Sushi Mambo Review
Probably the most popular sushi place in the city of Napa and can definitely satisfy your sushi cravings if you're not looking for anything too exotic.
Hours: Mo - Th 11:45 am - 9 pm, Fri 11:45 am - 9:30 pm, Sat 5:30 pm - 9:30 pm
Sushi Mambo food
There are definitely better sushi places in town closer to the Bay Area, but if you have sushi cravings, and you are in Napa proper, Sushi Mambo is your best pick. Sushi Mambo used to have a borderline Napa Valley sushi market monopoly. Its sushi was noticeably better than the competition, but it wasn't great. That's changed now that Go Fish has opened up in St. Helena whose sushi is definitely at a higher level. But if we don't feel like traveling up to St. Helena, Sushi Mambo is still a good choice. It is probably the most popular place for sushi in Napa which can cause some problems.
Sushi Mambo's nigiri sushi has all of the main staples like hamachi, maguro, sake, ebi, etc. You won't find nigiri like toro or uni, however. The fish cuts and rice are pretty large compared to most sushi places we've been to. Although most of the times, the quality of the sushi is good, sometimes the sushi quality isn't quite where it should be. The rice will be a bit off, or the fish isn't as tender, moist, or buttery as it should be. It doesn't happen often, and no sushi place is perfect, but it happens enough that it's something we're aware of.
Conversely, I don't think I've ever had a piece of bad fish at Go Fish. Speaking of Go Fish, we bumped into one of Sushi Mambo's long-time Japanese sushi chef as a sushi chef at GoFish, and we haven't seen him at Sushi Mambo for a while. Since good sushi chefs probably aren't plentiful around these parts, I guess they made him a pretty good offer.
Sushi Mambo consistency is better on the maki rolls which is a much more forgiving medium. They have a number of special rolls with cute names like the Nutty Professor, Miso Horny, Son of a Beach, etc. in addition to the maki staples like a california roll, spider roll, rainbow roll, etc. Some of the special rolls are quite tasty. It's a good place to bring those who have a thing against good, raw fish (blasphemy!) The Nutty Professor (california roll with shrimp and macademia nuts), the Rolling Blackout (spicy tuna roll with seaweed), the High Roller (tempura shrimp in the roll with a mix of tuna, salmon, and crab on top), and Fungus Among Us (tempura fried shitake mushrooms filled with rice and tuna) are favorites of ours.
Spider roll (soft shell crab, avocado, cucumber)
Rolling blackout (spicy shrimp, tuna, sea weed)
Nutty Professor (california roll with shrimp and macadamia nuts)
Sushi Mambo settings and service
One weak point of Sushi Mambo is the service. Sometimes it can be fine. But sometimes it can stink. We put up with it because there aren't a lot of sushi alternatives that are close in Napa. Sometimes it's not their fault (eg, the place might be packed), but sometimes you have no idea WTF is taking them so long (eg, they're talking to some patrons they know.)
Sometimes we get our food within 20 min, but I know that there's always the chance of a 20 min wait just for a seat if they're crowded and then another 40 minutes for the food. I know sushi is manually intensive, but that's way too much. They should consider cutting down on the seating space as I suspect they have more room than they can actually serve. Don't go there starving or needing to be somewhere really fast. Worse, their staff don't know how to set expectations. They're obviously very busy as they scurry about, but if it's going to be a long wait, they should say something to explain things rather than let tempers boil. Or at least acknowledge the people who have been waiting in line for 10 minutes or waiting 25 minutes for their first pieces of sushi who have no idea what's going on. I've seen more than a few angry customers get bent out of shape. They're almost always tourists who don't know what the wait is like when the restaurant is fairly full.
It's not like they're bad people. The sushi chefs are friendly enough, their staff could really use some help with its customer management process.
Price for our meal
$55 (3 maki rolls, 3 nigiri sushi) + tax & tip
