Sakura

Excellent service. Outstanding localized sushi rolls with hand-​crafted care. This is my favorite outdoor spot to enjoy sushi on a lovely afternoon or evening. Your staff is excellent.

Kind of in love with this place. The Hibachi Chicken and steamed gyoza are something I crave essentially at all times, and it’s incredibly affordable. Staff is always so polite and food arrives quickly. One of my favorite places in Winston-​Salem and a great place for students.

The building was a fast food joint. The rice was dry and the carrots in the hibachi dinner were canned. The wine was almost vinegar from age. Will not return.

The best sushi in Winston Salem for sure.
I’ve been around the town looking for good sushi. so far Sakura is the best.

Best sushi in town! Great staff, good prices and casual atmosphere. My go to restaurant for nearly a decade now!

I feel really strongly about Sakura. Sakura has always been by far my favorite sushi restaurant in Winston and is my favorite restaurant in town (and one of my top overall). I will also preface this by saying that I’ve been to Sakura more than 50 times over a four year period of time and once in the past two years. I’ve done large functions, birthday celebrations, weekday dinners, weekend group dinners, take out, and work outings here. It’s a shame that I didn’t start Unilocaling earlier! This review is way overdue, and I’m glad I ate here yesterday which reminded me of how badly this review needed to be written.
For starters, the food is reasonably priced. I’ve always found their fish to be very fresh and their rolls to be perfectly constructed. I have had a good portion of their apps, rolls, and hot dishes, and I can honestly say that I’ve never ordered something that I straight up didn’t enjoy. My go-​to roll is the Wake Forest roll, which I am slightly obsessed with. Their tempura veggies are awesome and I am guilty of ordering multiple rounds of white sauce for their hibachi chicken — I’m not sure what they put in it to make it different, but it is addictive. I always get a seaweed salad when I go, too. You can’t go wrong with food here. I brought a coworker with me last time I was in town and he agreed that the sushi is on par with the places we go in NY, and the Wake Forest roll in particular might be even better.
In terms of service, Sakura is incredible. I have never run into a chef, host, or server at Sakura who wasn’t incredible. If you’re a regular, they will get to know your name and your order. I always order sweet chili sauce with my sushi and oftentimes it would come out when my server came to greet me! I think that service like this goes a long way. After a two year hiatus, the chefs still remembered me.
The owner of this restaurant is an incredible lady. She is often walking around the restaurant talking to customers. When I use to live in the area and come all of the time, she would always stop by our table to chat. Once, when I came in with strep, she handed me a big to go container of soup. If this doesn’t show you that Sakura cares about their customers and treat them like family, I’m not sure what will. When I came back after two years, she remembered what I was doing and even where my parents live.
If you are in Winston and don’t take advantage of this awesome place, it is your loss (and also, if you are there AND are eating here — I am very jealous). I am very loyal to this place and stand by this five star review.

Very affordable lunch. I had the chicken salad with avocado, mandarin oranges, and dried cranberries. It was a good portion for $ 7.95, and very tasty. My mom enjoyed her hibachi chicken with fried rice and vegetables. There were bean sprouts, along with the zucchini, mushrooms, broccoli, and onions. All very tasty.
Can’t say much for atmosphere, but service, food and price were very good.

Best sushi in Winston Salem hands down. Staff was extremely friendly and fast. If you’re looking for the best sushi in Winston then look no further!

On May 22,2015 @ 2:47pm., My husband & I had dinner at this location of Sakura. My hubby ordered Yaki Udon Shrimp bowl & mackerel sashimi. The mackerel was spoiled to the point that it had turned yellow. NASTY. He sent it back & it was removed from the bill. I ordered Dragon Scale roll, not bad. House salad with ginger dressing which was very sour. I also wanted 2 orders of the GREEN Flyingfish roe nigiri, which when brought to the table was one red & 1 green.; also an order of the chopped spicy scallops; which was spoiled along with the red Flyingfish roe was also spoiled. We were not happy. We got our check & left. We will not go back! Can’t believe they would serve us ROTTEN FISH! The noodle dish was good, but that was all. I DON’T RECOMMEND ANYONE TO GO HERE!

The food was okay, but the place reeked of the aroma of cooked salmon during my visit, and while I LOVE fish, it was a very overwhelming odor. Also, the inside is sort of dingy. They have a very large covered outdoor patio, but who wants to sit outside and inhale the exhaust of all the vehicles whizzing by on busy Stratford Road? (Well, maybe the people who chose that over the stinky salmon smell). On the plus side, they don’t close after opening for lunch, so if you’re looking for a late sushi lunch or early dinner, they are open.

Sakura can be tasty, but isn’t always consistent. The hibachi can be tasty but some of the veggies won’t always be cooked and sometimes they are way too salty. I recommend the hibachi chicken or shrimp for a safe bet.
As for sushi, the fish is usually the freshest in town– but there has been better. The sushi chefs do know how to pair things well and can cut fish correctly. The only complaint I have is sometimes the rolls are rolled way too lose. I’m not paying money for unrolled sushi! The freshness isn’t exactly in their control and it always does taste good. I recommend the Fuji maki and the polar roll.
Just with some consistency this place could be great!

We decided to go to Sakura based on the reviews of several Triad Unilocalers and because we were looking for a different spot to enjoy sushi. (Normally we ate at the Sushi bar at Tokyo Japanese Steakhouse). So, the first thing I noticed about the place was that the neon on the road sign is only half lit. Not sure what that meant but little things are important when making a presentation to your customers, and this is the first thing that you see. We were seated promptly and our server was polite. We decided to order Sunomono, a Crab salad, and tako yaki for appetizers. Both the salads had julienned cucumbers and seafood. The tako yaki is octopus inside of a dumpling. It was pretty good, the Tako Yaki was a tad underdone on the inside but still good.
We ordered a platter of Spicy Tuna, Spicy Salmon, Fuji Maki (tuna, salmon, crab, avocado, etc), and a Volcano Roll (a spicy tuna roll topped with a octopus, crabmeat, shrimp salad.
The sushi was (again) good, but quite honestly not as wonderful as I was expecting. Another thing that kind of disappointed me was that the only draft beer that is available are domestic mega beers. I can get Sapporo on draft in other places.
I am starting to agree with other Unilocalers around here that, at this point, great sushi isn’t really available in the Triad.

Good service and decent sushi! They don’t have a ton of rolls, but the two I tried were pretty good. The place is small, nothing fancy.

These two stars are for the service ONLY. It was wonderful. However, the sign out front said «Winston-Salem’s best sushi.» We stopped by for lunch and this was definitely not the case. The chicken did not look or taste like normal Japanese teriyaki chicken and the sushi had a plastic taste. I literally left the restaurant craving a piece of gum to remove the taste from my mouth. Our sever was great but I really wish we would have went elsewhere.

Sushi was good, above average, but the hibachi was really small portion, definitely not enough for one person meal. The environment wasn’t great, a little dark, stuff chatting outside while we were eating. Overall the experience wasn’t good except their sushi.

I took my daughter here for her birthday on a Friday — we were about the only people there until about 5:45pm, then it started filling up. We had tried Mizu before, but I wasn’t impressed — she thought they were okay, but their unagi had a freezer burn aftertaste, and I thought the sushi was a little bland, so we wanted to try to find someplace better. Having relocated here from Texas, we were used to a lot of options, and good sushi wasn’t that hard to find there. We pulled up and her first concern was the drive-​thru. Well, we had carry-​out in Austin, so why not a drive thru? It’s a good thing it didn’t deter us.
We started with a nigiri appetizer, tempura vegetables and miso. All of this was good, but not outstanding — just up to par. The miso was apparently lacking because she didn’t finish it, and she always finishes a bowl of miso. They do need to use a different sauce for the tempura — what they use is far too sweet. The tuna on the nigiri was, however, melt-​in-​your-​mouth good.
After that we had nigiri eel (some people call this barbecue eel, but we know it as unagi, or cooked freshwater eel). It was tasty, and had none of the freezer burn or stale taste I’ve found at poor sushi bars. I judge a sushi restaurant by it’s unagi — if they can’t do unagi right, I can’t trust them to do anything else right. The second test is their use of roe. The red & black tobiko on two of our rolls was generous and tasty. Some restaurants don’t bother with roe — and that’s a darn shame. And while there is room for improvement at Sakura, they still have the best sushi I’ve found in Winston Salem so far.
Accompanying the eel we had the following rolls: Captain Crunch (I do NOT recommend that one. Frankly, I’d avoid any fried roll — why fry sushi anyway?), the Sakura Lobster, the Screamin’ Demon (or was that Screamin’ Deacons? I don’t know, but definitely look for it), and my youngest had the Teriyaki Steak. The youngest looked at it and said «it looks like dog food», then took a bite and said «MMMMmmmm!» That’s an absolute first from her — usually I’m lucky if she even eats rice when we go to Asian restaurants. Granted, she didn’t touch the carrots, mushrooms or zucchini on the side, but that’s because the child refuses to eat vegetables. Seriously. It’s a wonder she’s taller than me.
Of the rolls, the Sakura lobster and the Screamin’ Whatsit were amazing. So much so that we ordered another Sakura Lobster and some Nigiri Eel to take home. Yes, we still had half a platter of sushi left, but it may be a while before we get back there, and it was my daughter’s birthday. I was a little dismayed that the to-​go Sakura Lobster was served on a well presented plate with a sweet orange sauce and orange slices — which was missing from our original order. I’m glad they did it, even if I did have to maneuver it into the take out box, but it would have been nice if it had been part of our first order. They also need to think about making their rice a bit stickier. The rolls and nigiri would have held up better with stickier rice.
If you are older and have trouble reading menus in dim light either take your glasses with you or ask for a table instead of a booth. The light is somewhat dim, and the booth seats are so close to the table you have trouble holding the sheet of sushi items out far enough to read. The service, however, was awesome. Our drinks never ran out (even when they got busy), and we were checked on regularly. Requests for additional napkins and wasabi were not forgotten.
Overall, this place looks like a renovated Whataburger from the outside, but they have some great food inside, and excellent service. We’ll definitely re-​visit this one.

Stopped into Sakura for my father’s birthday. There was only one other group eating when we arrived. We started with some tempura shrimp. The dipping sauce was good but I kinda wanted some flavor in the actual tempura batter.
I got a hibachi plate with chicken and shrimp. It came with a salad or soup. I asked for soup. They brought out a salad.. . oh well.. . I ate the salad. The entrée arrived. I didn’t really love how it was plated with all the foods sectioned off by themselves. Chicken, shrimp, onions, mushrooms, zucchini, rice, all in separate little areas of the plate. Everything tasted ok. Nothing was great.
My Dad got two sushi rolls and seemed to enjoy both of them.
The service was good but that might be attributable to the fact that we were basically the only people there.
I would return but it might not be my first choice in Winston.

I’ve only been here once, but it was an enjoyable experience. A friend and I went for the 8-​piece such rolls. I got a Philadelphia roll and she ordered something with salmon (the name escapes me). We shared rolls, of course, and I can say first hand that both were delicious!
However, the real treat of our visit was sharing a slice of fried cheesecake. I had never tried fried cheesecake and I’m not sure why I denied myself of it for so long. It was incredible! If you go, leave some room, and order a slice. If you’ve not had fried cheesecake before, it may change your life.

I really love this restaurant. I literally eat here at least once a week. I’ve eaten sushi at a lot of restaurants in Winston Salem, and I truly like Sakura’s sushi the best. For me, it seems to always have the right ratio of ingredients (and the right price). The sushi is plated in a pretty straightforward way, nothing fancy in terms of presentation really. But that’s totally fine with me – it means the food gets out quicker! Also, I’ve always thought the hibachi was pretty good (especially the steak or lobster), and for like $ 7 – 8 for a hibachi dinner, you really can’t go wrong.
I think Sakura gets a bad rap because it’s a chain restaurant and it’s prices are cheap, but don’t let that deter you. It’s a matter of setting your expectations I think. Of course, this is not like the fancier up-​scale hibachi restaurants with the grills at each table and the knife shows. But if you come in expecting a good lunch or dinner, with good service, at a great price (you can often be out of this restaurant for under $ 20 for lunch or dinner for two), that’s what you’ll get!

Now that I have been to Sakura quite a few times, I finally get what the bf’s obsession was! The steak hibachi is the way to go. Almost every time the steak is melt in your mouth good. Go during lunch and take advantage of the sushi lunch specials. Two rolls for $ 9.95 and three for $ 12.95, the rolls are big too, about eight pieces each! My two favorites for lunch are the spicy tuna and Forsyth roll (battered white fish).
The service is always fast and very friendly. Yani was voted best server in Winston according to the Smitty Notes survey!
Two sushi rolls, steak hibachi, and tip, we are out of there full and spending only around $ 20.