I shoulda Gatten Sushi elsewhere

The kid loves sushi and naturally, being a kid means the revolving kind is more exciting than the ones you order straight from the sushi chef.

My child’s favorite sushi place is Sushilicious where he can select whatever he wants off the conveyor belt and eat at his own pace. So when he was home with me recently, I decided to take him to try the new kaiten (revolving) sushi opened at UCI campus.

We get to the door of Gatten Sushi and before I even walked in, I could hear “customer coming” and then a tirade of “IRASHAIMASE” bellowing at us.

After we’re seated, the entire staff faces our direction, bows and then shouts “IRASHAIMASE” again. It was really loud! I hadn’t even settled into my seat yet when someone comes over and bombards us with questions “have you been here before? NO? have you been to revolving sushi before? well let me tell you…….”

Finally, our eyes are fixated on the belt as we watched plates go by and my son selects a few items to start eating. I take the fish off the rice and ate them au naturel. The first thing I noticed was how thin the slices of fish was and secondly, the salmon had a slight fishiness to it.

The second was a white fish — seared tilapia — and it was dry. DRY? We arrived when they opened at 11am, how does the fish get dry? How long ago was this made? I then tried the rice and I’m glad I didn’t eat it earlier with the fish. It was hard and very cold — nasty.

Throughout our meal, we were subjected to “IRASHAIMASE” screaming match every time a customer would walk in the door. If it wasn’t that, someone would stop by the table and ask if we wanted to order something. We were there 30 mins and four people stopped by to ask if we wanted to order something interspersed with about 5 very loud “IRASHAIMASE”.

When you order the more ‘elaborate’ types of fish, such as otoro salmon (which incidentally, was the best item I tried), it comes only one piece to a plate (like Kula).

Amaebi is available but they put the fried shrimp head ON the shrimp and it taints the taste of the shrimp — well, in this case, the shrimp was tasteless, so …….

Chicken karaage was served with no mayo and no lemon wedge and my son spat some fatty bits out on to his plate and then tells me he didn’t want any more and then asks me why the plate was SO small. I asked him why he cared since he didn’t want any more.

I ended up eating the edamame, something my son usually devours. It was cold and tasteless, no salt, nothing.

After 9 plates of mainly me picking the fish OFF and eating it sans rice, we were done. When my child tells me he doesn’t want to eat here anymore and can we go to Sushilicious, I knew it was time to get the hell out.

$2 for most of the plates and some $3 plates may sound reasonable, but when the fish is thin, dry and tasteless, it’s not worth the bad taste in my mouth. The more expensive items such as amaebi was $2 but you only get one piece — similar to Kula. The only item which was good was the “otoro salmon” which was also one piece on a plate.

Then my son asks “mom have you realized that it’s the same music playing over and over again?” but it wasn’t the repetitiveness of it that thumped in my head but the techo rhythm too early in the morning.Yeah, it was time to go.

If you like Kula and its pricing, you might like this place. Yeah cheap may be good for some, but you get what you pay for essentially and this place isn’t worth it. On top of that, the constant yelling (every time they place some sushi on the belt the entire staff yells “YUMMY” at the top of their lungs) and the maniacal music made it a very stressful experience overall.

Gatten Sushi
4517 Campus Drive
Irvine, CA 92612
Tel: 949-679-8322