Today I am reviewing Shark Sushi in Brea California.

Shark Sushi

Perk: Shark Sushi offers local delivery to Brea customers with a $15 minimum order.

As seems to be typical for me, when I walk into most sushi restaurants I happen to be the only customer in the place. Which happens to be great for snapping off a few pictures of the interior without capturing a bunch of people.

Shark Sushi is located in a small shopping plaza and has an approximate capacity of about 50 people. The sushi bar can accomodate 11. The interior decore is softly lit, walls are green with dark wooden trim, tables are a medium red wood finish, floors and dining areas appear well kept and clean. Upon entering we were not greeted right away. This restaurant features a staff of 3 including the single sushi chef behind the sushi bar.  Initially the hostess and sous chef were seated at a table, preparring place settings.  One large flat screen television was mounted behind the end of the sushi bar, it appeared to be more for the benefit of the sushi chef rather than the patrons, also typical fast paced trendy, alternative music, and hip hop was played at an enjoyable level.

All dining areas are table seating from parties of 2 up to 6. Place settings feature just a very thin paper napkin and disposable chopsticks in logoed wrappers. Saturdays feature 50% off of bottled beers.

Today my 4 year old son and I sampled the following:

• - a Coke fountain drink $1.99
• - an Iced Tea $1.99
• - a California Roll $4.99    (crab, avocado, cucumber)
• - a Spicy Tuna Roll $5.99    (spicy tuna, cucumber)
• - a Mexican Roll $9.99     (spicy crab, sushi shrimp, avocado, spicy tuna, jalapeno)
• - a Spider Roll $9.99    (soft shell crab, yamagobo, avocado, cucumber, radish spouts)
• - small dinner salad (included)
• - small bowl of Miso soup (included)
• - small bowl of Edemame (soy beans) (included)

With tax and tip we spent $40.00.

The service was mediocre with the low points being; long delays, and lapses in repleneshing our drinks, lack of attention to detail in my request for extra lemon for my iced tea, and delayed timeliness in taking our initial order, 4 place settings were left at our table and no extra napkins were anticipated, when our rolls were brought to the table, neither of us was given a plate to serve to or eat from.

The iced tea was cloudy and had an earthy dirty taste to it, and lacked the crisp bite that a good clean brew would yield, lemon was presented thinly sliced and all the pulp had to be hand pinched to acquire the juice properly to add to the drink. After using almost all of the lemon slices I found a small moth under the last slice of lemon. Not exactly a mouth watering experience, but I won't hold it against them as it did strongly resemble a lemon seed at first glance.... (a top notch restaurant would have caught it before it hit my table)

The Califronia roll, contained a tasty mixture of crab meat and was a bit heavy on the rice.
The Spicy Tuna Roll was disappointing in taste and texture. The tuna was warm, and had a squishy texture when it should have been chilled and firm. The spicy tuna and California rolls were served together on a large plate and the presentation was unremarkable.

The Mexican roll, was served with jalapeno slices on the top of the spicy tuna. Again the roll was warmer than it should have been, and a bit heavy on the rice. Presentation was fair and spicy heat was moderate to weak at best. (or I am just getting really used to spicy foods) The shrimp in this was only in the two end rolls, leaving 4 rolls without shrimp. (For $10, Where's the shrimp?!?)

Lastly the spider roll had the best taste in the bunch, it was prepared tempura, with crispy "spider legs" of soft shell crab hanging out of 2 of the rolls. All the rolls were larger than normal (bite size) which is a normal style for a spider roll, and not one bit of this could be easily eaten without making a mess, and dropping half of the food from your chopsticks when trying to bite it. Presentation was pretty cool as pictured below. Texture was great, but dropping food onto my napkin and table was a pretty lame experience (wish I had been given a plate). Did not contain enough soft shell crab to warrant the $10 price tag.

For the money spent, the service was subpar, the atmosphere was fair for a routine meal out. I would not recommend this as a good "first date" restaurant. The food could be better or the prices should be lower but as we experienced it today, I would not go again. This particular restaurant does not offer one thing that is unique or designed to keep people coming back.  If you don't have a lot of experience with sushi, you should be able to enjoy this place just fine.

One special roll that sounded good was the Pink Panther Roll (but with a $14 price tag it didn't seem worth trying), Oh and the worst named roll on the menu the Stinky Roll. Kinda funny, but really un-appealing just when you read the name.

Thanks,

FC4J