Katsumidori Sushi Tokyo — Restaurant in Honolulu

Sorry for the long review. Please read it and let more people see it! We just had lunch at the restaurant today. It was an AWFUL experience. It’s a long review but please take a min and read it through. This will change your mind! The WORST on the island contains races and disrespectful service attitudes. I checked in with the front desk lady, she’s old, and she took me straight to the back while there are plenty of seats at the front and the counter. I was trying to talk to her regarding to a seat change, she ignored and left. That was very rude but I’ll take that she didn’t hear me, even I raised volume asked her again. And then I talked to the Chef at the counter, the Chef is fairly nice and kind. He helped us switched to the counter and took our order. After switching to the front, I thought we could finally restart freshingly but things get unexpected worse. The male server started putting down plates and chopsticks for preparation next to me. He literally DROPPED every single one of them with squeezy noise next to me since there were three seats on my left. How pathetic! He’s probably having a bad day or his gf slept with another guy? Since we switched the seat, we have never ever received a single cup of water or anyone ask us for the water demands. We ended up ordering a beer and a oloong tea. I only see three server in the restaurant and the restaurant is about 30-40 percent full. Can’t remember how many time they were chatting playing, and on their phone while ignoring the plates we finished. Even the male server was holding the water pitcher walked behind my seat, I just don’t get the damn water. Lol good gig good show. And then we had to put empty plates on the side for not blocking the way. At the very end, I was trying to take a look at the menu but accidentally hit my tempera sauce bowl and it spilled a bit on my shorts. Luckily, it was a swimming shorts. Three server walked back and force millions of times without a single ask or even a single piece of napkin. What a beautiful day! The female server only came twice with the food we ordered. She never asked about the water and never checked on us. Assume that all three of them are busy in the 30-40 percent fulfilled restaurant? Life is struggle huh! Lol! I’m guessing three server were blind and deaf, maybe they need to go and see the doctor for such an arrogant attitude and the race opinions in their head. I wish I left after switching the seat. One more little tip, heard the old lady at the front was whispering in the store that, if Asian people came, bring them to the back, leave the rest at the front. Aren’t yourself Asian? What’s wrong with being an Asian? This is OMFG. Well, I know lots of Asian people had some good experiences here and some bad( 80% because of the service attitude). And they shared on the internet and it accidentally famed this spot. However, they don’t appreciate it at all. The only one star I’m giving here is that two chefs are nice and he and she gave us a smile while talking. Can’t we find another sushi place on the island? There are a million of sushi place here, this one is truly one of the kind. Disrespectful, rude, blind, deaf, discriminating. Thanks for the time and hope u all had good exp somewhere...

This was a very different experience than other sushi restaurants I have eaten at. At other restaurants, the fish and other ingredients are in a long glass refrigerated display. At Katsumidori, they were in boxes with a glass top that only the sushi chef could see. One of the very interesting things is the ingredients are already sliced, instead of slicing it in front of you.

My chef was an older gentleman, so I thought him to be one of the senior chefs. However, he would ask other chefs for certain types of fish. The slices were handed to him to make my sushi. Perhaps, each ingredient box only carries one type of fish. I would have preferred the fish to be sliced in front of me so it would be fresher. Don't get me wrong, the fish was fresh, but it didn't glisten like freshly cut sashimi.

One very strange thing is my chef was practicing his peeling of daikon and cucumber between making sushi. This is where the chef makes a continuous slice peeling the vegetable from the outer all the way to the inner core. Think of peeling an apple around and around until you get to the core. This is one of the first skills most sushi chefs learn. After they finish their apprenticeship, they should be able to peel the vege paper thin. I'm not sure what was going on, but his skill level was not up to par. Perhaps he had an accident and was retraining himself. I don't know. From what I observed, all I can say is his cuts were jagged, thick and uneven in thickness. My dinner guests also noticed this.

The food was still good, but I would have preferred to have the fish sliced in front of me. And of course, not to have the chef practice between...

Katsumidori is very very busy (at least at night times after 8pm) and I would recommend you make a reservation before going, or you may need to wait 30 minutes to an hour to grab a seat or to get your takeout orders processed. The sushi stations have much more backlog than the rest of the kitchen, and if you’re dining in, you should be able to enjoy your non-sushi items before you get your sushi. As for takeouts, I highly recommend you either go all sushi or all non-sushi, when you mix the two your non-sushi items can come out very cold. We ordered fried chicken along with a Yokozuna sushi set, and we ate the food immediately at a bench nearby the restaurant after receiving the food and we noticed fried chicken is already quite cold and soggy.

As far as the sushi goes, some items are undoubtedly quite good. We enjoyed most of the nigiris except for the clam and eel ones, but these lower quality nigiri (and cold fried chickens) really lowered the overall dining experience (see picture, ones with green checkmarks are good, rest you should avoid). We tried multiple sushi restaurants in Oahu at this point, and we had Genki sushi (sushi chain with multiple locations in Oahu) the night before and I would recommend going there instead as quality of sushi is equal and most of the times better than Katsumidori, and you don’t have to wait at all there.

I highly appreciate Katsumidori’s serving staff, they were like superheroes doing multiple jobs at the same time, but overall I wouldn’t come...