[Photo by Chloe Arrouye]

One would not expect such a nice environment along such a busy road. Off of San Antonio road in Mountain View, Masa’s Sushi offers a quaint and pleasant scene to the hungry.

The doors open to a small room with wide, private tables lining the walls. It is a quiet family restaurant. Waiters return to the tables often to refill water and check in on customers. Menus provide a variety of Japanese meals, along with a separate menu at each table listing the special rolls. The ambitious eater can order a myriad of raw fish such as the assorted sashimi, or extravagant rolls such as the dragon roll with eel or the spider roll with crab . In addition to sushi, the restaurant offers soups, salads and teriyaki dishes. The waiters are quick to take people’s orders, bustling back and forth from the kitchen. Soon, the dishes begin to come in. There are beautifully- prepared rolls that should be photographed before eating and finely-cut chicken over beds of lettuce, rows of potstickers lined precisely along the sparkling dish and vegetables organized carefully around the plates.

But after all of this pleasant preparation and atmosphere, the taste is very similar to any other Japanese restaurant around it. There is nothing about the actual taste of the food that stands out or really impresses. The dragon roll lacked the sharp mixture of fish, vegetables and soy sauce one comes to expect. Not to mention, it cost $12 for approximately eight small pieces of lackluster sushi. The chicken teriyaki was bland, and the potstickers were small and lacked any rich flavor. Overall, sushi that should have such exquisite flavors was simply too bland. The exceptional atmosphere leads up to what is an average meal. Not to mention, the relatively high prices do not transfer into large amounts of food. For the price of $20, customers will leave the restaurant still hungry.

Masa’s Sushi can provide a decent meal to the average customer but will not stand out to the seasoned sushi eater. People will leave satisfied, though not thoroughly impressed. Masa’s Sushi is located at 400 San Antonio Road, Mountain View.