The service here could not be worse. Â Staffed predominantly by students from Bradley, there is a distinct sense that not one of these kids really care about having a job. The waiters can border on rude on a good day. Â I was told on my latest visit that I couldn't have a refill of hot tea because "getting more hot water will take a while". Laziness abounds. This is a small establishment with not more than a dozen tables total, and I've never seen less than four servers working at one time. Problems with timely service are nevertheless the norm. The sushi itself at times seems of questionable quality and the restaurant often runs low on staple ingredients like wasabi. I gave the restaurant one last shot last night and am now incredibly ill. Happy Fish is the worst!
Review Source:I've never really had good service here. I went to dine-in and it took a good 15-20 minutes before anyone helped me.
I've ordered carry-out and they forgot the wasabi and ginger.
I haven't tried many of the rolls, I usually get the nigiri and it's decent. But, I'd rather go elsewhere for my sushi needs.
I've been here several times and have never had good service. I haven't been back in a while so i thought I would give it another try. We were seated quickly, our drink order was taken. I asked for water with lemon. When the waiter returned with my drink and I squeezed the lemon in, there was nothing on the table to wipe my fingers on (why is there not napkins and silverware?). Had to ask the waiter to bring that...the napkins are paper, I HATE that. It seems so cheap and tacky. Finally we order, I order a crunch roll and a philadelphia roll. They are out of smoked salmon......okaaayyy, so I order a crunch roll and veggie dumplings.....they are out of dumplings. Nothing on the menu sounded really appealing besides that so I ended up not eating while my friend did (who actually only ate half of hers because it was apparently awful). A restaurant plain and simply should not be out of 2 things on the menu. End of Story. Not a fan and I will not be returning here again. Head to sushigawa if you are looking for good sushi AND good service :)
Review Source:Happy Fish is the cheapest restaurant sushi of acceptable quality in Peoria (Sushi Popo and their consistently poor health inspection scores don't qualify). Â It's OK if you're a college student and/or willing to accept its (many) limitations. Â That said, I'd rather spend 20% more and get better sushi elsewhere.
The main problem I have, really, is that the service is extremely lackadaisical. Â Even when I've come on a weekday during Bradley's summer vacation, I've had to wait half an hour before being able to have someone take my order, let alone for food to start coming out. Â The other common complaints, like the variety of rolls containing cream cheese being inauthentic, are valid, but for me it's a matter of expectations. Â This is not a place you visit if you want the most authentic sushi experience.
The last straw for me is that they haven't had unagi any of the three times I've gone. Â It's too bad, because I do really enjoy their scallops.
Great selection of sushie rolls! I had the dragon roll with shrimp tempura, unagi and avocado. Very tasty. The salmon sashimi was quite fresh, and the pieces were big. My friends ordered several different rolls and they were all delicious.
We ordered a plate of edemame to share however it didn't come until we were half way through our entree. It was eventually on the house which was nice. The waitress also forgot our soy sauce plate and we had to wait quite a while. There were four waiter/waitresses in the store and not a full house so we were a bit impatient with the wait.
Overall a nice experience.
My friends and I came here for the all you can eat special. It's a great deal if you can scarf down about three rolls, otherwise you might be better off just getting individual rolls from the menu. I enjoyed everything I had, one of my friends didn't like some of her rolls and we thought that we would get charged for the uneaten pieces. The waitress however, realized that my friend was not thrilled about the rolls and didn't charge us! I will definitely come back because the service was great and the prices were very reasonable!
Review Source:so my friend and i came here for happy hour. ive heard mixed reviews on the place. but overall i heard its not bad. the rolls in general were alittle to small for my liking. even the special rolls. I usually like the bigger "show size" kind of sushi. I ordered one roll and a chicken satay. portions were very small and i was not even half full. tastewise, it was honestly very average, i tried different rolls my friend ordered as well. sushi seems soooo average too me. not  much taste, honestly i could make better sushi no offense. oh and their ice that they use for drinks is very interesting lol. on the otherhand my friend loved happy fish esp. because she thought it was very cheap. for how much i got even with happy hour prices, i thought it wasnt THAT cheap. but i must say our server was very sweet and polite. the people here are very friendly. and yeah maybe im kind of a harsh sushi critic. i would come back but this wouldnt be my first choice.
Review Source:DRAGON ROLLS! Oh man this place was delicious! I really loved the sushi and the crab rangoon was insane. Met a large group of girlfriends in there for my birthday. The waitress was nice, even though we were loud and took up the whole side back wall. I had a great experience and will definitely go back!
Review Source:I've been to happy fish several times, as I have a sibling who lives near it. I've never had a bad experience. I wish I could give 3.5 stars.
The sushi itself is good, especially considering that it's in Peoria, Illinois. With that in mind, I'd give it four stars. However, I think it deserves three on the grand scale of things, as there is better sushi to be had even in Peoria.
They have a small section of traditional maki, some inventive and monstrous specialty rolls, nigiri, appetizers, etc. The fish is all relatively fresh and the rolls are made fairly well. It's very Americanized sushi, but what else can you expect? It does taste good, though. I've had a multitude of rolls and the only one that I thought missed the mark was the scallop nigiri.
Service can be slow if it's a busy night. Your server can also get bogged down, as it seems like sometimes they don't have enough people working the floor.
In either case, it's a college-kid type of place and it does it's job: serve some of the better sushi in Peoria at great prices in a fun, laid back atmosphere.
This is a great place to come for happy hour!! From 5-6pm every Tuesday through Friday, you can get appetizers and a plethora of different rolls ranging in price from $2-$5. My favorite is the crunch roll (crab and little crunchy bits), spicy salmon roll, spicy tuna roll, and the crab roll. Yum!! Their miso soup and plum wine are also delicious...my mouth is watering!!! Go here!
Review Source:Normally when I get AYCE sushi, it's an agonizing experience because I want to get stuffed, but I want to get stuffed on the very best rolls, and I don't want to get full before I taste something delicious. At Happy Fish, unfortunately, it was agonizing because it was so hard to find anything on the menu I didn't actively want to avoid eating.
The bottom line (I've got to stop saying that) is that the sushi here is fat, American sushi. They're obviously trying to be innovative and stand out, which I admire and support, and the menu contains a lot of rolls I've never seen anywhere else. Thing is? I think there's a reason no one else is making these rolls. This isn't what I want when I want sushi. Nearly every specialty roll either contains a tempura item or tempura crunch, or is itself tempura fried. Something like ten of them have cream cheese in them. Three of them have chicken. CHICKEN (not raw, obviously). I want my sushi to taste like fresh fish and veggies, and tangy rice, but those flavors are subtle and delicate, and when you fill a roll with cream cheese and deep fry it, the quality fish and veggies go to waste.
Plenty of other missteps here, too. Order green tea and you'll get a mug of hot water with a tea bag in it (perhaps I'm being a snob, but I've literally never had a single Japanese restaurant serve me anything but loose green tea), iced green tea and you'll get greenish but flavorless water. The ginger salad is a pile of iceberg lettuce with some gingery mayo on top (they might say it's aioli, but I bet it's not); not actually tossed in the dressing beforehand, so you can't really avoid getting a big glob of it at least once. Barely an hour into the AYCE event, they'd already run out of seaweed salad. I know the chefs were trying to pound out the sushi as quickly as possible, so I'm a little more forgiving on nights like this, but a lot of the rolls were really sloppy. I don't remember if that was the case the one time I visited during regular menu hours.
The service, I'll say, was great - friendly, quick, attentive. And the sushi came out quickly despite the place being packed for AYCE night.
I could be wrong. There could truly be a market for the kind of sushi Happy Fish serves. But I'm not it, and I don't think most sushi lovers will find a lot of satisfaction in the menu here. I was going to say I'd like to go back one last time and order off the regular menu to see if I feel any different then, but I just glanced over the menu again, and you know what? I just don't want to.
Happy Fish is fantastic! I'm not sure why they are rated so low on Yelp. I read some of the past reviews and have not experienced any of the negative things in the many visits I have made here. In fact I try to go here once a week.
They have a wide variety of rolls, both traditional and lots of great creations. They are always presented beautifully - we tend to stare at them for a few minutes before eating the works of art!
The servers are very knowledgeable and helpful for the sushi novices and sushi masters alike. I have always had very friendly, and very professional service. The servers really brighten our day.
The prices are very fair. They have a wide variety of costs to fit any budget you are on. When I go, though, I really don't care about the prices because what they serve is so amazing.
Happy Fish is worth a try even if you've never had sushi!
Much love to the Yelp community, but here's a time when you've got it dead wrong. I LOVE Happy Fish, and I have always had great service and delicious food. Some of the reviews posted sound fishy if you ask me (pun intended) and appear totally fabricated.
I beg my husband to take me to Happy Fish all the time. I dream about the crab rangoon and cali sunset roll :) Â (Hold on a second while I wipe the drool off my chin...okay that's better.)
I still agree that the rolls sometime do not hold together very well. Â However, the staff is very friendly & responsive, the rolls imaginative and always artfully presented, and my visits have always yielded very fresh and tasty sushi. Plus, the happy hour is always a very good deal!
If you're interested in the new menu, you can check out their Facebook fanpage, or look at the photos I have added to Yelp. And just an fyi, it's always smart to check Happy Fish's Facebook fanpage before a visit, as they post the specials of the day, any changes in business hours, etc.
Again, LOVE, LOVE, LOVE Happy Fish! Definitely give them a try and don't let these wacked out reviews dissuade you.
My wife and I ate at Happy Fish once, never again. Nearly half the items on the menu had "spicy tuna" on them. It turns out the "spicy tuna" was something like canned tuna thrown in a blender with hot sauce. The only reason to put something like that on sushi is to cover up the flavor (or lack thereof) of low-quality or unfresh fish.
Review Source:Has anyone else noticed this restaurant has 38 hidden reviews?!?!! Is that a little unusual considering only 15 are left?? I looked them over and a majority seem legit. Some even have the owner commenting back on their concerns. Who is flagging these reviews and why is Yelp allowing regular people's reviews to be hidden?
Hmmm I thought this site was better than urbanspoon but this hiding of all the one star and 5 star reviews is really stupid. I wonder how long this review will even stay up!! I'll give it 3 stars so it won't get flagged  : /
I love sushi, eat it frequently, and prior to my experience at Happy Fish, I've never had terribly awful sushi. Â To give you an idea of how bad things were, they didn't even have wasabi. Â Now I'm sure some of you are not big fans of wasabi, but come on, this is a sushi bar with no wasabi? Â Ridiculous.
Our soy sauce was extremely salty and extremely strong. Â Don't get me wrong. Â I know it's soy sauce, but it had this awful bitter aftertaste to it. Â And we didn't even have wasabi to mask the flavor. Â To add to the soy sauce madness, the Veggie Roll didn't contain any seaweed, it was wrapped with rice paper and rolled in sesame seeds. Â It was extremely bland. Â The veggies in the California Roll weren't fresh. Â I could go on and on, but the bottom line: it wasn't good.
To top that off, service is curt, uninviting, and unprofessional. Â When other patrons expressed discontent with their food, the manager/owner would simply yell in their faces. Â Granted, I was here during their busy happy hour, but I can't really imagine a situation where management yelling at customers is appropriate.
Vegetarians, there's not much on the menu for you. Â I was eating with a vegetarian friend, and when we asked them to remove the fish from one of their $5 rolls, but they rudely stated "No changes to happy hour menu." Â I get that if we were asking to add items to the maki, but we were asking them to REMOVE stuff, which actually saves them money, so I can't really understand this. Â The edamame portion is generous (for the happy hour price tag of $2, that is), but grossly over-salted. Â If you are going, order lots of $2 sake bombs so you don't notice the awful service, and order the seaweed salad, which is decent.
Their crab Rangoon is THE BEST I've ever had. And the sushi is pretty tasty too, and very reasonably priced. My husband and I went there on four occasions and the service and food was always decent.
The reason for two stars? The last time we went, I had the tuna sushi, and the day after I was very horribly, violently, almost-go-to-the-hospital sick. It was undeniably food poisoning, and while I realize that's a risk when eating sushi, you can bet I won't be returning there again.
Or having sushi anywhere, for that matter!
I have been to this place probably 20 times. I have had experiences where the service was slow, but it has greatly improved since they have added another service line to their Sushi Bar.
I like this place, the servers are usually really nice, the Chef's if you sit at the Sushi Bar are accomodating to questions, and the last time I was there, I was waiting on friends to arrive, (weather issues), and the Chef's made me a complimentary appetizer, while I waited for my friend to show up.
The specialty rolls are all good, I have tried all of them on the menu. The Rooster Roll, The Rock and Roll, and the Tuna Tataki Roll, are my current favorites. I like to to this place with friends. Sushi by yourself is just boring, getting stuff to share and taste is a big part of going out for Sushi.
The Spicy Tuna Maui Tar Tar appetizer is probably my favorite thing on the menu...
The prices are fair, the fish is fresh, and the choices and specials are great!
I have been back to Happy Fish a few times since writing my initial (not so glowing) review, and I am very pleased to see that they have, in fact, got their act together. While it's still not my favorite sushi place in town, it is a great place for inventive rolls and the sushi I have had there recently was of much better quality than what I had the first week they opened. So, to give credit where credit is due, Happy Fish has improved and I would recommend it to a friend.
Review Source:It's not that I've been to countless sushi places in my day, living in Southern California. It's not that I am looking for anything special.
It's just that the service here was particularly uninviting, and an overall negative experience for myself as well as my friends.
We came when it wasn't busy, around 3pm, with a group of 6 people. We were told to wait to be seated, which we graciously did. Then we were told we would have to be split up...when half the restaurant was empty. I don't understand, did they need to give multiple servers business? Well I'm sorry, I want to sit with my friends. Once seated, we pointed to a large open table and asked to be seated there. Our server said it was fine if we moved there. So we did.
Apparently, the lady in charge did not think this was cool, and started acting cold to us. We put our orders in swiftly, and were told each half hour that our sushi was almost ready. This happened 3 times, once after the first hour, then each consecutive half hour until well over two hours.
We should have gotten up and walked out, but I felt bad for our server. She felt really bad about it for some reason and kept coming back to service us.
Finally half of us had to get our food to go because we were late for a meeting.
The only positive I can give is that the sushi was decent, and very well-priced. For the service, however, I tip the scale the other way. I don't get a kick out of giving a place one star. Perhaps this was just a bad day for everyone on the staff, or perhaps this speaks to a much larger problem. Either way, you are one of only two restaurants to ever receive this type of review from me. Hopefully over time your service will average out and reviews like this one will have less weight.
Won't be returning. Thanks.
On a budget? this is the place for you. prefer quality sushi? id also recommend sushigawa. i agree with most reviews, i actually make sushi myself, so I can recognize shoddy work, and I was a little disappointed by happy fish because it was recommended to me by a friend, but it didnt live up to my expectations. the sushi isnt awful, there are a few rolls that are amazing like the ninja roll, and on weekdays they have a happy hour from 4-6 where certain rolls are discounted up to 50% off. but overall i dont think the price difference is enough to make me choose happy over sushigawa unless its 4-6.
Review Source:I am utterly shocked by the reviews saying that this is a substitute for Sushigawa- are you really freaking serious!? The only good thing about this place was the miso soup (which is nearly impossible to screw up) and the crab rangoon.
There's a reason it's cheap- it sucks. If you're a Bradley student looking for affordable "vanilla" sushi, then this place is fine; but don't come here expecting a quality meal on par with sushi that offers a genuinely enjoyable experience. Sushi from grocery stores is far better than this garbage.
My sushi knowledge is a lot like my wine knowledge. Â I don't know enough about it to be a real connoisseur or be able to talk about the fine points. Â I tend to feel like that it is a pretty traditionally prepared food where you get more notoriety with all the crazy shit you throw in there. Â But here is what else I know.
We came last night during Happy Hour. Â There appeared to be one server one, with three or four tables. Â We were a table of 7. Â Now if there's anything I hate, it's when one of the people in the party is a former server and passively aggressively mutters under their breath about the shortcomings of the restaurant. Â I will call this person "Mouth."
Seth was our server. Â He was alright. Â We all arrived and it took about 10 minutes to order and receive drinks. Â We placed our orders and they came out on communal plates when some of us had ordered the same items.
About halfway through, Mouth realizes there is no mango in the particular roll they ordered. Â In my restaurant, when we're out of something, we give the guest a heads up. Â Mouth stated that they probably would've liked to have known that so they could order something else. Â Also, it made Seth look dumb because he didn't know any better either. Â Not his fault. Â Much as I hate to agree with Mouth, I share their opinion there. Â Mouth decides to finish anyway. Â Seth apologized and life went on.
I'm a big texture guy when it comes to food, so one roll I loved and the other not so much. Â My Rooster Roll with chicken had a hard time staying together, but the Rock and Roll was amazing.
Overall, if it wasn't Happy Hour, I'm not sure I'd be totally compelled to come back. Â Group consensus was generally mixed, but it seemed like the Meh's have it.
I went to Happy Fish so many times and ordered almost everything on the menu and never had a bad dish! I love their fresh sushi, noodles, and chicken skewers! The chefs are great, service is always friendly and quick (free miso soup too!), quantity and quality is perfect! Their prices are the best in town for what you're getting. I love their Bradley roll and Ninja roll!
Review Source:I stopped in once recently and was pleasantly surprised at the reasonable prices (and that you get complimentary miso soup with your sushi). Â We had ninja rolls and Everest rolls which were a bit heavy and over-sauced, but pretty tasty nonetheless. Â
The décor is mostly sensible save for some incongruous artwork which detracts from the atmosphere. Â
The service was pretty good if a little slow. Â The chef seemed attentive and amicable.
I was planning a sushi outing in conjunction with a business trip to Peoria and thought I would go to Sushi Gawa until I read the reviews of this place on Yelp (two great and one not so much - wonder what he was thinking!?!).
I am SO glad I went to Happy Fish instead of Gawa on this trip. Sitting at the sushi bar, I was able to watch what was going out to the tables for a while before ordering. I enjoyed the free miso soup and finally settled on a chef's selection after speaking to the chef/owner for a while. He has a great concept going - you order the chef's selection based on how much you want to spend...and then you get surprised by the quantity/quality of what you are served.
I thought the fish was among the freshest I have had in the Midwest and the experience rivaled some of the best places in California and NYC that I have visited. I was especially impressed by how personable Adam (the owner) was and I think I learned a few things about sushi as a result of our conversation.
When (not if) you go, you've got to try the skydiver roll if you like softshell crab. I'll definitely be back and I have already recommended this place to a few friends...including one who is the co-owner of a bar/restaurant located a few doors down from Happy Fish.
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