Kuro Sushi — Restaurant in Bellevue

Pretty much a disappoint from beginning to end.

Had an early (5:15 pm Saturday dinner) and arrived to a nearly empty restaurant. Taking our order took longer than expected considering, but not really a big deal. We ordered an appetizer and that took about 20 min to make a single roll (remember the restaurant was pretty much empty). We ordered tea, but that wasn't brought out until we began receiving our meal and we also had to ask about it. There were 4 of us dining and the timing when the first order was brought out (person 1) and between the last (person 4) was about 20 min. In trying to be polite, it was really an uncomfortable length where food gets cold while waiting for everything to arrive, and for person 4 who kept insisting that we begin eating.

The "Tempura Donburi" was $19 and delivered on a plate with 3 garnish sized pieces of Tempura (asparagus tip, single onion ring, coin sized sweet potato), a single scoop of purple rice with a salty egg topping, and a salad that dominated the plate. The Tempura Udon had 2 shrimp, double the veggies, and was a dollar cheaper (the portion of noodles, however, was lacking and the sight value was made worse by using an oversized serving bowl and too much broth). The other two meals (Poke bowl and Hamachi Kama collar) were unspectacular, but they were really nothing to complain about.

We did ask our server about the "Tempura portion" for the Tempura Donburi and they confirmed that it was smaller, was correct in size, and didn't include shrimp (????).

All in all, the flavors were ok, but really nothing special. Service was subpar as we had to ask for nearly everything (including multiple tea refills - the pot weirdly only filled 3 cups and there were 4 of us). Having worked in the restaurant world before, Kuro Sushi seems to be lacking awareness. Charge high prices only if you're providing value (good food, service, ambience, etc.), if you're going to deliver small portions don't use giant serving plates, and if you're going to describe something as a Japanese Tempura Donburi dish, don't go all "fusion" unless you can be up front with it in your description.

Planning to follow up with the restaurant to see how they respond and will revise this if they do. Until then, definitely won't recommend and highly...

I like their fresh sheet! I love eating sashimi and sushi with different kind of fishes/seafood. Lots of time tuna/salmon/yellowtail etc don't satisfy me because they are like basics for every Japanese restaurants. So I really enjoyed that they offer Aji, Kanpachi, Suzuki, Burihira etc. Crab tower roll was great! Lots of thin fries, my son loved it. Definitely 5 star for the creative yet quality menu!

Service was great, they have enough people to cover a full house so you don't feel ignored and they come to check on you. Server introduced the sake I ordered and tried to pour with label facing at me all time like a high-end restaurant pouring fancy wine. I didn't catch her name but I appreciate the details.

Food was great as mentioned above. A great selection of Sake as well. Even though I haven't try everything on their menu, food I ordered was great, sushi from their fresh sheets was really good! I didn't order the couple rolls that were on fire, feels more like a gimmicky thing for me, but that's a subjective opinion, please go try and tell me I am wrong :) Wife ordered Tempura and it was done right, crispy and delicious! The only thing would be the price point of the menu is more on the expensive side, especially how I prefer nigiris, so I won't be able to come here very often. Not that the price/quality ratio is bad tho, so I will come back.

Atmosphere was excellent. Although the table I was assigned was a bit sticky, not sure if it was the type of cleaner product they use or the towel was used too often on a Friday night.

Overall, I would go again and support...

The roll was good. The experience was frustrating and very much not worth it.

I ordered one roll for takeout, and did not receive a time estimate. After 30 minutes, I stood at the front counter to ask for an estimate, but they would look over at me and just continue with their work.

After 10 more minutes of standing at the counter, I finally flagged someone down. She told me that one of their chefs was out, and that it would be about 15 more minutes. In the end, it was 25, and I left with my single sushi roll and a complementary Ramune drink after 65 minutes of waiting.

I had finished an 11-hour shift that day, and was basically in tears as I left, hungry, frustrated, and wishing I'd simply bought something at Safeway.

This would have been a significantly better experience if they had simply informed me they were short-staffed. Informed me of the wait time. Given me a signal update of their own accord.

Instead, I felt ignored when I tried to ask about it, and deprioritized as I saw several customers enter, order, and receive their orders while I was sitting there waiting. I'm not sure if my wait time was so long due to the menu item I ordered (over the rainbow roll - if so, I would have happily ordered a different item) or due to being a single-item takeout order, but it was very frustrating and not at all worth the time.

I hope that this restaurant's team (who seemed to be trying their best) can see this and realize how important communication is. It makes the difference between an "unfortunate but understandable" situation vs an extremely...