Katsu-Ya of Japan — Restaurant in Appleton

A pretty nice restaurant. The restaurant is split in two, one half is for hibachi and the other half is for the sushi bar. I dined in the latter.

I won't go in to too much detail but the sushi was OK. You could taste a hint of the cooking wine/rice vinegar in the sushi rice and a similar story goes for the fish (these are good things.) Personally I like that flavor to be stronger but that's up to personal preference. TL;DR below.

The setting is great and really sets the mood. Check the included pictures. The waitress was nice and helped us pick our roles. Great service and environment!

The Red Dragon was great. If I remember correctly I could taste cream cheese, salmon, fish puree (tuna I think,) and something else; the crunch and cucumber added some great texture/resistance that contrasted the rice and fish puree. Everything fit together perfectly in my opinion.

The Geisha's Kiss felt a little confused. It was supposed to be a interesting sweet and spicy role with crunch, but fell a little flat. Specifically it needed to be just a little sweeter at the top and the spice needed to be a little stronger (I'm pretty sensitive to spicy food and I had to concentrate to feel it.) There was also a collection of what tasted like veggies under the slice of strawberry, but in my opinion the flavor didn't belong in this role. I feel that with more emphasis on the sweetness at the top, making the spicy bit at the bottom more noticeable, and by replacing the out of place veggie flavor with flavors that match well with the sweet/spicy contrast, you have a great role that starts out spicy at the bottom and changes to sweet + (whatever flavors they choose, ) as the spiciness gets dulled out by the other ingredients while chewing, becoming a subtle kick. I think a fatty fish would be a good replacement for the veggies but I'm no chef. That being said I personally can't recommend the role as-is, but maybe that's because it was just not made for me.

The salmon and tuna were standard. Nothing to say here. The tuna role is a rough puree.

I unfortunately can't recommend the white tuna. I love eating this in NYC but it's different here. I had it in a role though so perhaps the sashimi would use better cuts.

TL;DR/Summery: The restaurant has a great vibe/aesthetics and the staff are great. The roles can be hit and miss but if you know which roles are good this is a great place for a date/night out. Try...

Came here after seeing a place at the PAC. Katsu-Ya had just opened and we were sat promptly.

Food- We got sushi and Pork Gyoza(potstickers). The potstickers were amazing. Probably the best I have had. They were crunchy and the pork was flavorful and tasty. The potstickers held their crunch until they were all eaten. We got Ultimate Shrimp Tempura Roll, Volcano Roll, Dynamite Roll, and a Crunchy Vegetable Roll for the main course. All of them were delicious. Some of the best sushi I have had in the area. I will say a few of the rolls were wrapped fairly loosely so they fell apart when picking them up but it still all tasted great.

Drinks- They have a wide selection of drinks including Japanese beers and sakes.

Service- The service is where I took a few points off. After we were sat, it took a little bit to come take our drink order and check on us. At this point there were maybe 3 other tables with people at them. We placed our app order and continued to look at the menu. Once we decided on a few rolls to start out with, we placed them when our app was brought out. We were not checked on again until our sushi was brought out about 15 minutes later. While eating our rolls we decided we wanted one more roll. We waited about 15 minutes after eating our sushi and about 30 minutes total before our server dropped the check off without asking us if we wanted anything else. She huffed and said, "well its going to be about 20 minutes because everyone else has started ordering sushi so the kitchen is backed up." I stated that would be fine. She seemed annoyed that this didn't deter us from still ordering it. I don't know if we were given bad service because of the way we were dressed? I had on jeans and a hoodie and my gf was wearing jeans and a sweater. While we werent super dressy we werent slumming it either. I feel this somehow added to the poor service. Our drinks were only refilled when I flagged someone else down.

All in all this is a restaurant that serves fantastic sushi and moderate prices but offers poor service. I probably will visit again and update my review if the service...

Horrible horrible horrible service by our waiter, if I could give negative stars I would. We had a table of four and out for my birthday with our adult daughters and no other plans so we had tolerance on our side... But this guy was just plain terrible and truly ruined our expensive dish but not our evening because we are tolerant but the flame went out and he didn't return to relive it, we couldn't get his attention then he promised (I asked him specifically to return when it's time to eat so he said 'I promise to be back before its done) yet it over boiled and he didn't return until we decided to eat not knowing and we were actually finished, that takes a bit of time to be gone. Excuses excuses and one of the three times he checked on us he said that the reason he didn't return with our drinks because the bar was waiting on volcano drink glasses - yet we were REFILLLING our empty volcano glass so I'm guessing he uses that excuse a lot without thinking. Check came without a single word or 'thank you' no opportunity to ask waiter for anything else...and more importantly didn't ask us for desert.... After 20 some odd years of Nakashima birthday photos this is the first time I left with out one and when I finally got his attention to ask if they did that at this location he spun around (before I could say never mind don't bother) and dashed in my mid sentence into the kitchen and we again didn't see him for another 10 minutes so we finally left. Unfortunately we Americans tip well because we are polite and last night was no exception but he truly deserved to be stiffed... Which I'd never do. If you feel like you were busy last night perhaps you should go out more because I'd say you were not since several empty tables and only a few people in the bar might be an indicator. Waiter had lots of excuses. Poor service didn't ruin the night as I was with great company however it did inspire this review. I once waitresses at a high end restaurant and I own my own biz. This review is nicer than deserved and we won't be back to this location, too many other...