Hanabi Japanese Restaurant

From out of town and gave this place a shot trusting in Unilocaler reviews. I was disappointed to say the least. Not well stocked, half my initial order wasnt available. Boring ambiance; faint sound of boom box quality stereo in the background. Sushi spots in Inland Empire blow this place away and they arent as close to the ocean as this place. Would not return.

Calamari tempura roll/​Salmon Tempura roll. You will not be disappointed! We were very happy with their sushi at this location. The staff was also very friendly and knowledgable (we inquired about a few different menu items).

Delicious! Very fresh. The server was working alone on a busy night but he was very quick and friendly. Bonus– it’s right off the freeway for people passing through town.

decently priced specialty rolls, around $ 7 – 11. their lunch/​dinner combos are pretty good too! for lunch, it’s $ 8.50 for two items and $ 12.50 for three items, plus rice, salad, soup. i recommend getting the pork cutlet as one of your items! the chefs and servers are always really friendly and they have a good back room for bigger parties. i believe you can do karaōke there, too. first time i came here was for a big group in the back room and the service was ridiculously slow, even though the rest of the restaurant was pretty empty. at least they give you free edamame while you wait, and sometimes they even give you edadame while you wait for your to-​go orders!
there was one time when i tried to order a lunch special to go on a weekend and i wasn’t allowed to. i can’t remember if it was because it was to-​go or if it was because it was weekend but i just remember i had to pay the full dinner price for it, so that was kind of a bummer

i cannot believe this place has so many good reviews? i ordered the new york new york roll as part of a dinner special that came with sashimi. the fish i was served was warm and the roll was very dry and completely tasteless. my boyfriend ordered the lobster roll which was smothered in sauce and looked unappetizing.
this place is definitely catering to cal poly students blasting club bangers and offering low prices on sake bombs.
two stars for okay service and reasonable prices on most of the rolls.

Delicious sushi!

My roommate and I loved this place cause the sushi were delicious and the service is very decent. But that wasn’t the case on my birthday.
We booked the karaōke room for my birthday and the machine doesn’t work well and there weren’t very many selections. But that’s not the point of this post. What I really want you to know is that they told us that there would be free ice cream for birthdays. They never brought that out. Then after half the table got their order the other half never got theirs. And we asked them about it and that’s when they decided to tell us that they’re out of rice and they can’t make our orders. I also ordered tea and they never brought that out either. Lesson learned; never have a party at this place. The service is terrible.

The food was mediocre, and the service was terrible. There were items on the menu that were a mistake. For example, I asked why a certain roll said it had hamachi and yellowtail on the same roll (hamachi and yellowtail are the same). The waitress said it was a mistake and it was actually crab. I was about to order that item, and I’m not a fan of crab, so if I wouldn’t have asked that question I would have gotten something different than I ordered.
I came in with one friend and we were the only ones there. We sat there waiting for refills for way too long. It would be understandable if it was busy, but it wasn’t. Another table came in and we pretty much got ignored. I had to flag the waitress down for a refill on water.
We sat there for a while with empty plates in front of us. We ordered dessert, and the waitress actually left our old dishes there when she gave us dessert. I think I had to ask her to get the dishes out of the way. Maybe I’m more judgmental because I work at a sushi restaurant, but all of this seems like common sense. I’m not perfect by any means, but if I make mistakes like this it is because I am incredibly busy. But with just two tables that came in 20 minutes apart it doesn’t make much sense to me…

This place is absolutely amazing! They have a wide range of rolls that vary from $ 5 to $ 14. This is probably the cheapest sushi place in SLO for its quality! The chefs are extremely friendly and the service is great!
This place is awesome for big parties because they have the back room with karaōke! It gets pretty busy on the weekend but for the most part it’s pretty quiet and a good place to take a date to a nice sushi dinner.
I love this place and eat here pretty often. I definitely recommend this place!

Fair warning, I am DIS.A.POINTED.
I can usually count on my fellow Unilocalers to lead me to the best of the best, so I must conclude that
[1] The waiter and chef were having a VERY BAD day, even though we were the only two people there, OR
[2] This is a complete bullshit, and we were being filmed covertly but no one remembered to tell us about it.
I’m going to chalk this up to a series of unfortunate juxtapositions of the Sushi Gods, the co2 levels and the earthquakes along the Pacific Rim.
Miso soup. How can you mess up Miso? It was off-​flavor. Rank like it was run through dirty coffee percolator water.
California roll: Very good. The exception.
Spicy dragon roll: Spicy, yes. Creative and flavorful? Neither.
Salad? Good, but mostly iceberg lettuce. Really?
Chicken? Tepid.
Maybe it was a bad day, maybe our expectations were high, maybe this was not a good place to go for a date.
Ah well, if they’re still open in 6 months, I may give ‘em another shot.
Think there’s a better sushi place? Of course there is.

Favorite Japanese place in SLO! The spicy tuna tempura roll is delicious and I’m not even a raw fish person! I usually get the chicken teriyaki bowl. Great price, great quality, great food!

First off, very friendly chefs!
The sushi was wonderful. Fresh tasting and inventive. We also got a chicken teriyaki bowl and it was very tasty.
I asked for something special from the chef, I’m very indecisive and being a new restaurant to us it’s a good test to see how they do. After a few simple question (cooked or raw, spicy or not, etc) they came up with what they call the «Green Bomb». Pictures of it were uploaded. Imagine a poke and seaweed and cucumber salad all combined and wrapped very tight in avocado. Mine was spicy (as I requested), but I’m sure you can ask for less spice. It was fantastic. They won my vote for favourite so far.
Anyways, I just relocated from San Diego, where there are sushi restaurants galore. This place would be very successful in the San Diego market, that’s how much I thought of them.

Great customer service!
Went with a party of about 12 people, so we sat in the group area toward the back of the restaurant. There was only one female waitress helping us, and she seemed kind of hurried.
Me and my lady had two rolls, I believe it was a SLO Roll and a Tiger Roll (can’t recall), but the two rolls were BOMB! Which brings me to my next paragraph.
SAKE BOMBS!!! They had a great Sake Bomb deal where you either buy the Sapporo and get Sake at a cheaper price, or the other way around, I haven’t been here in awhile. Good times!
The manager was pretty awesome too! He talked to my girl and our other girl friend and asked if they had a job already, because he was about to hire them on the spot, haha!
Good stuff, Hanabi!

Out of all the sushi places in SLO I made this my home during my years at Poly. Their menu has a mixture of rolls from the other sushi places in town. My favorites are the SUNSHINE ROLL & POPCORN LOBSTER ROLL (not on the menu). I forgot to take a picture of the popcorn lobster roll before decimating it, but trust me you’ll be glad you ordered it.

The best! SLO is lucky to have this restaurant !
The nigiri is fresh, served in very creative ways!
Jason makes fantastic rolls and it’s well worth the visit.
WARNING: this is a very popular place with the college students on Fridays, after 8:00 pm or so. I love the energy that the kids bring to the place, I love it! So, if you are there after 8:00 pm or so… have fun with the students! They are generally fun, loud and respectable, great bunch of people!

When we first entered the restaurant, we weren’t greeted nor were we given menus. BUT. THE FOOD. ONCE WE DID ORDER. WAS. AWESOME.
The Dynamite appetizer was DELICIOUS. the nigiri, AMAZING. My boyfriend’ tried the Oeeche roll (sp?), he isn’t a big fan of sushi, but he LOVED it. My friend Andi enjoyed her chicken terriyaki as well.
YAY.
Yes, expect a wait. But really, its sushi. Don’t you want your raw fish prepared delicately?
And the price for the SLO area was pretty good too!
Yummy yummy yummy.
We even spoke to the waiter outside after dinner, he was genuinely friendly! We let him ride our fixed gear bike… :)
We will be coming back again. Hopefully we can sing karaōke! SOON. :)

Wow. Used to be a big fan of Hanabi when I was at poly.
Went back this weekend looking for some cheap, high quality sushi and some saki and had the worst experience ever. Apparently the new owners are crud.
The place was dead. It took ½ an hour for the server to bring us drinks. The menu stated that we would get rice, salad, and miso with our food (sounds like a good deal to me). The server came back saying that was no longer avaialable… it was still on the menu.
The sushi was decent quality… except it took an hour and a half to get there. We were so livid.
Prices have gone up significantly from a year ago too.
NEVER AGAIN HANABI. NEVER AGAIN!
My recommendation is sumo or yanagi any day of the week!

Beautiful, creative rolls (my favorite had paper-​thin slices of lemon draped over the roll). Lots to choose from, and you can do the traditional sushi bar experience or sit at a table.
Exterior is grubby (between the freeway and Taco Bell), but inside it’s nice, bright and spotless.
Prices are typical for sushi, which makes it more of a treat than an everyday thing.

After a long day, we were looking for a nice place to relax and have dinner. After passing on the local Carl’s Jr, we spotted Hanabi and decided to try it.
We were very pleasantly surprised. The restaurant has a very «clean and fresh» smell to it, and the chef warmly welcomed us.
We selected a variety of sushi rolls (most of them spicy). We were surprised at both the size and the quality! What a treat!
We will definitely go there again next time we are in town.

Hanabi is a great alternative to the more expensive sushi places in SLO, but you don’t have to sacrifice quality to get a good price. The place is across from Taco Bell and isn’t much to look at from the outside, however, it’s really stylish and fun on the inside, and the bathroom is really beautiful (Trust me, just go in. It will surprise you).
My favorite rolls here are the Golden California and anything they have with spicy tuna but everything is really good and reasonably priced. They have a great lunch special that is $ 9.99 for a California roll, a spicy tuna roll and a veggie roll, and that includes soup. Also, if you’re a Cal Poly student or just on campus, pick up a Mustang Daily because Hanabi frequently has coupons in there for a large beer or sake for just $ 2.