Sushi Land - Hacienda Heights, CA

Our foodie friend Charlie found this small sushi joint called Sushi Land in the middle of no where in Hacienda Heights. He was there for lunch once and thought the quality was good. He invited me and slave girl back to see if the dinner was as good as lunch.

Parking was pretty easy since it was in a big parking lot, but the restaurant was very small and cozy. There were 3 tables in the back side by side next to each other while the rest of the seats were at the bar. A true hole in the wall. The service was friendly and attentive.

If you have read my reviews you would know my favorite word at a sushi joint is omakase. No omakase here. When I asked the sushi chef what would be the best fish to have that night, he gave me an empty stare then told me everything was good and I could try one of each. Hmmm... not sure if it was because the owner not allowing him to free style, or he didn't know what omakase means... Don't get me wrong, his knife work was really good and I had no complains about what I received that night. It just felt like he was more of a worker than a chef.

Since Charlie wanted to try different things than us, we both ordered separately. We got the chirashi bowl, aji, toro, uni, shima aji, geoduck, and chawanmushi. He got some sushi, oysters, spicy tuna bowl, and monk fish liver.

Out of everything Charlie got, I found the spicy tuna bowl most interesting. There were so much tuna and it tasted good. I wasn't a big fan of the oysters because of the size. For shooters I like them small.

Here are the rest of his orders:

With our order, my favorite were the toro and uni. It was fresh and tasty, not much work was needed. Chirashi bowl was pretty much the same as ordering a sashimi plate, which carried a good value since it contained 70% of the stocks they had. I just wish they used real crab instead of the fake one. I didn't really like how aji was done here mainly because they served it with shiso leaves and it overpowered the fish.

Aji

Here are the rest of our orders:

Geoduck!

Overall I would agree the ingredients here were fresh and service was good. They also had alcohol available so that was a plus. Only if the price was more consumer friendly, I would return more frequent.