Skip to content

Sapporo Japanese Grill restaurant review

Evening restaurant review

Overall 69/100
Food 70/100
Service 65/100
Ambience 72/100

When we heard that Sapporo Japanese Grill had opened next door to the Broadway Cinema down town, we were excited. We visit the cinema every few months, and the prospect of a pre/post movie snack right next door seemed perfect. We are always cautious over newly opened restaurants, I believe its a given that they need time to work through initial teething problems. We held off as long as we could but last weekend we cracked and decided we had to try the place out. Now a couple of months in business, we figured most of the kinks should have been worked out.

We decided to dine out a little earlier than normal, around 5PM. We hoped to be one of the first customers of the evening, and from what we could make out this was the case. As the first customers in an empty restaurant, we thought service would be as fast and error free as it could be for a new business.

Our waitress was certainly keen and friendly. We inquired as to whether they had a liquor menu and they did not, so no sake, beer or wine for us. The point was not elaborated on, so I am not sure if one is in the works. If not that would be a great shame, especially for a restaurant named after one of my favourite Japanese beers.

A first glance of the menu suggested the focus was chiefly sushi items. Even though the menu was sushi oriented, a great deal of the special rolls had ingredients such as mayonnaise or cream cheese. I may be in the minority but these things don’t have any place in sushi for me. I’ve been called a sushi snob before. I won’t deny that. I probably am.

The menu also featured a range of more traditional sushi selections, a small number of appetizers and some poorly explained hot dishes. Some items were not described at all, save for their name. I could make a guess at what the various hibachi items were, but with virtually no description they didn’t jump off the page and inspire me to inquire further with our waitress.

A lot of these items were also priced in the $20 and over bracket. At this price point they really need some explanation. A simple solution would have been the waitress briefly going over the menu, giving a little insight into the options. I’ve found this approach fairly common elsewhere, and hey, it lets the restaurant sell those higher profit margin dishes.

We explained our preference in ordering items one/two at a time and made our first selection, the Sapporo Dragon Roll (Crab Salad, Avocado, Cucumber, Spicy Tuna, 1pc Ebi Shrimp, Eel sauce, Spicy Mayonnaise, $11.50):

sapporo dragon roll

We are big fans of spicy tuna, and believed we couldn’t go too far wrong with a restaurants namesake item. We weren’t disappointed, the roll was a pleasant creation. It was also well made, allaying my fears that the two chefs in the open kitchen looked worryingly young.

After what seemed like a considerable wait, the next items to arrive was a Salmon Skin Roll ($5.95) with Albacore Nigiri ($5.50):

salmon skin roll with albacore

While tasty, the roll did not seem to be properly made. It fell apart quite easily, the ingredients not being tightly packed enough. This also made the wait more perplexing, the restaurant wasn’t swamped by orders.

The albacore was fine but I would have loved to have seen it seared, as is common elsewhere. My personal favored preparation is served over at Takashi; it comes to the table freshly seared, still warm on the edges. Its also topped with a little green onion and wasabi adding another flavor dimension.

We were warned in advance that Baked Mussels ($5.50) do take time to prepare, we were more than happy with this.

sapporo baked mussels

Baked mussels are a favorite of ours at our regular haunt of Kyoto. Whilst baking the mussels can take a while, they are usually worth the wait. Sapporo’s offering differed from what we are normally accustomed to. Kyoto’s preparation sees the mussel chopped into quite small pieces, whereas at Sapporo the dish features larger pieces of mussel. I must admit to preferring the smaller bites of mussel. Wendi was more than happy with the dish though and happily finished it off.

To mix things up we thought we would try something other than sushi. After confusing our Waitress with ordering an appetizer after sushi, we chose the Gyoza ($5.50):

sapporo gyoza

6 fried dumplings, stuffed with pork. These sat atop a little Sriracha sauce. I actually found these quite tasty. They also flew out the kitchen, arriving at our table within a few short minutes of ordering. In fact based on the wait for earlier items, we were quite taken aback by the pace at which they appeared.

This was also the case of the last roll we ordered. It too came at a staggeringly fast pace, even more confusing was that the restaurant was now quite full with customers. It was clear that the kitchen must still be working out some kinks.

We finished with the Playboy Roll (Shrimp Tempura, Tuna, Avocado, Spicy Mayonnaise, Eel, $11.50):

sapporo playboy roll

Frankly the roll seemed to be lacking in inspiration. Whilst not terrible, it was less than memorable. Roll construction was again a tad sloppy, the central section not being correctly cut.

Paying for the meal took longer than should have been necessary. This is one of my personal bugbears, and causes me endless frustration. As far as I am concerned, as soon as plates are cleared from the table it should be standard practice to confirm if the meal is complete and then present the bill at once. This was not the case at Sapporo, with our waitress disappearing for what seemed like forever. We watched as she waited on other tables while we sat and twiddled our thumbs. Whilst the restaurant had grown quite busy by this time, the three floor staff should have been able to cope easily.

Sapporo has a superb location, primed for a business to excel. Sat amidst an array of offices, I’d imagine they could do great lunch business. The dining space also has doors that open up for prime outdoor dining in summer months. Similarly in the evening, being right next to the Broadway Cinema, they could do a roaring trade with cinema goers. Both these types of client however would require a far faster dining experience than we encountered.

We left Sapporo with the feeling of an opportunity missed. We both felt they could improve by reworking the menu. It needed more focus, Wendi actually commented earlier in the meal at the lack of menu cohesion. Personally, I would have loved to see a larger appetizer selection along the lines of the Gyoza. Items like Yakitori, small, bite sized selections would fly out of the kitchen and make for a great quick lunch or pre-movie snack.

Salt Lake City has a vast array of Japanese options, competition as fierce as the proliferation of Thai. Moreover the clients of these long standing restaurants are often staunch in their support of their chosen venue. I will be interested to see how Sapporo Japanese Grill evolves and grows in what is already a massively competitive landscape.

I am not aware of a website for Sapporo Japanese Grill, it is located at 111 E 300 S, Salt Lake City, UT 84111



This article may contain content provided by one of our paid partners. These are some of the best businesses in Utah. For a list of all our current and past relationships see our partnership history page.

5 thoughts on “Sapporo Japanese Grill restaurant review”

  1. First of all, Sapporo is most likely named for a large city in Japan (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sapporo), not the beer. While I can’t quibble with your disappointment in the service, I can tell you (as a former restaurant-owner) that securing a liquor license in SLC is not as easy as it seems.
    Furthermore, I think this restaurant has been open less than a month. Mr. Z’s was there for years and closed only about 6 months ago. I saw construction crews working on Sapporo as late as 6-8 weeks ago.

    You mentioned Takashi and Kyoto, both far more expensive as I hear that you can get some *very inexpensive* rolls at Sapporo.

    Incidentally, I am not affiliated with Sapporo at all and have not been there yet myself…just live in the neighborhood.

  2. Laura, several fair comments. You are probably correct about the Sapporo name. I confess city didn’t even come into my head.

    I am not sure exactly when Sapporo opened but I do have an advertisement from them in a local publication that pre-dates our trip there by at least 2 weeks. Indeed we almost went there right at the start of February, they were open then.

    I do have to disagree on your comments regarding price. Kyoto is actually cheaper. If you check my review on this site, you should find a picture of the sushi menu with prices.

    I’d love to hear from more people on Sapporo. They have a great location with bags of potential.

  3. I went there for lunch a week or so ago and was a little worried at first, since we (albeit a little early at 11:45 am on a Friday) were the only table in the restaurant. However, the tuna in our sushi was probably the best tuna I’ve had in SLC for quite a long time. Seriously. Perfect firmness and flavor. Didn’t even seem like it had ever been frozen. The rest of the food (cooked types) were decent, but average. And, just to note, they definitely do have a liquor license now. I’d probably go back and try it again…

  4. The food here is excellent. The service is absolutely the worst I have ever had. The place is not big and 2 people should be able to handle even a lunch rush. Our waitress did not understand half of what we asked for and said, she had to be waived down to ask for drink refills, we did not get checked on once after our food was served (our food took quite a long time as the waitress mentioned our food was given to another table and they had to re-cook our order), we waited far to long for the waitress to so much as walk by to get her attention to get our checks, the receipts were wrong, and last the to-go order I had put in for a co-worker was made wrong because again the waitress did not understand what was asked nor did she ask questions to clarify what was wanted. I recommend ordering to go because the food is excellent, but the service is HORRIBLE. This does not look good for a new place, I myself will never dine-in again.

  5. At first I was afraid to try this new sushi place after reading all your comments and reviews above. I was afraid to have an experience like Nicole’s but i decided to try it anyway-because it is located really close to my work-. I went with two of my coworkers on lunch time this last week and we order of their teriyaki bowls and rolls. There where about 25 people being served at the time we got there, but the server manage to give us a fast and kindly service. The food was excellent( both the teriyaki bowls and the rolls) and came to our table really fast. I am definitely going again to the Sapporo restaurant. I recommended it now, I guess they made some adjustments to the service and the food as well.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *