Saito Japanese Cafe & Bar

10/27/08

Great sushi!

by denagawa at Citysearch

Great selection of fish. I travel a lot and haven't had sardine like that anywhere else. I sat at the sushi bar & talked with Saito while I watched him make my sushi. He was so fast it was amazing! His sushi case is on the side so you can see him work. I stayed long after I had finished eating and talked about sake with a regular at his bar who seemed to know a lot about sake and sushi. The fish was very fresh and beautifully presented. The sake selection was quite large and the waitress brought me a sake not on the menu that was delicious. Will go back when next in town.

• Pros: great fish and sake selection
• Cons: slow service when it got busy

10/09/08

Hair in sushi

by underthesun at Citysearch

Sushi should be fresh, clean, and presented tastefully. With this in mind, we went to this restaurant based on some positive reviews and the distance to our hotel (the Westin). The meal started off well enough with sake and some nigiri. Service was decent - it was a Wednesday night, and not very busy. When we got our sushi rolls (rainbow, saito's spicy tuna, and pikoro crunch), my wife picked up a piece of the rainbow, and noticed a hair rolled in with the sushi. Even more disgusting, it was not the type of hair you would find on a person's head - for the sake of the reader's appetite, I'll just leave it at that. The server apologized, and the rainbow roll was removed from the bill. But let's be honest here, after finding that kind of hair, would you enjoy the rest of your meal? To add insult to injury, this was supposed to be the last meal for our wedding anniversary vacation. I've eaten sushi at Tojo's in Vancouver BC, Oiishi in Massachusetts, Saburo in Oregon, and even some sushi restaurants in AZ, and I've never had this happen to me before. Needless to say, this ended up being my worst sushi experience ever -Sushi eater beware!

07/24/08

Great Sushi

by sattlefly at Citysearch

We sat on the counter inbetween tables and the bar. Sashimi was wonderful. They have an excellent menu and it wasn't busy on one of these sunny Friday nights when I went with my gf. We ordered about 30 pieces of Sashimi and some fried food, like crab tempura and baked hot oysters( my gf's tongue burned). Chef was very nice and staff were excellent. The bill came out less than 100 dollars with two large bottles of beer which i thought was normal. We usually pay that much when we go to like 'i love sushi' or 'umi sake' or many many sushi rest.

Overall the dinning was excellent and we were treated so good. I think my gf was only non-asian person when we were dining which I thought it was more playful.

• Pros: Excellent choices of sushi, great services

07/17/07

So so

by ennnnn at Citysearch

So I have to say.....Yes the Sushi is the BEST!!!

Price........little bit $$$$

the price went up rapidly

Hot tapas......Very disappointed

Ordered the chef's choise appatizer dish, nothing special and it took so long to come out.

• Pros: fresh sushi
• Cons: parking

02/09/07

Seattle's consistently best sushi, and great lunch value

by cristalla at Citysearch

I eat lunch out alot, and have gotten in a rut. Wandered back into Saito's today and remembered how good it was. The lunch special was a sort of Bento box presentation, with four REALLY tasty portions and lots of little extra treats. Each cubby was like a new surprise. It was under $10. Compared to what I got at Qube (for twice the money) Saito's is a gem. I agree that the ambiance and service at Saito's will not amaze you, but the food is so consistently good that you'll forget about the rest. We have so much good sushi in town, but only a couple of truly great places, and this is one of them.

• Pros: Quality, value, consistency
• Cons: Parking, so-so service, could use a little re-model.