SAGA Kitchen

Love the concept of this restaurant!SAGA Kitchen houses a handful of different Asian restaurants in their "food hall". (I quote food hall here because you'll order from all the different restaurants once vs going to different registers).The restaurant itself takes over two spaces next door to each other. The first has many tables, the bathroom, the kitchen, and the register. The second is just community dining tables and a condiment counter. However, that second room is also dog-friendly. I feel like I hardly ever see indoor dog-friendly restaurant spaces so this was a treat! Both are connected by the outdoor patio up front.When we arrived on a Sunday afternoon, it wasn't busy so we were able to find a table with our dog in the second room pretty easily. We ordered from a QR code on the table and got to see the menus of all the restaurants. Food came out quickly after and we could pay for everything online too, so it was a pretty seamless process.We ordered from Yue Club and had their Hong Kong Har Gow ($10) and House Made XLB ($12). Each order came with 6 pieces. Both nailed the flavors - everything was so tasty. Probably one of the better dim sums I've had in the area. The dumplings themselves were smaller than I've usually had though. I don't think I'd normally want to pay this kind of price for the portion-size but I could taste the quality for sure!The staff was super accommodating and even gave us water for our dog. They also have dog treats in the 2nd room so it's truly a dog-friendly location!Parking is available on the street and in the nearby neighborhoods. Definitely worth a visit if you're in Alameda!

Writing this review, not because I want to bash the restaurant, but because I could not for the life of me remember why I do not order from here even though I live so close. I ordered 90% of the dim sum on the menu and it is straight frozen/store-bought. You cannot convince me otherwise. Do yourself a favor and go to 99 Ranch or even Weee! and order frozen dim sum. It would be the same, but better.

Cute location but service was very poor and food was either great or the worst. QR code ordering didn't work for us because we wanted to order 4 tonkatsu ramen without the combo gyoza which the site wouldn't let us do. We went to order in person from the first room there were two workers at the front but the lady didn't speak English ( is fine for us we speak Cantonese) and didn't know how to take orders or work the online site. Waiting maybe 5-10 minutes for the guy worker to get off the phone while we stood waiting in front of the register without much acknowledgement. When we went to order we wanted the sando spicy chicken slider combo and the Nikutama udon but he told both were no longer served and the paper menu is not accurate and the true menu is on the site. Tonkatsu ramen Chewy noodles tasty egg and a creamy not too salty broth. 8.5/10Kistune udon 1/10Worst udon I've ever tasted. Have no idea what happened. The broth was watery and maybe had a pinch of miso. The noodles were soaked for too long and were breaking apart and mushy(look at my picture). I think the noodles have been soaking in this watery miso started tinting lightly brown and fermenting the taste. The noodles taste very strange and weird. Added with the broth was extremely shocking. 1/10Tonkatsu sandoGreat sandwich crispy crustless bread moist crispy fried chicken and a nice mayo sauce. 8.9/10

Stopped here for a quick meal with my buddy Eric. Food itself was decent, nothing to write home about. Felt like we experienced a tad touch of some kind of racism unfortunately. Nothing major but as two white gentlemen I noticed the waitress going over and checking on tables of Asian folks, laughing, smiling, checking on them eagerly. We were only met with scowls and total silence when we had a question. Hey, for the record, I don't get into race speak or issues as I treat everyone with respect, but I found this a bit strange and it stuck out to me. At least we got my buddy Eric drunk! Haha! Wouldn't be back sadly. Stay sexy alameda

4.5 starsSAGA Kitchen is an innovative restaurant combining four different restaurant concepts under one roof and one menu. You order on your phone via QR code, and items are delivered by a robot waiter! One Instagrammable choice was the Treasure Box, a handroll kit that came with nori sheets, wasabi, pickled ginger, and four ramekins of sushi rice topped with assorted raw fish including salmon, yellowtail, tuna, scallops, and uni. The quality of the fish wasn't particularly good, but the presentation was colorful and beautiful! My favorite dish was the Curry Rice, made of a thick Japanese curry sauce with onions, carrots, and pickles along with rice and tonkatsu, a perfectly crispy, panko-breaded fillet of pork. The curry had a sweet, savory, and distinctly fruity flavor, and the tonkatsu was meaty on the inside and nicely crispy on the outside, even when dunked into the curry sauce. On the side came a bowl of miso soup, which made for a complete meal! Overall, this was a great place to try out for its unique concept, and the service was friendly too!

Never ever coming here again as an Alameda resident. My husband and I were the only 2 people in the entire restaurant, it took HELLLAAA long to get our order. Not once asked if we needed anything. Once we got our food the waiter basically slammed it on the table and left. Never asked if we needed Jack shit. Is customer service out the door now???? All they did the entire time we were there was talk. Oh but they said bye on the way out tho. SMH.

Loved this place! Not sure why it's only 3.8. There's so many pros: - eat combination of Japanese and Chinese food, huge menu- dog friendly, even indoor! - free dog treats - free saga arcade game - free choice of music - cute decor/ambiance - good service (gave us extra seaweed for free) - easy online ordering We got the treasure box, negi toro roll, XLB, miso soup and salted egg yolk bun. My favorites were the negi toro roll and the salted egg yolk bun, so good! Would definitely come back and try other things. Thanks SAGA kitchen for a fun and unique dinner experience!

I stopped coming to SAGA Kitchen because they served frozen dim sum. Yes, I get you don't have a dim sum cook and prices are higher now. But customers want value for their money, and there's plenty of choices out there. The last time I ordered the potstickers, I got shriveled up dumplings that looked like small gyoza. So don't believe the old pictures Yelpers posted, those days are gone. Time to move on.

Was craving dim-sum and wanted to try a new place out. This is to go order. I ordered the following items that I have had and enjoyed at other establishments. - Siu Mai - I was very surprised that for $10 you got the small amount you did. It was very strong on the shrimp/fishy flavor.- Chili Oil Dumpling - good size with a good amount of filling. Issue for me was that you could only taste the chili oil and nothing else- Egg Drop Soup - I appreciate that for the price $10 you got a very good amount of soup that has good flavor- House made XLB (with wine sauce) - good flavor and most likely the only item I would order againOverall I would not most likely not return. Based on the reviews there are plenty of people that enjoy the food and establishment, however with how expensive dim sum can be I want to enjoy my food and feel that it was worth the cost. From my one time experience here overall the food did not have flavor.

SAGA is not a sit down restaurant or a dim sum restaurant. The seats are extremely dirty. The dim sum is frozen and reheated. We had the fried rice and it was tasty and had "wok hei" so I would recommend that. Honestly, from the dirty seats, I wouldn't want to have sushi here. I didn't try so I don't know how fresh.