Bento Cafe Sushi & Roll in Woodbridge, VA

During a recent bit of traveling, I stopped for dinner in Woodbridge, VA and ate at a fast food Japanese restaurant called Bento Cafe Sushi & Roll.

I had their California Roll Combo which came with miso soup, fried dumplings, and the California roll.


The California Roll was filled with krab, cucumber, and avocado.  After being sliced into eighteen pieces, it was topped with masago.  All of my food was very tasty, although it was somewhat expensive for fast food sushi served on paper plates...

Another sushi roll combo was also ordered...

While the food was good, there was also a not-so-good aspect to the restaurant. The restaurant's owner seemed to be caught up in a multi-level marketing scheme and was desperately trying to sell an alkaline water machine to her customers. In fact, the sales pitch started as soon as we walked in the door with the mention that they make their own water. Somehow I didn't think they were bonding hydrogen and oxygen in the back of a fast food restaurant. Apparently the wonderful tap water produced in the United States is evil, but if you run the tap water through a machine that claims to ionize the water to make it more basic, it turns into a cure-all.

Later in the meal, the owner visited the table and gave a lovely demonstration on the proper way to mix wasabi into their home-brewed soy sauce, then went back into trying to sell her alkaline water. To add onto the scary sales pitch, potentially dangerous psuedoscientific health claims about the magic healing powers of the water were made. We were in the restaurant to eat Japanese food, not be sold psudoscientific snake oil! I wouldn't return, and I'm assuming I'm probably not the only customer that has been scared away... 

Google alkaline water and you can find plenty of good websites debunking the claims mixed into the sites promoting the woo.  Here's a good one: http://www.chem1.com/CQ/ionbunk.html

Kyoto Sushi & Grill at UCF

Kyoto Sushi & Grill is one of the newer restaurants to open in the shops surrounding the UCF Arena in Orlando. It is a semi-fast food restaurant, where you order your food with a cashier, and then the food is brought out to your table.

I ate here once previously for lunch and had a California Roll. On my second visit, this time for dinner, I had the Hibachi Chicken. Miso soup and salad were served first. The soup was good and the salad had the typical ginger dressing that everyone loves.

Soon enough, the main course, a huge plate of chicken, vegetables, rice, and noodles was served. It was mostly good. The chicken was tasty, but I found a bit too much of it to be fatty. They offered an upgrade to all white meat, and I should have gone for it. Regardless, I shouldn't need to be spitting out an unedible bit every few bites. Rice and vegetables were good, although they were a bit stingy with them. Looking at the picture below, it's hard to even spot the vegetables on the plate, and they are one of my favorite parts of the meal! The menu stated the chicken was served with soba noodles, but instead, we got the typical Japanese Steakhouse noodles. Still good, but not soba...

Besides the unedible chicken bits, I liked Kyoto. The food is mostly tasty, the prices are pretty reasonable (especially for lunch), and the portions are quite large. I think next time I'll either try a bento box or the hibachi shrimp.

Iron Sushi in Downtown Miami

On a Saturday afternoon, I did some exploring of Downtown Miami. After checking out some museums, street fairs, and some very cool mass-transit systems, I was starting to get hungry. I decided to get my lunch from a restaurant called Iron Sushi.

Iron Sushi is a take out Japanese restaurant that seems to do a lot of delivery business to the surrounding office buildings. The restaurant itself was tiny, with a few places to sit inside as well as several outdoor tables on the sidewalk.

I started out with some miso soup. Iron Sushi was very generous with the amount of tofu and seaweed in the soup, and that's a good thing!

Next, I had a California Roll made with brown rice. Sometimes I have found brown rice sushi falls apart much easier than the standard white sushi rice, but this wasn't the case here. The rolls were very solid with no crumbling, filled with krab, avocado, cucumber, and topped with masago.

I really enjoyed the eating experience at Iron Sushi. It is my only time ever eating sushi outdoors on a city sidewalk, surrounded by humongous skyscrapers, listening to salsa music being blasted from the inside of a take-out Japanese restaurant...

Dinner at Bayridge Sushi

I had dinner at Bayridge Sushi in Longwood, FL. I've never been here at dinner time, and it was even more packed than the place gets for lunch. It seemed like all you could eat sushi was the thing to get, with the sushi being made at a lightning fast speed. There was no question here whether the fish was out too long.

The unlimited sushi cost a bit more than I wanted to spend at $20, so I went with some individual rolls and miso soup.

I ordered a Wasibi Roll first. It was filled with half tuna and half salmon, along with cucumber and avocado. It was topped with orange and green fish eggs. I liked it, although the salmon kept on sliding out of the roll. It was a little spicy, but not too bad.

While everyone else ordered their second rounds of all you can eat sushi, I ordered a California Roll so I'd have something to do. It tasted like a California Roll should.

Dynamite Roll from Fuji Sushi

I ordered take out from Fuji Sushi in Lake Mary, FL. When I went to pick up the food, I was surprised how empty the restaurant was. On my previous visits to Fuji Sushi, the restaurant has always been crowded, but tonight it looked like there were only two tables eating in the whole place. And then I was ignored. It took about five minutes before anyone came over to help me while the restaurant employees had a clear view of me while they were all at the sushi bar talking. When someone finally did come over, I paid for my food and took it home.

I had my miso soup first. Real miso soup from Japanense restaurants like Fuji is so much better than the instant miso from supermarkets. No complaints here.

I also ordered a Dynamite Roll with a mixed seafood topping. It was basically a California roll topped with cooked fish in an orange sauce. I didn't like the topping very much, and it didn't seem to be worth double the price of a normal California roll with the small amount of seafood that I spotted in the topping. For a California roll with stuff on top, I definitely liked Imperial Dynasty's California Earthquake better.


Fuji has been good every other time I've visited, so slow service and one roll that I didn't like very much won't scare me away from the restaurant yet.

Bayridge Sushi Shrimp Tempura Bento Box

Last time I ate at Bayridge Sushi in Longwood, FL, I ate their Salmon Lunch Bento Box. I returned to the restaurant, and this time I ordered a Shrimp Tempura Lunch Bento Box. Miso soup and salad came out first, both of which were good. The box soon followed and consisted of shrimp and vegetables fried in tempura batter, California Roll, dumplings, rice, pineapple chunks, and a maraschino cherry. The tempura itself tasted okay, but I don't eat deep fried food that often, so fried taste got to be a bit much by the time I finished the shrimp and vegetables. Deep fried broccoli is a bit strange to me though. It kind of defeats the purpose by taking something healthy and sending it to the other side of the healthy spectrum.

Publix Spicy Roll

I ate a Spicy Roll from the Sushi department at Publix in Lake Mary, FL. The roll was pretty similiar to the Tsunami Roll, but was filled with krab instead of shrimp salad. I think this sauce was spicier than the sauce on the Tsunami roll as well.

California Earthquake from Imperial Dynasty

I ate at Imperial Dynasty in Longwood, FL. I noticed one of their sushi specials on the way in was something called a California Earthquake. It was described as a California Roll topped with baked fish. It sounded interesting, so I ordered the roll and a wonton soup.

Imperial Dynasty has good wonton soup. Unlike most other Chinese restaurants, they put lots of good vegetables in their soup. Besides from the standard wontons, pork, and scallions, Imperial Dynasty also put cabbage and carrots in the soup. Adding more vegetables to a soup is never a bad thing in my opinion.

As for the California Earthquake, it wasn't exactly what I was expecting, but it was still really tasty. The sign with the specials said the California roll was topped with baked fish, so I was expecting actual big pieces of fish. Instead, it was more like a fish salad. The fish was broken up into small pieces and mixed with other ingredients (it said something about eel sauce) to make the topping for the roll. All of this was topped with crumbled tempura batter and decorated with some radishes carved into flowers. I would definitely get the California Earthquake again.

Publix Stardust Combo

I ate some sushi from Publix today. I had what they called a Stardust Combo. I can't think of how they came up with the name, but it was tasty. It consisted of Californa Rolls, Tsunami Rolls, Cucumber Rolls, and Tuna Rolls.

Lunch at Fuji Sushi

I ate a lunch bento box from Fuji Sushi in Lake Mary, FL. It started with some miso soup...

The soup was followed by the bento box, filled with Teppan Chicken, cucumber salad, rice, dumplings, a spring roll, and a California Roll. It tasted just fine, but was a bit more expensive when compared to Bayridge Sushi's similar lunch bento boxes.

Bayridge Sushi Bento Lunch Box

I ate lunch at Bayridge Sushi in Longwood, FL. Bayridge Sushi has very good priced bento boxes for lunch, with most of them under $7. I ordered the Hibachi Salmon Bento. Miso soup and salad came out first.

The actual bento box soon followed, filled with salmon, rice, California Rolls, dumplings, and fruit. It was good, but my only complaint was about the salmon. It tasted fine, but should have been cut into smaller pieces. The pieces of fish given were very hard to eat with chopsticks, especially the pieces of salmon with lots of skin. Besides from this minor complaint, Bayridge Sushi's lunch bento boxes are very good!

Supermarket Sushi

I ate some California Rolls from the Publix Supermarket in Altamonte Springs, FL. They were very tasty...