Hiro's Sushi Express in South Beach, FL

While visiting South Beach on a rainy evening, dinner was had at a Japanese fast food restaurant called Hiro's Sushi Express. I started my meal with a cup of miso soup served in a styrofoam cup.

Next up was a shrimp teriyaki box. This bento contained shrimp cooked with mushrooms, rice, vegetables, and an orange slice. The shrimp were tasty but the rest of the box was somewhat boring. The vegetables were very plain and the rice was standard brown rice.

I've enjoyed better Japanese fast food elsewhere in Miami at Iron Sushi, but Hiro's wasn't that bad. They gave a good sized portion of food for less than the price of a milkshake up the street at Shake Shack...

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...

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.

Sushin Bento Box

I went to Sushin, located across the street from Bayridge Sushi in Longwood, FL to give their lunch specials a try. I ordered a Spicy Chicken Bento, which started with a bowl of miso soup. The seaweed in the soup was very chewy.

The box was served, filled with the chicken, rice, salad, and a California roll. The sauce on the chicken kind of reminded me of the chicken samples given out in mall food courts, but it was still tasty.

I do prefer the bento boxes from Bayridge Sushi and Fuji Sushi due to the greater variety of food served in boxes, but Sushin has the cheapest lunch bentos in the area. Still good...

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!

Fuji Sushi

I ate at Fuji Sushi in Lake Mary, Florida. I ordered a Black Widow Roll and miso soup. They gave a bean sprout appetizer, followed by the soup, followed by the roll. The roll was filled with soft shell crab, flying fish eggs, eel sauce, and scallions. It was tasty and presented nicely, but the roll was a bit boring and didn't have enough variety in it. Still good regardless...