This is the best sushi I've had in a while!!!!!!!!!! My mrs loves sushi and we love em all, but this was out of the ball park! The miso soups are not free but it is a full serving, totally worth it ! The staff is kind and and the place is cozy! Not the cheapest but the quality is worth the price , will return again for sure !!!!!!

Bottom line: Excellent sushi rolls. Every one of them reads like they were catered to my tastebuds. They say the word sushi translates closer to just "rice" than the common conception of it meaning 'fish wrapped with rice', and it seems places like Elephant Sushi and Mujiri Nigiri Oakland understand this too. They have among the best sushi rice I've ever had, and I'm not a fan of rice. Having been to Tsukiji Market in Tokyo for the tuna auctions and enjoying sushi, sashimi, and donburis served by local masters for lunch, breakfast, and dinner; this meal reminded me of that beautiful memory of climbing the marketplace shacks to the sushi bars on the roof, listening to the morning rain fall overhead, the local banter over fish and wares sales outside, and the chefs inside loudly welcoming patrons and announcing their orders, served fresh from the waters just meters away. Even something as simple (and traditionally small) as their tekka maki was satisfying by itself. Their prices may be a little high for some, but I wonder if that's just inflation rearing its ugly head. Even still, you get what you pay for quite nicely. However, it did seem weird to both me and my caviar driver that I needed an ID for the yellowfin tuna sashimi, like it had alcohol in it (it doesn't). It's just tuna with truffle shavings and salt... Truffles that I honestly didn't even see or taste--seemed more likely it was marinated in a medium bodied and aged soy sauce (maybe this soy sauce was fermented with truffles and truffle salt?). Anyway, it was delicious too but without the appearance of truffles, it's equivalent to suke maguro and definitely not worth 28 dollars for 6 pieces.

A great find for me. I think I hesitated coming here because of their moniker. It was hard not to associate it with the ole Elephant Bar, the one with dank, smelly, unwashed table towels and barely-edible food; it's now extinct in Oakland (and perhaps the country) maybe for the good. Thankfully, Elephant Sushi was not a resurrection of the doomed pachydermesque bistro. Instead, it was a surprisingly good eatery species, sui generis. The chef started us with a complimentary morsel of cooked, ponzu salmon. The ponzu perfectly accented the flavor of the fish, but the salmon was a bit too well done. But what's that saying about looking into a gift-horse's mouth? We ordered the Omakaze (their spelling) Mix. It comes with 10 pieces at $62 as of this review. Which is a deal for the quality. Ordered separately, the tab would've been fairly more, since their nigiri a la carte is at a higher price point than most East Bay establishments. But I believe deservedly so. Some tasting notes: *The Scallops were a revelation of straight-from-the-ocean freshness, bringing forth their buttery texture on both the tongue and tooth. *The Hamachi belly was a rarity. But it wasn't as tender as I had expected. *The Ahi Tuna was seared well along the edges and seemed to be of a higher quality than most Japanese cookeries. *The Basil Salmon was a delight. The basil sauce adorning the top was subtle yet potent, if that's possible. A great twist to an old nigiri stalwart. *Of course, I saved the Toro Ankimo for the climatic last. As expected, it was a blast! The texture and aroma of the ankimo blended perfectly with the toro, which burst with silky fish oil with each bite! This would've been intoxicating except that the little dab of sriracha atop overpowered the taste and aroma of this otherwise angelic combo. As I've said before, a note to all the wonderful sushi chef sans: Hold off on the sriracha please. It looks catchy and tantalizing atop your creation but it also overshadows it gastronomically. Stick to a salmon egg or sprinklings of tobiko for the red-like accent. Overall, each piece of nigiri evinced a commitment to artistry and together formed a zen-like aesthetic atop the dark, stoneware-canvas serving plate. I almost wanted to just sit and admire it until my tummy reminded me it needed to be more satisfied than my eyes at that point. My photos don't do this tapestry of nigiri justice. My excuse is the ambient illumination--good for date night bad for pic light. Also, this is one of the few sushi restaurants stateside I've visited that offered its own home-grated wasabi. And it was inimitable. It has ruined me forever for the tube-o-wasabi or those powdered-pasty balls of green. I wanted to add that our server was delightful. She was eager to smile and engage and was genuinely glad to facilitate this sublime sushi experience. I have definitely found a new go-to for my 510 sushi list.

Decided to come to elephant sushi on a whim. Their sushi is really fresh and has really flavorful rolls. Unfortunately forgot the names of them all...but I remember this one which was the beastie boy, it was all over their yelp page so I had to try it. It was pretty underwhelming, the egg yolk covered too much of the uni taste. But I would still give this a 4 star because the other rolls were good!

This is a solid place with fresh, top notch quality sushi. Parking is a little difficult but it's not impossible to find street parking near the area. We ordered 5 orders of Nigiri, the Naked Scallop roll, and the Negitoro roll. The Nigiri was great. At $10/2 pieces on average, it's not cheap but the quality is definitely there. The naked scallop roll was ok. I would say maybe a 6/10. Although they tasted good, the scallops in each roll was very small. Wished they could have added a little more scallop in each roll, especially since there are only 6 rolls and it was $14. The negitoro roll was bomb. Comes with 6 rolls for $18 so very pricy, but this one is definitely more worth it. Whereas the naked scallop was mostly rice, this one has a good amount of Toro AND Uni. The combination of the two was absolutely divine. Plus the Uni was incredibly fresh, A+ on that one! So overall, for two people we ordered 5 orders of Nigiri (10 pieces), and two rolls (12 total), which came out to 11 pieces of sushi per person. And the grand total plus tip was over $110. So yeah... this place is price-ey. However, the service was great and the fish is quality. If I have a hankering for sushi, I will definitely return although my wallet will cry a little each time. I will have to limit myself to coming here when I really want to treat myself.

Solid sushi! Location can be difficult to find. The interior is small, but the food is big. By big, I mean the flavors are fresh. I started off with a wine just to unwind. As a starter, I went with the "Couple of Babes" and this was nice. It's one handroll with actual blue crab meat and the other was a salmon handroll. For the roll itself, went with the "Negi Toro" and it's fatty tuna topped with uni and fresh wasabi. Also got an order of Toro nigiri. This was soft and melts in your mouth. A bit on the pricier side, but a nice place to go on a date perhaps.

Food is great here! We ordered a bottle of sake and that was brought out right away. Nicely chilled! We ordered sashimi and a roll. We were going somewhere else for more eats so we ordered just a enough to get us started. The sashimi was excellent. The fish was very fresh and sliced perfectly. The rainbow roll was great too! Initially, I didn't want to order that because some restaurants use imitation crab meat for the California Roll part but not this place - it was salmon and cucumber roll. The version here was great! I will definitely come back!