Samurai

Great Japanese food. Gone there for many years, so many different memories. You have to know what you're getting there- this isn't a sushi restaurant. They have sushi, but that's not their specialty. They serve more traditional, homestyle Japanese cuisine. Some of the best meals are the combination special, the Japanese curry dishes, and any of the rice bowls. And, obviously, the sushi isn't bad either if you want to complement it with one of your main dishes. It's in the weirdest location though, haha- all the other shops are vacant, yet it's in this massive, largely abandoned shopping center. At this point, they should just call the shopping center, the Samurai Center. Tucson institution!

This restaurant is wonderful! We stopped by for dinner with my two kids, who are not the most adventurous eaters. They had a ramen bowl, which the staff recommended for them, and loved it! It had lots of pork, amazing broth, and delicious fish cakes. My wife and I had four different sushi rolls, which were outstanding - truly some of the best I have had in Tucson. I highly recommend this place, and plan on coming back many times! A hidden treasure for sure.

This very unassuming Japanese restaurant is not fancy. It's a bit quirky on the inside and tight booth style seating. There's a full menu on the wall for you to look at as well as pictures of multiple dishes so you get an idea of what you might be getting if you're unfamiliar with that Japanese food you may want. The woman that took our order was very friendly and helpful. The kitchen looks pretty small but again the restaurant space is pretty small as well. We ordered Tan Tan ramen, spicy tuna-don volcano style, a California roll, and gyoza. The Tan Tan ramen was pretty good, better than I expected it would be, as it's hard to find this ramen in Tucson that comes anywhere close to the flavor in Japan. The spicy tuna-don volcano style was pretty good as well according to my wife as was the California roll. I think the gyoza was not as good as it could have been but was okay. As far as the location goes, if you're not using some type of a map you may have a hard time finding it as it's tucked away in the back of a strip mall that is mostly out of business and right next to a Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu place. There's plenty of parking since most of the strip mall it's located in is empty.