Kanpai Japanese Restaurant and Sushi — Restaurant in Colorado Springs

Being cheap on quality will not get you far in the restaurant business. This place is in a fantastic location, that and with it being relatively new favored them tonight as it was a full house! What a great thing to see, a non chain restaurant in this part of town doing well...so far anyways. We love sushi and were looking forward to a great dinner. We were seated promptly and our server was super friendly and efficient. In fact I noticed the 4+ employees just running around non stop trying to provide good service. We began with hot green tea and proceeded to order 4 rolls. Our green tea wasn't terrible, but cheap in quality (just a bag of bits of tea leaves you could get at an Asian grocery store for a quarter). The caterpillar, volcano, and spicy tuna rolls were decent, with the volcano being our favorite. The spicy tuna and unagi in the other 2 rolls were not bad. However, our 4th roll (the lion king) had shrimp tempura that was overly fried. It tasted as if it was forgotten in the fryer and cooked until it was beyond chewy. So much so that it was actually tough to bite into. It wasn't even crispy, a sign that it was made way ahead of time and left out...it just wasn't good. We both had a bite and left the rest. Our server apologized about the roll and mentioned that she would let her supervisor know. A few minutes later an older gentleman who was also making sushi rolls and attending to tables (I assume he was the manager or owner) came over but didn't say a word. He just refilled our cups with hot water; now making our already cheap green tea diluted to taste more like hot water. Even so we thanked him for coming over to "serve" us. It was a cold evening so the warm drink was appreciated. That being said, there was no offer to remake the roll and worse yet we were charged despite barely touching the roll. It's ok...we paid our bill, tipped our server and left soon after. We didn't feel like eating any more. This place failed on basic business sense/customer service by not addressing the subpar roll. The profit on a $8.95 roll pales in comparison versus gaining a potential return customer, great word of mouth and a great review. None of which they will...

We were looking for a decent ALL-YOU-CAN-EAT sushi place since we love sushi and our kids can really devour roll after roll. A few co-workers recommended Kanpai, not as their favorite place but good for ALL-YOU-CAN-EAT, which ran $37.95/adult and $27.95/child under 12. It came with a variety of appetizers such as spring rolls, gyoza, mussels, miso soup, etc. + a small scoop of ice cream after dinner.

I can't remember our server's name but she was extremely friendly but very busy since the placed was packed on a Friday night, so it took 15 minutes or more for her to get back to us.

Now for the important part...the SUSHI...sad to say but this was probably some of the worst we've had...to be fair, we've always lived on the coast, so maybe it was just fresher where we lived. Everyone in our party of 4 was disappointed roll after roll...rolls lacked flavor, tasted fishy, and on a couple rolls, the "raw" fish was even chewy or hard, which was very odd (never had sushi with that texture). The one roll we actually liked, ironically, was a deep-fried tempura vegetable roll that we thought would just be interesting to try since it was ALL-YOU-CAN-EAT, but anything deep-fried is usually pretty good right? :)

Presentation of the rolls was nice but if it doesn't taste good then it's not worth it to go back. Appetizers were decent. We would consider going back one day after trying more sushi places in Colorado Springs...maybe they had a bad day when we went.

We chose specialty rolls costing as much as $18.95/roll and some basic rolls costing as little as $8.95/roll and after doing the math for the few appetizers and the scoop of ice cream we had, we barely broke even on the price, had we bought rolls, appetizers, and the scoop of ice cream individually. We all shared (9) rolls, (3) appetizers, and (3) ice creams. In the future, we'd probably just buy rolls individually (if we went back).

Of note, if you don't finish all the rolls you order, they will charge you individually, so order a few rolls at a time.

Service we gave 4 stars Food Quality, Taste, & Presentation we gave 2 stars Overall we gave...

My experience with Kanpai comes after my time in Japan. While I would not expect the quality, freshness, and overall palate of a Japanese sushiya, I do expect for there to be excellence in serving menu items that have been in Colorado Springs for the past 20 years.

There overall environment for Sushi Kanpai is modern and the menu is heavy with Makizushi. The usual dragon, rainbow, Philly, and Colorado rolls are available. The nigiri menu is a little small, but I was happy to see hotate on the menu.

The miso soup was okay, but served a tad too hot for service and cooked too long.. Overcooking the miso paste leaves it lacking the earthy and sweet flavors that make for a great soup.

For sushi, my attention was first brought to the rice. Barely seasoned, and lacking the bounce that good shari has, each nigiri piece was left flat and not a balance of land and sea. Saba was firm, well vinegared, and well balanced with the rice. The scallop lacked the overall sweetness that fresh scallops offer, but I can look past that in our landlocked state. However, the cut should be butterflied down the middle.  It does not need nori if it is done right.

It creates no better texture when in Maki form. The rice takes on a dry texture, as if it has sat out. My guess is that the rinse and rest step of making rice was rushed for service.

Salmon quality was decent, with a great springy texture.

Shrimp tempura inside of the dragon roll wasn't fresh, and that was apparent when biting into the shrimp tail.

My overall experience here is that while Kanpai is modern, and may leave the belly full, it leaves the palate...