Sakura Japanese Restaurant

Best sushi in Newton/​Waltham area.

I’ve been to this restaurant a few times and it’s a lovely place and has really good service. I’ve also done take out, and never had an issue.
I’ve tried their steamed and fried dumplings. I prefer the friend pork ones – yummy! I also really like their White Mountain Roll. I’ve also tried the Super Dragon roll, which was also really good.
Their fried ice cream is also quite good and I really recommend trying it.
Overall a descent restaurant and very conveniently located.

I have eaten at Sakura before and remember it being on par with other area sushi restaurants. Sadly, my experience tonight will lead me to never order from this restaurant again.
My wife and I placed an order through a popular app: fried gyoza and 4 sushi rolls. Here is where our positive experience ends.
First, the delivery driver was 20 minutes late. He called on arrival and I didn’t understand what he said on the phone, so I went outside to see if he has was the door. After looking around for a while, I saw a car with its hazards on a bit down the road. It honked, so I approached. The passenger window was open and a man yelled something at me, I walked to the window and without moving from the drivers seat, he handed a piece of paper with a pen. I signed, and he pointed to a plastic bag on the seat. Assuming I should take that one, I picked up the bag and before I took a step back, the car drove away, nearly with my arm in it.
Upon opening the food we waited a long time for we discovered that our gyoza was cold, and the «chef’s special sauce» on the white mountain roll was a boatload of mayo mixed in with the king crab meat, making the entire roll nearly inedible for my wife and untouchable for me.
Sad to lose a seemingly solid sushi place from our list, but we won’t be going back.

Best sushi I have found in Waltham. I ordered from here when it first opened, and it was alright, but decided to give it another try, and its been great ever since. With the exception of the first time, its been really consistent!

I would give them 5 stars but delivery was painfully slow placed my order at 11:30 and just now received it at 1:20pm. Haven’t eaten at the restaurant but would like to check it out. The items I ordered were fresh and beautifully presented.
Ikaru– salmon fish roe
Nice amount of roe
Tender and had a nice clean and creamy texture.
Tomago– egg omelette
was subtly sweet and had a pleasant spongy texture (highly recommend)
Spicy salmon sushi —
Was awesome and they accommodated my request for a little more picante.

Fresh, fast and yummy!

I like they have lunch on Saturdays and I took food out few times, fish was always fresh and portions are of good size.

Love Sakura. Definitely the best sushi place in Waltham! My boyfriend and I have been going to this place regularly since it opened. We’ve only ever had the sushi here, so that’s what this review is about.
Some favorite rolls: Vegetable Caterpillar Maki (the deep fried sweet potato is still warm inside, be still my heart), Salmon Monster (the baked salmon is soo good), Tropical Roll (the sweet peppers in this one are a great touch) and my slightly boring but personal favorite, Spicy Crispy Yellowtail Maki (I want some right now). We’ve tried many of the others on the menu and they are all really really good.
The service is friendly and awesome, and I love the atmosphere in this place; it’s quiet and the lighting is a little moody. Parking’s pretty easy to find out front on the street, and the prices are good. I’ve had a ton of sushi in my day, from gross why-​did-​I-​buy-​this grocery store sushi to super expensive fancy schmancy sushi, and Sakura holds up very well when compared to restaurants at a similar price point in the Boston area and beyond. Definitely worth checking out!

I think this is one of the best sushi places in Waltham. The food is great for dining in or take out. The service is great, and everyone is nice. The quality of the sushi is better than other places that I’ve been too, and it’s not to expensive. The best part is that they don’t close for a few hours during the afternoon like other sushi/​Thai places do.

I’m updating this.
Katsu don: missing flavor, too plain.
Yakitori: the taste is even worse than the look.
Please work on your food and improve the taste. Katsu don and yakitori are like the most common dishes in jpns restaurant. If u wanna know how it should be done, go to «ittoku».

The staffs ~ 5 stars (friendly, fast, polite)
The décor ~ 3.5 (average décor and display like most Japanese restaurants)
Food ~ 3 – 3.5 stars ordered tempura udon soup (tempura are good, udon is bland), second entrée dish pork Katsu (a little on the dry side, there’s no side vegetables or greens on the plate but they do serve a side serving of lettuce salad)

Amazing place! We are from NJ, and had the chance to find this place while working in MA.
I trully recommend it.
Service, food and price 5 stars.
Try the lunch box and a special roll with it.

I judge a sushi place first and foremost on their sashimi, and only have three requirements — price, quality, quantity. Let’s have fun and hit all three:
Price: $ 14 lunch combo for sashimi. Not the most expensive, but far from the cheapest offering. In terms of value in comparison to the quality and quantity aspects, it’s a bad deal — those points are further elaborated below.
Quality: Mediocre. The tuna and yellowfish were too rough and chewy, not soft and silky as fresh sashimi should be. The salmon however was spot on. The cooked shrimp (Ebi) was also surprisingly okay — at first glance I thought it was going to be awful. Also, their Tamago (egg) was solid as well. Side note, their wasabi was extra strong and tasteful, which I applaud for doing right.
Quantity: Pitiful. They entice you on the menu with 12 pieces of sashimi. I knew going in they weren’t going to be the biggest of pieces, but when I received my plate, a cry of sorrow nearly escaped my lips. Minus the salmon (thank god, only reason this isn’t a one star review), everything else was just pathetic. The tuna slices were only slightly bigger than my pinky. The yellowtail, only a bit bigger than the tuna. And the salmon, tuna and yellowtail came in threes (9 total). So what, pray tell, consisted of the other 3? 2 Tamago and 1 Ebi (at least they tasted decent). Um. Time out — let’s go google what sashimi is:
sa·shi·mi
noun
a Japanese dish of bite-​sized pieces of raw fish eaten with soy sauce and wasabi paste.
«tuna sashimi»
THANK YOU. Raw fish. So out of the 12 raw pieces of fish I was supposed to receive for my Sashimi Lunch, I see 2 slices of cooked egg and 1 cooked shrimp. Oh but it’s okay, because they gave us two small portions of imitation crab! That evens it out, right?
Wrong. What is even going on here. I can’t even. At this point, I’m done elaborating my disappointment.
Long story short, per other reviews, they seems they have great rolls. So, awesome, lather your rolls in an abundance of sauce and other crap to mask the taste of the actual fish. But that’s not real sushi to me folks — real sushi is quality grade fish and rice, so that means nigri and sashimi. Rolls are just make-​pretend sushi so people can feel better about themselves and think they’re trendy (although I will bite, some rolls can be damn delicious). Anyways, if you’re looking for the real deal, look elsewhere as I don’t get the crazy hype this place has been getting — I suspect foul play.

Waku waku suru. I an really excited that a really good, full-​menu Japanese restaurant has some to Waltham. I just cannot believe that I missed the grand opening almost three months ago.
The most important thing is that the sushi-​grade fish is extremely fresh, of high quality and prepared well. The sushi and sashimi menu is extremely large with lots of choices. They have innovative and modern dishes in the tradition of Japan, not of the local supermarket. The service is also top notch. But, there are some small things that keep me away from giving it that fifth star.
Let’s start with what matters — the seafood: I ordered the Tiger Eyes appetizer, which is grilled whole squid stuffed with smoked salmon and avocado. I loved it. The squid was in little round rings that were perfectly balanced with the salmon and avocado. The squid was tender, not chewy. This is highly recommended — if you aren’t one of those people who reacts badly to the word squid.
Since this was my first time, I tried the Makimono Combo 2: Spicy tuna roll, salmon avocado maki and negihama roll, served with miso soup and salad. It was huge! 18 pieces of sushi for $ 16. Yes! I could not decide whether I liked the spicy tuna or the salmon avocado better. Usually, when I eat sushi, I try to figure out which is my favorite and I save it until last in order to have that taste in my mouth. (Do you do that, too?) It was hard to choose. The spicy tuna was just the right amount of spice with slivers of cucumber to give it crunch. The salmon was really top quality and had fantastic flavor. I guess that I will need to come back and try again to see if I can decide.
The misses were the salad and my wife’s chicken teriyaki. The salad was fresh, but the dressing was much too gooey and sweet. It might have worked if there was less of it – but it did not work. The chicken teriyaki plentiful, but it was bland and should be avoided.
The service was top quality. I especially love that my cup of green tea was never empty. Do you know how in Japan it is the role of the person you are with to make sure that your glass is never empty. Well, our server did make sure that my tea was always topped off and it was just $ 1. Most places overcharge for tea as a way to make significant revenue. So, a real big plus.
The sweet orange half at the end was just the right touch to end the night.
I really enjoyed Sakura. It is not up there with the world’s best sushi restaurants, but is way ahead of anything else in the Waltham area.

Sakura is a great lunch/​dinner Japanese spot to go to in Waltham.
We went for a late Saturday lunch and missed their lunch specials (ends at 2:30pm). Instead we ordered a few things off of the menu: Beef tatiki, Raw tuna and the Hibachi chicken. All three items were very good, reasonably priced and very fresh.
The service is very good here; the waitresses are very attentive and quick.
There is no bar at all, just soft drinks, water and tea.
I would recommend that you park in the large lot behind the Embassy theater. If you park in the back where the old Skellig’s/Watch City buildings are, you will just be able to walk across the street from there.
I will be back soon to try the rolls out!
Just a note — they really do not have a working website, to see a menu go to
or

Outstanding. Sakura really puts the extra effort in with the small details.
Location: ⁴⁄₅ — right off of moody street, so finding parking was a little difficult. The restaurant is a little small, probably seats max 50 people.
Service: ⁶⁄₅ — three major «hell yea» moments
— carrots, celery and sweet veggie dip brought to our table, and the waitress let us know it was on the house!
— half clementines brought to the table along with our bill to cleanse the palettes l, also on the house
— got the bill and noticed they took 15% off for their «grand opening“sale!
Our waitress was so attentive, made sure our water glasses were never empty and checked in with us frequently to assure that we were pleased with our meals.
Food: ⁵⁄₅ — we got miso soup, which was somehow the best miso soup I’ve ever had; edamames which were steamed perfectly and garnished with just enough salt; sweet potato rolls and spicy tuna, both extremely fresh and flavorful; ended with the half clementine.
The only slight downsides to our experience were:
1. when we got there, there were 2 other tables seated so the restaurant was very quiet and there was no music playing. Every 5 – 10 minutes they would play one classical song and then it would just be background silence which made me feel a little uncomfortable, like I was on impractical jokers or something
2. the waitresses speak VERY basic english. I’m like a five year old when it comes to what sushi I’ll eat, so I asked the waitress if their spicy tuna was chunks of fish with spices rolled into it, or if they ground up the fish meat with the spices for a smoother texture… she looked at me like I had 8 heads. She asked me to repeat the question FOUR times in FOUR different ways, got to the point where I just used the menu and pointed to pictures: «texture like this or like this» and finally we figured out that it was ground with spices so it was smooth. yay.
That being said, the best part about this place (albeit the 15% off) was that our bill with tax was just under $ 35. And apparently they deliver. Game over.

For some odd reason I was super hungry this day. I heard there was a 15% grand opening discount so, BAM! I’m all in.
Miso soup — pretty standard.
Hamachi Kama with Ponzu sauce — The fish was awesome, but Hamachi Kama (yellow tail) is always so juicy and tender, you really can’t go wrong. The sauce, however, I found to be a little on the thick and sweet side. It’s not bad, it’s just unexpected.
Tiger Eyes — Squid stuffed with salmon, cut into coins, drizzled with lemon juice. For the price, I expected more than 4 pieces. The flavor wasn’t great, I think the lemon juice over powered everything else.
Salad — The ginger salad dressing was way too sweet and way too much. It totally over powered the salad.
Beef Teriyaki — slices of beef, covered in teriyaki sauce, served on a bed of spaghetti and broccoli with a side of side. The sauce, again, was a but on the sweet side. There’s no flare to it what so ever. It would be nicer if there’s some sesame seeds thrown on top and a side of veggie tempura instead of noodles. Noodles AND rice? They should substitute one with veggies.
Green Tea Ice Cream — There’s no such thing as bad ice cream.
Waitress: (About to bring bill over)
Me: Can I get the menu again?
Waitress: Sure
Me: (round two)
Patriot roll — I honestly do not remember what’s in here. It was good, but not fantastic
Tuna Tataki — Thinly sliced, seared tuna served with ginger sauce. Was ok. prefer the beef one.
(I don’t remember the name) roll — seared salmon with other stuff. not memorable at all.
Waitress: (About to bring bill over)
Me: Can I get FRIED green tea ice cream?
Waitress: Are you serious? (eyes wide open)
Me: Yup. Dessert!
FRIED Green Tea Ice Cream — Making a good thing better
Overall, it’s a great place. But I find the sauces were a tad on the sweet side, sometimes overpowering the food themselves.

The first week I found out about this place I went 3 times. I’m about to eat lunch there after I finish this review!!!
Thank god! Finally a sushi place in the neighborhood that doesn’t rip you off in quality and price. It is comparable to the quality and atmosphere of Fin’s sushi. It’s a nice date night and isn’t an expensive pretentious sushi place. It will satisfy your sushi cravings without breaking bank. Thank you Unilocalers for Unilocaling this business because if it wasn’t for you I wouldn’t have known this place existed!
It’s directly across the cinema on pine street and there’s free 1hr street parking on moody and pine. If that doesn’t work out, there are plenty of parking lots. We went on a weekday night and this place was empty. This area can be a bit sketchy at night but during the day there is a lot of pedestrians.
We ordered the patriots roll based on the other reviews but I thought it was just ok. The ocean maki was delicious and my favorite was the appetizer spicy salmon wonton chips! The hokkai yaki which I thought was just okay as well doesn’t come in a shell in case you like that sort of thing. The fish is fresh and you can’t go wrong with anything here.
I also love that their lunch specials includes Saturday’s. The 3 rolls special is definitely worth the price as well as their lunch boxes!

My new go-​to sushi spot in Waltham. It’s affordable, delicious, & the service is great!
Came with my friends before closing on Thursday night and they weren’t rude about us coming so late. The service is wonderful. I had the Patriots roll&uni sashimi. The fact that the Uni (sea urchin) was fresh won me over and the roll was yummy too. They serve celery&carrots with dip as a complementary appetizer and I love the ambiance. It’s well-​decorated; not sure what the place before it was though so I can’t compare.
The second time I got take-​out for lunch. 3 rolls for $ 11.95 is a steal in Waltham. Their selection for the sushi rolls lunch special is larger than the normal sushi restaurant as well. It comes with a salad with ginger dressing and miso soup.
If you go now while it’s just opened, you get 15% off.

Tried the restaurant for the first time today. I believe that it just opened this week. The restaurant was a replacement of an older joint.
The food itself was alright. We ordered the Tuna Tataki, Patriots Roll, Torched Yellowtail Maki, Boston Maki and Tamago Nigiri Sushi.
The Tuna Tataki was not at all like the pictures or any other tuna tataki I had in the past. It was just lightly torched tuna sprinkled with black and white sesame seeds. Not very flavorful.
The patriots roll was good, it had a good composition of fish and vegetables.
The boston maki had only 3 edible cuts, the rest were the ends of the roll with lettuce sticking out as high as a tree. Ok I’m exaggerating but you get it… The rest of the food were good.
Overall I gave the restaurant a 3 star because I think the food was ok but I personally think there’s room for improvement and I also see potential.