Botan Sushi

Though we’ve visited restaurants thousands of times over the last decade, we can’t recall another meal that began with the offer of a bribe – free ice cream, maybe cheesecake, if we were willng to leave a five-star Yelp review. That’s the way our first dinner at Irvine’s Botan Sushi kicked off, and it was enough to immediately make us wonder whether this nicely decorated, medium-sized Japanese restaurant was going to underdeliver on quality. Though we didn’t accept the ice cream (and wouldn’t, especially with Saffron & Rose only steps away in the same plaza) and couldn’t honestly rate this place five stars, Botan shouldn’t need incentives to earn solid marks from most visitors.

We arrived at Botan Sushi expecting to order everything a la carte, so were surprised to find a panel on the printed menu offering another option: all-you-can-eat access for $35 per person during weekday lunch hours, $40 per person otherwise. So we asked our server: Could we order anything? Her answer was yes to “around 95% of the menu.” Though one of the specialty sushi rolls we’d planned to order wasn’t on the AYCE list, and drinks and desserts are specifically excluded, almost everything a la carte was available across (a generous) four rounds of ordering over a two-hour time period. The math made AYCE sensible, and we had zero regrets with that choice: At least as of early 2026, the value and quality are certainly where they need to be.

Botan’s largely fried appetizer list spans takoyaki, tempura, gyoza, fried chicken, and sweet potato fries, plus edamame and miso soup; we sampled the crispy tofu, an approximation of agedashi tofu with large bonito flakes and small tofu cubes, and found it totally fine. Also available are four salads, two poke bowls (eel or salmon), three bowls of tonkotsu-style ramen, and 10 “warm plates” ranging from dan dan noodles or fried rice to a gyudon beef bowl or honey walnut shrimp.

That’s before you get to the sushi and sashimi, including over a dozen “classic” cut rolls, nearly 30 “special” rolls, six hand rolls, six nigiri sushi options, and five sashimi plates. Of all these options, only one – a single piece of sweet shrimp, served raw at the bottom with a deep fried head – is limited in quantity to one plate. Since most special rolls are in the $15 to $17 range, and warm plates range from $10 to $16, it’s fairly easy to reach the break-even point with AYCE at either the $35 to $40 price point. Even bento boxes and larger platters that aren’t officially available on the AYCE menu can largely be assembled piece by piece.