Sushi Shunka

In Costa Mesa, an omakase-style sushi experience that delivered too little value to win a second visit

In addition to preparing sushi all day, Shunka in Costa Mesa offers traditional Japanese appetizers that double in number from lunch to dinner, three types of udon at lunch, and a small collection of dinner-only entrees. If you sit down at the sushi bar of this dozen-year-old restaurant, your only options will be the $65 Chef’s Omakase (“10+ pieces”) or $55 Shunka Omakase (“8 pieces + hand roll”), which means you’re trusting the chef to deliver whatever’s freshest and best that day. We opted for the Chef’s version, which included individual pieces of:

  • Goldeneye
  • Halibut with warm shishito pepper
  • Madai with delicious garlic chili
  • Black cod with sweet soy
  • Japanese barracuda
  • Baby amberjack
  • Perfect sea urchin
  • One of the most sublime pieces of Otoro tuna we’ve ever tasted
  • Two other pieces that were delicious but lost in translation

Everything was immaculately fresh, but none of the pieces was especially generous in size, or perfectly temperature-balanced; this wasn’t Sugarfish or Kaigen at their best. Each piece was good, and as those notes suggest, occasionally better.

Still hungry after those 10 small pieces, we ordered the live shrimp and live scallop – each beautifully presented but not worth each of their $25 asking prices. The scallop plate was padded with cooked mushrooms and baby scallops to make up for the lack of large scallop pieces.

Despite a hefty check, we left hungry and wound up stopping elsewhere to finish eating dinner. So while we love that Shunka has multiple types of semi-obscure Japanese sushi fish to sample, the value’s not there: The consistently small portions left us unhappy about what we were getting with each additional expenditure, and unwilling to return for another visit.

Stats

Price: $$$
Service: Table
Open Since: 2012

Addresses

369 E. 17th St.
Costa Mesa, CA 92627

949.631.9854

Instagram: @shunkaoc