OZEKI

We were worried when we came into an empty restaurant at 5:45 on a Wednesday evening, but our meal turned out to be excellent! The jazz music and quiet ambience made for a lovely dining experience. The food was fresh and flavorful. Our kids loved the yakisoba and shrimp tempura, and even tried their first roll! Ozeki was the hot spot back in 2000, and I hope business picks up for them again!

The prices online are incorrect / old. I was the only person in the there for a while. I wanted green mussels. The price is listed here at 6.95 for 5 pieces. It's actually 8.95 for 4 pieces. Also ordered edamame. I could hear them microwaving it in the back. The bowl was half the size of my fist. I expected a cereal bowl, not a small side of rice bowl. These are silly things to complain about. I'm sorry. I hope they update their prices online. If that was accurate, I would give it 4-5 stars. It was $28.93 for a sashi (salmon) salad, edemame and green mussels. I tipped to make it an even $40. I was still hungry when I left but I also ate very fast since (but I was VERY VERY HUNGRY when I went in). Reflecting back, I realize my level of hunger earlier clearly decided my level of satisfaction. I think other people with normal hunger would be just fine to eat there and be adequately satisfied.

I love supporting smaller businesses and always make sure to write a review (particularly on Yelp) when I love a restaurant. One of my favorite cuisines is sushi and I have frequented the many sushi restaurants in Ventura. However, I do also need to leave a review when a restaurant disappoints so sorely, there's simply no way around it. My boyfriend and I came in an hour before Ozeki closed on a Thursday night. It was dead empty since it was 10 pm. We alerted the woman who served us, who was clearly one of the owners, that we were just here for a snack since we both had upset stomachs but still needed to refuel after climbing. So we ordered a house salad, garlic edamame, chicken salad, miso soup, and salmon cut roll. There was a resounding theme with each food item we received: teeny, tiny, mini portions and no effort put into making each item whatsoever. The house salad came in a dainty miso soup bowl and was cloyingly sweet. It took me about 4 bites to finish the salad because it was that small. The garlic edamame also came in the tiniest pile. We had to ration out how much we ate because the portion was absolutely minuscule. It was also just too buttery and salty. $7 for a handful of soybeans that aren't even tasty? Ookkk. We then received my bf's chicken salad and miso soup and we both laughed and asked each other exactly the same thing: "Is this a meal for ants?" His miso soup came in an even smaller bowl than the salad came in and took about 3 sips to finish. $1 per sip--that's a pricey miso soup. And his chicken salad was just so sad: a small bit of spring mix with what appeared to be less than 1oz of chicken cut up into tiny slivers. I ordered the salmon cut roll last minute and it was also the saddest salmon roll I had ever seen; literally, just salmon wrapped with rice and nori. No avocado, not cucumber. The rice didn't even taste like sushi rice. Oh, my goodness, I just need to ask: how can the owners call this a Japanese restaurant? It's almost like they had no cooking background, took a look at a sushi menu, and thought "Hey, let's try that," and were only able to pull off butchering even the simplest of their menu items. Ai yai. The owners clearly don't care what their food looks like and tastes like. It almost felt like cafeteria food where each diner gets the smallest, passable rationing. Prior to ordering and receiving our food, I had been intrigued by all of Ozeki's delicious-looking rolls when perusing their menu and asked my bf if we could come back here at a future date to try them out. However, after seeing that the owners skimp out and didn't do justice on even the most simple of ingredients, let alone give a decent portion for the price, I am not entrusting them to do justice with more expensive ingredients. I would highly suggest staying away from here and instead trying Koba Sushi (2026 E Main St) or Banzai Marina in downtown Ventura if you want a high-quality sushi experience in this town. Even if you order a basic cut roll from Koba, you get FAT pieces of fish... and the chef also puts in avocado and cucumber (which are the basic other ingredients in a cut roll). Bye Ozeki, byeeee.

Over charged and food blows

We had a late night craving of sushi and this place was still open, THAT I liked much, food was well seasoned and well at that time not too busy , gave it 4 star for service only because there was 1 lady only with r tables used that night , but other than that so far so good , I'll be going back sometime

Most authentic sushi in Ventura

Very good mochi

Frankenstein rolls made with VERY questionable ingredients. Google maps does an excellent rerouting drivers to avoid traffic. It should help you avoid this place as well.

Doesn't appear open, despite signs and online info declaring otherwise. Door was locked at 1240 on a Saturday when we tried to open it. Bummer.

Good place sweet chef and servers. We would come back.