Koyi Sushi AYCE — Restaurant in Costa Mesa

When we came to the location we were waiting outside for our friend and the server actually came outside and told us to wait inside because it is so hot. The greet and welcome was already off to a great start!

The location inside is small but it has a cozy vibe.

When we sat down she made sure we understood the policies so we would not get overcharged.

I think the menu looks amazing, the only opportunity I see is that it can be hard locating the items on the order menu. Maybe it would be easier if it was in alphabetical order it would be easier.

FOOD:

I apologize as I did not take pictures of the food :/ we were enjoying the food and company haha

Tempura Appetizer: This was FRESH. The items in the tempura were cooked nicely and the batter was nice and light.

Crab Salad: The imitation crab with the miso dressing go well together and the imitation crab was prepped well so it doesn't feel like it is imitation.

Baked Salmon Roll: Usually when sauce is on a roll it is overly sweet and just overpowering but this roll did well highlighting the salmon!

Spider Roll: Again a nice balance of flavor. Savory and delicious!

Mango and Salmon Roll: The mango flavor with the salmon goes well. I am just not a fan of cream cheese in sushi at all, but it's okay.

Baked Scallop Roll: Also a great balance of flavors.

Samurai Roll: A little too much citrus on these. Still tasty.

Honeymoon Roll: This was good.

Ninja Roll: The sizes of the cuts were humongous. The ends could be smaller as it almost felt like eating half a bun.

Costa Mesa Roll: This roll was very sweet. The onion was a bit much, but not bad for me because I love onions.

Salmon Skin Hand Roll: This was good, the salmon skin was nice and crunchy. I think maybe a little seasoning would be good. I think right now it has just some salt which is a good start.

Sushi Rice: I saw mention of rice seasoning in a review but the rice we had did not have any seasoning on it specifically.

Rice Ratios: The rice ratios were good and better than most places.

Overall I think this place was good. I think it is a solid place for AYCE Sushi. The service was great from beginning to end. The food was good, but nothing that was life changing or innovative. The food for the most part was balanced in sweetness and other flavors....

AYCE review: Keep in mind their only parameters are 3 round limit and premium nigiri ("raw" shrimp, ikura, bluefin tuna, scallop) is 2pp total.

Service |3.5/5| Moderate wait for a smaller restaurant with about 50ish seats inside including 10 at the bar. Depending on how busy they are, you will still need to put your name down for the bar. You write your name on their whiteboard on the wall. I think this could be improved with a Yelp waitlist or something that can give confirmation or an estimate based on # of parties ahead.

My wait to be seated: 45 minutes for 2 on Friday at 7-8pm My wait for the 1st round: 25 minutes for just nigiris.

Servers are pretty attentive with waters and picking up first round AYCE orders. However, alert your server if your sushi count doesn't match what you ordered. We ordered 18 salmon and 8 yellowtail nigiri and got the same number of yellowtail as salmon. By the time we alerted the server, she said it would take awhile to fulfill the error because chefs were backed up with orders. Not sure if it was because they needed our table to seat the people waiting at 10pm who conveniently needed our table, but I understand needing to keep things moving for a smaller establishment.

Food | 4/5 | I'm sure you're visiting because of their reviews of great fish to rice ratios. This is true. Their rice portions were so comically small, I (almost) felt bad. Keep in mind your 3 round limit so order intelligently! Their premium raw shrimp nigiri is not amaebi. I'm not sure what it is... kind of like cooked amaebi but not quite cooked shrimp? Salmon was my favorite. Yellowtail was meh. Eel was ok. Handrolls are not like the ones advertised on the laminated menu so their salmon HR is a spicy salmon HR. All HRs are spicy versions that come with cucumber juliennes.

Ambiance |3.5/5| Pretty average. Compared to nearby AYCE restaurants it's more plain. No loud music though! Just the sound of the table right next to you chewing!

Parking |5/5| Medium sized lot that pretty is only used by Koyi-goers especially after 7pm since all other businesses are closed by then.

Overall: It's decent. Compared to Sushi Damu, Aikan, and Sake 2 Me, I'd...

Visited on Sunday, August 24 at 4:30 pm, and the experience was very disappointing. Service was slow and inattentive — it took over 20 minutes for our food to arrive after placing the order. Our server was wearing an AirPod during her shift, which came across as unprofessional and made it feel like guests weren’t the priority.

On top of that, there was only one employee making sushi during dinner time while every table in the restaurant was full, which clearly added to the delays. To make matters worse, one of the items from our order was given to another table, and the server openly admitted the mistake.

Even more concerning, some of the dishes tasted noticeably extra fishy compared to my previous five visits, raising questions about freshness and consistency. The atmosphere also left much to be desired — the restaurant was in complete silence with no music playing. I actually had to ask our server if it was possible to turn on music, and only then was it addressed.

Between the long wait, lack of professionalism, food mix-up, off-tasting dishes, and poor atmosphere, this visit was extremely disappointing. With so many other sushi restaurants to choose from, I won’t be returning here.

On top of that, there was only one employee making sushi during dinner time while every table in the restaurant was full, which clearly added to the delays. To make matters worse, one of the items from our order was given to another table, and the server openly admitted the mistake.

Even more concerning, some of the dishes tasted noticeably extra fishy compared to my previous five visits, which raises questions about freshness and consistency.

Between the long wait, lack of professionalism, food mix-up, and quality issues, this visit was extremely disappointing. With so many other sushi restaurants to choose from, I won’t be...