Kiku Sushi & Grill — Restaurant in Florida

In the continuing search for a great sushi restaurant in this area, we tried Kiku Sushi today rather than go to our old standby, Ocean Star. In part, we tried it because of the Google reviews. A mistake. Since the various sites say "reservations a must", I called and asked if there'd be any need for a party of two in about 5 minutes. No need. That was correct, because the restaurant was literally empty of customers at 12.30pm on a weekday. All right, it's a new-ish restaurant. We sat down anyway and went over the menus. My wife ordered a club soda and was met with a puzzled look until the waitress suggested "Perrier?" It came in a glass with one cube of ice. I'd requested iced green tea, which came with a few more cubes but was so light and tasteless, I thought perhaps it was just water. (To be fair, when I complained, the waitress brought me a stronger one.) I took a look at the sushi bar and decided to order some salmon sashimi, based on the beautiful piece of fatty salmon I saw toward the front of the case. We also got an age dofu appetizer. Wife ordered a tempura bento box and I had the sashimi bento. Let's start with the miso soup. Nice and cloudy, good amount of seaweed, but so salty it was inedible. Moving on to the salad, iceberg lettuce and a tiny grape tomato drowning in below-average generic ginger dressing. We asked for shchimi. Blank look. "Togarashi." Blank look. "Japanese chili pepper." Ah. The waitress went to check, then informed us that "they don't use that in cooking here, only Vietnamese hot sauce." She brought us some, which turned out to be your basic sriracha. The age tofu was just weird, unlike any we'd had before. Nicely cut up into bite-sized pieces and beautifully crisp - but no bonito and no scallions, and barely enough sauce on the side for the two of us to eat half of it. Also, it tasted like it had been fried in old oil. Bento boxes came with "fried shumai", which neither of us had run into prior to this. I asked what they were made of and was told "shrimp". Breaking one open, I found mostly batter, nothing else discernable. They were covered in a sweet sauce. Why not just do steamed shumai? The edamame was all right, again generic. The tempura tasted like it was fried in oil that should have been changed. The shrimp were cheap previously frozen - which is a real crime when you're in one of the best shrimp spots in the world. The most annoying part of the food was the salmon sashimi. Normally, when you order sashimi - not sushi with rice, just the plain raw fish - you're given choicer pieces than you would get with sushi. Normally, also, you'd get the type of sashimi they showed in the sushi bar case. Not so here. The salmon I received was below average; I could have gotten something as good or better at Kroger or Publix. Ditto the tuna. Last, although the service was all right, I had to get up and find our waitress twice - once to ask if we could order now, and once to ask for the bill. Everyone was friendly, but the food is so below par, we won't bother going back. And frankly, at $38.00 for appetizer, two bentos, two non-alcoholic drinks and a tip, this is absurdly over priced. By the way, they do offer udon, but no Nabeyaki Udon, an...

I'm an out of town traveler and stopped by here on a whim for quick takeout. What a got was an phenomenal experience with really amazing people.

This place is A MUST as the food is incredible. We got a variety of items including vegetable hibachi, vegetarian sushi rolls, seaweed salad, fried rice and vegetable spring rolls.

Everything was amazing but speaking for myself, the seaweed salad and vegetarian sushi was probably THE BEST I've ever had.

To add to the amazing food, the presentation was incredible for a take out order. I could tell that whoever made the rolls did so with care and honestly wanting to provide a memorable customer experience. I could tell by the small details in the garnish and how everything was placed and packaged that whoever made my food loves his job and really puts in the extra effort which is sadly lost these days in most restaurants.

Felt like I was eating at a 5 star restaurant out of a take out box as I was sitting in the condo looking at the beach.

If I could give 10 stars I could. Wish I had a place like this...

Will never order from this place again. I placed my order in the store by the same girl that takes my order everytime and she charged $46.17 for the same meal we order all the time. This seemed much pricier than normal. I even tipped 20% even though I picked up my order. Then the same girl told me she had to charge me $5.00 more for soy paper for the sushi. I was so in shock that I just gave this girl a $10.00 tip and then she had the nerve to charge me $5.00 more for soy paper after I already paid $56.00. I left irritated and I finally called them back and told them I am not pay a 20% tip for a pick up. The girl got smart with me on the phone and said she was keeping it. I will be reporting this restaurant to the BBB and will be exposing them online on several...