Kimono Sushi — Restaurant in Hollymead

I'm posting this only to try to offer helpful advice, given I really liked meeting the people who run the restaurant tonight.

My daughter and I split one dish from every part of the menu tonight. I had a really hard time with all of it. I suspect it's because North American tastes are simply different from Japan's.

The presentations were all great. I especially appreciated what I think was real crab meat in the sushi (for whatever reason, it has become widely acceptable for almost all fake crab to simply be called crab with no clarification). It was minced up so not what we were expecting, however.

I couldn't eat the chicken curry. It suffers from a few drawbacks I myself learned the hard way while cooking it myself. Namely, aside from vegetables cooked down in the base, the other vegetables should be added only at the very last moment, to avoid limp/overcooked onions, peppers, and similarly crisp vegetables. Also, carrots simply don't belong in this type of curry. It's counterintuitive, but they impart a strong flavor when stewed with your typical curry flavors. I say this as somebody who likes carrots in Asian cousine a lot. Similarly, I tasted what I think was parsely or a similar herb in it that didn't belong.

My daughter and I both commented that the stir fry with noodles had the same smell and flavor. She described it as Thanksgiving stuffing. The only one she is familiar with only has parsely and salted butter for seasoning. Again, I suspect the disconnect is with cultural expectations for seasoning--and would guess that certain spices can be used in Asian cuisine that we would normally have too strong an association with for other food (i.e., when I smell something I think is parsely or something like parsely, I can only then taste herbaceous Western dishes that clash with my expectations).

I also think that we might have gotten versions of these dishes that had been pre-prepared too long before. The wait for the order was given as 15 minutes, involved 3 main dishes and 1 side dish, and came with both rice and noodles. I highly doubt all of that could be made fresh in such a short period of time. That might have resulted in some of the unexpected and disliked flavors I detected.

I also felt like the curry was under-seasoned, needing a bit more spice, more salt, and a significant increase in sweetness (sugar being the ultimate secret ingredient in a good curry).

Also, a seemingly minor, but big issue to me is how they slather almost every sushi roll in mayo, or flavored mayo. Even some of the stir fries appear to come with mayo-like sauces. When I called to order, I asked twice for them to make sure there was no mayo in my order, and I asked two different ways to ensure accurate communication. Then, when I picked up the order, I asked them to confirm there was no mayo in the bag at all, in any form. They said no, there isn't. I found a cup of the stuff on the side and almost vomited at the thought of it being anywhere near this kind of Asian food. Like the late Anthony Bourdain used to say, mayo-based sauces shouldn't come within even a mile of good sushi. I'm sure he would have had a heart attack if somebody suggested that it could be a sauce for hibachi stir fry.

Let me reiterate, though, that I honestly just hope these businessowners are successful, if they aren't already. They seem like very nice people, and I'm sure are terrific neighbors to...

I wanted some Hibachi so bad whenever we came back home from Oklahoma. I Googled and found this restaurant. Pulling up to the building makes you question if it's a place to eat. Yet when I walked in, it was very clean. Employees were very nice. When I got my food at first, I was disappointed cause it had teriyaki chicken, and I ordered Hibachi chicken. Long story short, the Lady (Rosmarita name on my receipts) said that she would have the chef remake my chicken. Not only did they remake the chicken. They made the whole plate. She (Rosmarita) told me to take the first plate also. Whenever I got home, it was so so good! I appreciate her willingness to make it right for me cause she didn't have to. Never got mad they just fixed it, and the chef brought it out to me. Thank you, Staff, for going over and above to satisfy me. I'm very glad that I chose Kimono Sushi. Try it for yourself!! I promise you that you will be happy and really enjoy the food as well as the service. Again, thank you...

We arrived on a Thursday in December around 5:00pm. The interior was subtly decorated for Christmas. It’s small inside with about 8 tables and a few bar seats. Very limited beer and wine selections. The wine selection is basically plum and sake. We ordered takeout. The curry chicken was a miss. Mostly heat with very little curry flavor. The vegetables were precooked and so ended up being overcooked by the time they made it to the curry dish. The chicken was bland and somewhat tough. The accompaniment of rice was mushy. The shrimp tempura roll had good flavor and just enough rice; however, it was cold. Like it had been prepared earlier and put in the refrigerator. The Knight roll had so many things going on we expected an explosion of flavor, but all the ingredients just melded into nothing. The side of ginger – I’m not sure what happened to it. It was just this pink, unappetizing blob. We had high hopes since this restaurant is close to our home but were sadly...