My heart belongs to Lahaina! Â Â Never really did the Kihei thing before but we decided what the heck... it deserves a shot! Â I mean how bad can it be anyway? Â It is still Maui, it is on the beach and I hear there is some great snorkling down there. Â Â We were impressed! Â It was nice, we liked the beaches, we liked the "Triangle" and we really enjoyed Sansei! Â
Like every other review seems to say or imply. Â Thank God for happy hour otherwise this place can be a little pricey! Â Happy hour (or happy half-hour) cuts the prices in half, so instead of being a bit in the expensive side it is a bit on the less-expensive side. Â
We ordered and ordered and ordered, ate and ate and ate! Â Â Edomame, soup, tempura, rolls, noodle dishes, more rolls, more noodles. Â Â The place has a great variety of sushi and Japanese food! Â All of it was quite tasty. Â Some is a huge bargain while other dishes weren't. Â Â But we enjoyed it and left very full. Â Even the desserts are half price if you order them in time. Â
When the bill arrived it had a seperate line with a pretty big number on it "service charge" Â I asked and yes it is a disguised gratuity. Â I think it was 20% of the bill before the 50% discount! Â Seemed quite high for the service we recieved. Â And I hate that they don't call it "gratuity" or "Tip" Â Seems so deceptive!! Â I have to wonder how many people automatically tip on top of that amount??? Â Â All in all I think we had a $45 food bill, a $9 beer and a $20 "Service charge" Â Â Still fairly reasonable for the enjoyment that we had but still... Â couldn't they be just a little bit more up-front about it?
The sushi was good, but the seating was just not what we were expecting. The sushi was on the pricy side of reasonable, and my husband and I were seated right next to another couple. There wasn't even an inch between the two tables, so I felt like I was having dinner with another couple. It would have been fine if the place had a sushi bar atmosphere, but the ad made it look romantic. I really had to watch my elbows from hitting the woman next to me, and my elbows aren't all that big. That being said, Â the sushi was great and so was the friendly service.
Review Source:This place is advertised as a "casual restaurant with high class food", which is a bullshit statement to say the least. They claim to be causal which really means it feels like a diner, but it's unbelievably overpriced. At least the service was nice (although gratuity is included?)
The dressing on the House Salad was so salty I felt like I was going to have a heart attack after taking a bite. I ordered the Crab Ramen for my entree and, wow, what total shit. Instant ramen with imitation crab for $17. The fried calamari came with ketchup not cocktail sauce (which also pissed me off). Sushi was OK, nothing that special. Spider roll was swimming in sauce.
Will not be returning, sorry.
We went here on our last night on Maui. Â I ordered the Udon because they make their dashi in-house and I had to try it. Â
It did not disappoint! Â The udon was delicious and had shaved pork on top. Â I also ordered the sashimi sampler and that was amazing as well. Â It was the fresh catch of the day, and you could taste how fresh it was.
The next time I am on Maui, I will definitely be back!
Their food was good and our waiter was nice, but there was a long wait when we sat at the bar and the bartender was so rude! I came here for my birthday, so of course my mom told them it was my birthday. You know how they made it special? They didn't do anything at all. I wasn't expecting to get a free dessert or anything, but at least some kind of celebratory attitude or something. I asked the bartender if he knew of any special occasion drinks that maybe aren't listed on the menu and he pointed to their specials section and walked away. Ruined my night.
Review Source:Actually, I only liked half of what we ordered, but the half I enjoyed was delicious. Hence my 4 star rating. My recommendations are the crab ramen and the yaki-maki sushi roll. The ramen was slightly on the salty side, but I enjoyed the amount of real crab meat in there as well as the addition of the truffle flavor. I never thought adding truffle to ramen would be tasty, but OMG it's good.
The prices are ok, we spent about $60 for 4 dishes (ramen, 2 sushi rolls, and a sweet potato tempura). Not sure how long it would take to wait for a table, as we called and reserved one in advance.
Nothing to write home about...We were really excited to go here, while staying in Kihei, so we went to the happy hour, after 10pm, for the 1/2 priced menu. Soo glad we did, bc i could not imagine paying full price...
Service was good, and food came out quickly, considering how busy it was. But the rolls were nothing exceptional. Who knows, maybe the other higher end locations offer better quality?
-Dynamite shrimp-too salty, shrimps were tiny & mostly tempura batter
-Sashimi Trio-good, but hard to mess that up..
-Saimin-average
-Panko Ahi rolls-bland
-Sansei special roll- not memorable
Sorry for being harsh...I just had high hopes for this place. Consider me a spoiled, Seattle food snob.
Don't fall prey to flavorless sushi!!!
My husband and I are always scouting to try different sushi restaurants, coming from seattle they are everywhere. We came here based on other yelpers reviews about the Shrimp Dynamite, thinking that the sushi would be good as well....WRONG! The sushi was completely flavorless, had no sauce, like it usually comes at other sushi restaurants based on the rolls we got, had waaaay too much rice and barely any filling. Maybe if you squint you could see the tiny un-spicy "spicy tuna" wrapped in a comforter of rice! My husband and I were so annoyed that they could pass as a sushi restaurant considering how terrible it was. The grocery store next door, foodland, has better sushi than this place.
And their "Early Bird" special of 25% off is a little misleading because they exclude all of their "specials" Â (including shrimp dynamite), plus they didn't disclose until we got our bill that they automatically include an Early Bird 17% gratuity regardless of how many people you have -that was the cherry on top of this dining disaster.
Overall, we feel cheated out of a good dinner by having terrible food and a bogus mandatory early bird included gratuity for 2 people!
This seems to be a solid sushi spot in Kehei and what we had was good. The service was great!!  The lobster and asparagus roll, delicious.   Poke was good, but was a little disappointed when I ordered the special 'spicy' poke of the night with avocado and jalapeño, that all that I got was a regular poke with a half avocado and some sliced jalapeño on the side.  I thought it would be mixed in.  Either way I thought the portion might be a bit larger.
It is OK. Â No view and solid, but not epic sushi.
This is my favorite Sushi Place in Maui
-so nice we ate here twice during our recent vacay
-two nights in a row!
I would definitely recommend making a reservation
It's pretty easy to get a reservation early, both times we called same day and were able to eat at 5:30PM when they open
The rolls are really good and the sushi is really fresh! I loved the panko crusted ahi, the unagi and this roll with a really long name i can't remember. The something special...agh....soo good!
We also had the macadamia  nut fried ice cream. Really good. Really big actually, so save room!
They also have specials between 5:30 and 6 where lots of the sushi is 25%
And the service is really great!
Strongly recommend!
Hands down the best sushi i have ever had!
This is not a she she sushi place..its more of a local spot.. but they have several locations through out the different islands now.
Their butter fish MELTs in your mouth! Their specialty roll with ahi and arugula.. was my favorite.
If you go early they have awesome happy hour prices! we are going back later this week!
Service is always excellent, the fish exceptionally fresh. The specials are always a delight, and we always happily over order so we can explore the menu. Â The Rainbow Poke is spectacular. Maguro sashimi excellent grade and as fresh as I have had it. Â Delicious Tempura Shrimp... also one of the specials, and a number of other treats, rolls, sides, etc that I fear listing as you may judge us. =) Â I cannot wait to get back.
Review Source:Even thinking about our meal here makes my mouth water!! So we went to Sansei based on a recommendation from one of the crew guys from Trilogy tours. Â Here are the highlights and must tries:
Panko crusted ahi sashimi roll- the combination of flavor and texture was perfect, definitely the best roll in the house! It was so good, we ordered a second round.
Butterfish- so soft and succulent, I could've eaten this over and over again
Foie gras sushi- TO DIE FOR, it was perfected seasoned and grilled to melt in your mouth *drool
We also tried the sashimi boat, uni, a few other rolls and appetizers on the menu. Â All of it was fresh and delious. Â I'd come back to Maui just to eat here again. :)
If you are from California, don't waste your time, we have much better sushi even at our mediocre sushi restaurants. Service is slow and spotty. Nothing really exciting, just a huge bill plopped on the table at the end.
Most of their sushi rolls start with the basic california roll and put something on top, not that exciting.
The mixed reviews on Sansei are so funny to me. Especially since they're from California and many in the SF bay area.
Honestly, I've eaten at almost all of the absolute best Bay Area sushi places, and I prefer the Japanese fusion style food at Sansei better than the Blowfish on Santana Row in the South Bay. Now THAT place has a lot of hype and decor, but I was not impressed with the sauce soaked food.
I tend to like more simple Japanese foods, but Sansei's fusion was more pleasing to me than most places that serve similar dishes. They still rely on the flavor of the ingredients without burying it in batter and losing it all in sauce. Unlike the tourist reviewers, I've eaten at Sansei several times and everything I ordered was pretty good for the price, and the service was fine too considering how crowded it gets in there some nights.
Strongly recommend for its Fri-Sat late night HH (10pm to 1am?); late night happy hour menu has MOST of its dishes at 50% off, including hot sake!
MUST ORDER: truffle crab ramen (not part of late night HH menu, but still worth it at its regular price of $16.xx).
Calamari = delicious
Thinly sliced una prepared similarly to Vietnamese raw beef = delicious
roasted Japanese egg plant = delicious
agadashi tofu = sauce too salty; don't recommend
Lots of hype, bad food. Â Check out where your reviewers are from..we've got great sushi in the San Francisco Bay Area, this place was bad. Â If the fish were any worse I would have worried about getting sick.
Bad service, the waiter seemed drunk, and was a little rude.
Bad miso, it tasted chalky, like it was instant miso or something. Â The sushi was a little warm, and the fish was mushy and not delicious. Â The place is super loud, and it's only redeeming quality is if you like karaoke (I don't, but others do).
I got a teka roll (tuna), and either a salmon or hamachi roll, and a butterfish appetizer. Â Seriously, you don't have raw butterfish? Â The butterfish appetizer (miso glazed and cooked) was disgusting..the sauce was iway too sweet and there was way too much of it, had no discernable miso flavor, and the fish was old. Â It wasn't even broiled properly. Â The other fish wasn't fresh either. Â I ate it because I was hungry, not because it was good.
Don't go here, seriously, just don't.
Absolutely totally worth the hype! and the trip to Hawaii from NY.
It's hard to give advice on what sushi to order because everyone likes their own preferences on fish and such...but we didn' have one bad roll.
Service was slow but it was at the 50% happy hour time so can't complain! Great quality fish and interesting combinations made it all worth the wait and they brought out the rolls as they were ready so you were always munching on something.
Ahi poke salad is a must order.
I have been to Sansei several times and have enjoyed it every time. Occasionally the service in slow but I always try to go during their 50% happy hour times. They are always extremely busy then and when you are getting sushi for that cheap, I feel like you can't complain too much about the service.
I always get a California roll (because I know those are good) and then something new to try. I would skip the Yellow Submarine roll but the Butterfry  roll, Mango Crab Salad roll, Spicy Tuna roll, and many others were very good. The dynamite shrimp appetizer is also a must.
The fried ice cream is also DELICIOUS. If you have any room left in your belly after all the sushi, definitely try it.
After seeing all the reviews for Sansei and wanting sushi for a few days, I was really excited to try the food here!! I had somehow convinced myself that sushi in Hawaii would be pretty authentic and really fresh.... but the food here was neither.
When we got here, we were told that there was a pretty long wait time. Luckily, their pagers work in most of the plaza, so we ended up wandering around Foodland while waiting, and our wait time was also a lot shorter than they had estimated.
We tried the calamari salad and mango crab salad roll since they are "award winning", according to their menus. Both of these dishes were kind of misleading... I expected the calamari salad to be salad in a wonton bowl with fried calamari on top, but it was essentially just fried calamari in a wonton bowl with a few greens in there. Not really a salad, if you ask me, but the sauce on the calamari was really good and made up for the calamari not being very crispy. The mango crab salad roll was very blah. I did not realize that the mayo + imitation crab stuff that goes into grocery store California rolls is a "crab salad". The roll was half crab salad, half wrap with a tiny bit of mango in the middle. Even though it sounds pretty good on paper, definitely skip this roll.
The rest of the sushi rolls we got were decent but very underwhelming and king of overpriced. Fish was not super fresh but still edible. Definitely did not compare to some of the places in the Bay Area though.
Tempura fried ice cream for dessert was my favorite part of the meal!
Maybe I'm spoiled from tasty California sushi, but this place was horrible. Â It's definitely a tourist trap.
-Fried Ahi roll- it looked pathetic when it came out. It looked shrunken and not appetizing at all. The tangy sauce was probably the only tasty thing about it
-Mango crap hand roll- the crab was so dry. Again, the sauce was probably the only good thing.
-Seared butterfish- I've had better at the chain restaurant, Roy's. Â It tasted overcooked
-East meets West roll- We had the waitress TAKE THIS BACK because the fish was so chewy that we could not eat it. I had to spit it out.
Please do not eat here if you appreciate good sushi rolls. Â Go get some poke from Foodland for dinner instead!
Are you kidding me? This place is so overrated it's stupid!
Our to go order took about an hour and couple items were wrong which would be ok if the food was spectacular like most of the reviews. The crusted ahi that everyone is raving about... What the heck is that? If it wasn't for the soysauce I wouldn't even eat it. I think among the 5 entrees we ordered the best one was the tempura appetizer. Anyone who said this as good as it gets definitely don't know what a great sushi taste like.
On my last trip to Maui I couldn't get in to Sansei because the line was too long. Beside Wok Star closing down, this was the biggest disappointment of my second trip. This time around I booked a table 6 weeks in advance for New Year's Eve.
The place was packed, as usual, but the service was friendly and the food came fast...and was heavenly.
The appetizers have never let me down. The Chef's special rolls are always good. And the tempura fried macadamia nut ice cream is so good I ate it despite being absolutely stuffed.
The only thing keeping me from a five-star review: some of the rolls are a bit smaller than I am used to and the coffee was mediocre.
We went in a large group and shared a lot of dishes. Â In general, the food is good, not spectacular. Â Service is good and there are plenty of libations to choose from. Â Standouts were the Dynamite Shrimp ... ok, these are fancy popcorn shrimp but the sauces are what make it really delicious. Â The panko crusted Ahi sashimi roll is nicely done but could have used a bit more oomph in the flavor department - maybe something besides spinach in the roll ... shiso, arugula, basil, mint? Â The sushi rolls were notable for being big on flavor, though often drowning out the flavor of the principal ingredients. Â Disappointing items included the crispy shrimp cake - just what is it, exactly?
Japanese cuisine is known for its subtlety and its use of restraint, to let the freshness of the ingredients speak for themselves. Â At Sansei, there is no such thing as restraint. Â Â This is IN YOUR FACE flavor and if you like that sort of thing, this will be your kind of Japanese restaurant. Â However, if you are a lover of true Japanese food, this place will be a jarring experience.
Coming to Maui for our honeymoon, there was one thing that husband and I were really looking forward to - and that was having a really nice night out at a sushi place. Sansei definitely delivered! A co-worker of mine recommended this place and I am so so so glad we went! We had an incredible meal, service was great, drinks were strong and it was a wonderful experience all around.
We called around 5 hoping to make a 6:30 reservation on a Sunday. No such luck! We couldn't get in until 8:45 so already we knew that was a good sign.
We started with the duck egg roll and the mango crab salad thing. Holy shit! Both amazing. We also had edamame and the cucumber salad which were both really good, too. For dinner, Â my husband ordered a few different sushi rolls which were all killer. And I had the grilled ahi with the shrimp cake. The ahi was great and so was the shrimp cake, but I shit you not, the real star on this plate was the RICE! I am not kidding... this rice... it was seriously sent from heaven. I have no friggin' clue what they do to that shit but oh my god, it was so good! Best rice I have ever had in my life.
Drinks included, this meal was actually quite expensive after all the rolls and everything. Totally worth it though. If I were in Kihei again, I would probably eat there every night.
I don't think this place was as good as people advertised, but it was pretty good considering all the other places we tried during our trip. And especially at 50% off for happy hour, made it exceptionally better. My favorites were the Dungeness Crab Ramen with Asian Truffle Broth and Matsuhisa Style Miso Butterfish. Middle of the pack came Tea Duck Egg Roll and Sansei's Mango Crab Salad Roll, and least favorite was Sansei's Asian Shrimp Cake. We added a few sides of edamame, seaweed salad, and some sashimi. Slices were a bit small, but again, at 50% off, we couldn't really complain. The lychee martini was quite strong and I would recommend it!
Service was very frank, but she made sure we snuck in our order just before 6pm. Thank goodness!
Perfectly mediocre. Not better than good but not bad either. Â
Always busy, make a reso. I can't believe this place does so well with such average sushi.
And why is the sushi average at any place on Maui?? Â I don't get it.
Good place to go if you're with a group. Plenty of room to seat multiples.
Burt is still looking for a GREAT sushi place on Maui
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