No Misery on This Visit to Mizuiro - CLOSED

Mizuiro

22431 Antonio Parkway B-110

Rancho Santa Margarita, CA 92688

I have a funny relationship with sushi. I like it well enough, but I never really crave it. I've had really expensive, high-quality sushi, but it is kind of wasted on me. I appreciate it, but when I'm forking out a bunch of money and going to need to stop off at a drive-thru on the way home, it kind of defeats the purpose of spending all that money. That's why when the sushi cravings hit Katie I always try to find an all you can eat sushi restaurant.

I love AYCE sushi restaurants. I always leave way too full, I'm a big fan of what a lot of you might call the non-traditional fried rolls, and it's a fixed price going in, so I know how much it's going to be when the check comes. Sure you are not getting the highest quality seafood, but in my experience, I have not really run across what I would deem an awful AYCE experience. I definitely have my favorite place, but our good friends Tom and Daniele wanted us to try a place they had been once before, so we all headed to Mizuiro in Rancho Santa Margarita.

Mizuiro is located on the corner of Antonio and La Promesa in the same shopping center as the Pavillions, Del Taco, and one of our favorite sandwich spots, Board and Brew. They have been open for coming up on three years in December as an AYCE place. From what I can gather this location used to be Mizu, which is still under the same restaurant group. They have a location in Tustin and started out in San Jose, where they have amassed over 2,000 Yelp reviews and attained a four-star rating since opening in 2009.

The switch to an AYCE format seems to have helped Mizuiro. We arrived at a very busy restaurant at 7:30 on a recent Friday evening. The inside of the restaurant is a little hipper than our usual sushi spot. The large dining room is spacious, with a tinge of blue hanging about due to the overhead lighting. A little on the loud side, but as the dinner crowd filed out, it became a lot easier to hold a conversation, although with Daniele in our party I preferred to tune out.

All four of us opted for the all you can eat option, which is priced at $27.50 for dinner, and $15.50 for lunch. At lunchtime, they have a slightly smaller selection, but it also includes a soft drink with all the sushi you may want. The AYCE menu features appetizers,  nigiri sushi, baked rolls, tempura rolls, fresh rolls, traditional and hand rolls. There are also five special items where you are limited to having one per person, these include sea urchin, jumbo scallop, salmon egg, halibut, and snow crab. Very hungry by this point, we made our numerous selections on our order sheet, and let the sushi parade commence.

These are just some of the many appetizers that we tried on this evening. The favorites for myself were the Chicken Katsu, the Spicy Sesame Chicken, which really resembled an orange chicken and was not spicy at all, and the Calamari Tempura. Not pictured, but I was not too impressed with the Popcorn Scallops, which were dry and definitely over fried. For non-sushi fans, I'd say you could still have a good meal here at Mizuiro by just selecting from their appetizers.

Again, these are just some of the things that we ate this evening. As the night went on a sushi coma washed over me, so I forgot to snap pictures of everything we ate. The nigiri sushi was all fresh and tasted great. Pretty impressed with the quality at Mizuiro. I always favor the tempura and specialty rolls, which are a lot heavier than the traditional sushi. I really enjoyed the selection here, but at a certain point in the gluttony, the rolls all started to taste the same.

Based on this one trip to Mizuiro, they have replaced our usual go-to spot for all you can eat sushi. Sure it's a little bit of trek getting out to Rancho Santa Margarita, but this is the best of the AYCE sushi spots we have been to so far in South OC. Unlike a lot of the Yelpers, we had no issues with the service here. They were pretty quick taking our orders, clearing plates, and refilling drinks. We even stayed a little past closing time, and they never really made us feel rushed. Our friend Daniele who we credit with finding this place for us claims that Mizuiro is 70 to 80 times better than the other place we used to go. While her math is definitely off, it is better, and with all that, we consumed it's a great value. Definitely, a sushi restaurant that's right up my alley.

Out of five paint cans, (because if you go into a paint store in Japan and ask for mizuiro, it translates as light blue), five being best to zero being worst, Mizuiro gets 3 paint cans.

For more information about Mizuiro, head to their website here: http://www.mizuirosushi.com/