bad, but there’s nothing special about a lot of them. Quality of the fish is average at best. $ 13 for 2 pieces of thinly cut blue fin toro (26 if we went with 4 pieces of sashimi instead), and $ 8 for halibut is definitely very expensive. I can think of many other sushi restaurants near this area that offer better cut and quality sushi with cheaper price.
With tax and tips, our bill came out to be close to $ 100 for 2. Not the most expensive Japanese restaurant that we’ve been to, but it’s definitely one of the more unsatisfying experiences that we had.

Really inconsistent experiences here. One day it seems like a huge bargain for what you get, the next day it’s incredibly underwhelming.
On the first visit, everything was exemplary, especially the yellowtail and toro. One of the better ones in OC for sure and the best on Irvine.
The next time we went, the sushi was average to below average at best, though hot dishes remained at a similar high quality.
I know fish quality changes from day to day, but I’ve rarely seen such a dramatic shift in such a short time, but when its on point, Jinbei is excellent.
Uni: 2−3÷5
Hamachi: 2−3÷5
Toro: ³⁄₅
Omelete: ³⁄₅
Unagi: ²⁄₅
Tuna: ¹⁄₅
Salmon: ²⁄₅
Cod: ²⁄₅
Presentation: 2−3÷5
Service: ²⁄₅
Diversity: ³⁄₅
Price: $$/​$$$$
Satisfaction:Price– ⁴⁄₅