Kura Revolving Sushi Bar — Restaurant in Katy

Sadly, I ended up being heavily disappointed in the Kura at this location. I don't know what the problem was in the kitchen, but they were abnormally slow to get my orders out to me. Normally, whenever I order something to be sent out to my table off the touch screen menu at a different, Kura location (University Blvd. in Sugar Land), I've noticed the average time it takes to arrive. Anything that has to be cooked, like the soup, ramen, or fried dishes, takes a little longer to come out than something that is cooler, such as the majority of sushi options. I'm usually surprised how quick a sushi dish will arrive at the Sugar Land location just after I have ordered it; sometimes within three (THREE!) minutes of my ordering a cooler dish. This Kura location was, on average, taking a little over five minutes to send out the cooler, sushi orders I was placing. Add to that, I only had a short, lunch break from work that afternoon of only roughly 35 minutes. I was placing orders off the touch screen menu for the sushi plates I wanted to eat well in advance because of the time crunch I was under, but the kitchen kept taking their time sending them out. I was waiting so much for something to come out from the kitchen that I started taking food items to eat from the conveyor belt as they went by, something I don't usually do these days. The straw that broke the camel's back was my placing a touch screen order for a "Spicy Yellowtail Hand Roll (Soy Paper)". I placed this order back-to-back at the same time as a "Negitoro Hand Roll (Soy Paper)". After a little over 5 minutes, the Negitoro Hand Roll (Soy Paper) arrived. I kept waiting for the Spicy Yellowtail Hand Roll (Soy Paper). And waiting. And waiting. And waiting. I am not exaggerating here. It never arrived. If you look at the photo I took of the Order Status screen with my cell phone camera, you can see my order for Negitoro Hand Roll (Soy Paper) was time stamped at 14:47:26 a.k.a. 2:47 pm. I think this refers the time my order was sent out from the kitchen. As one can see from the photo, there is no time listed for my order of Spicy Yellowtail Hand Roll (Soy Paper). My camera time stamped that photo of the Order Status screen at 3:03pm. From the information on this picture, at a minimum, I was waiting 16 minutes for the kitchen to send out my order of Spicy Yellowtail Hand Roll (Soy Paper). I finally gave up. I decided to pay my bill, so I could get out of there. This did not happen quickly. I had already waited past the time I had planned to leave to get back to my job from my short, lunch break. I waited for the server to arrive when I used the touch screen menu to call one over to my table, so I could explain to them to please not add the Spicy Yellowtail Hand Roll (Soy Paper) to my bill. I waited for my bill after I had used the touch screen menu to get a total. Even paying my bill took much longer than it normally would have to get out of there. I don't know what was going on behind the scenes at this location. I'm not angry at the staff (the kitchen) so much as highly disappointed in them, and their service. I did ask a server if something was going on at this location. They mentioned that the manager was having to take care of something behind the scenes. I left it at that. Even so, I believe it will be a very long time before I ever eat at this location again. If you want some really great sushi, I would suggest going to the Kura location in Sugar Land at University Blvd. I have never been disappointed in the food and service at the Kura...

The line was extremely long. An hour 40 minute wait, but was it worth it? Absolutely. As we were seated we had a warm welcome and introduction to Kura from the staff. Drinks were taken and immediately arrived minutes later. Thankfully we were able to order immediately since the conveyor belt was next to our table as it is for all the tables. Very spacious booths, enough to fit 4-6 persons. The restaurant is very clean and the utensils at the table were readily available to use. The owner was so kind, she invited us back and explained where Kura came from, informed us on the background. I loved it. The history and the passion she protruded was very inviting. I ordered so much, but from what I remember here it goes:

Tonkotsu ramen was pretty delicious. Of course not the ramen you'd get at an actual ramen place but it still had a thick rich broth and the noodles were not like the bagged ones you'd get at the store. The pork was semi tender and chives gave it an additional taste!

The curry rice was literally curry and sushi rice. A filler for sure but good flavor.

I really enjoyed all of raw salmon dishes. Their salmon, is definitely better quality than most sushi restaurants surprisingly since they are serving higher volumes.

The seared steak sushi were flavorful, some were a little chewy, but so much umami flavor. What I liked about this was there wasn't too much rice. So you can taste more than that vinegar rice.

The scallops were delicious. It melts in your mouth. I thought this was one of my favorite dishes

Toro was okay, came in only one piece per order. Wishing it was a bit more fatty, but this was okay.

The sweet shrimp was a bit slimy but good flavor.

I tried the crispy rice with crab and avocado. The crispy rice was done right when we ordered it. I loved that because it was actually hot and crispy!!

The soft shell tempura was my least favorite. The amount of breading to crab was overwhelming. I didn't taste the crab because the breading was too thick.

The beef and sushi rice plate was good. Again, a filler. But good flavor. Thinly sliced beef in a sweet soy sauce.

Soft shell crab hand roll was good. I liked how this wasn't as thickly fried. It had a good sauce with it and not much rice which I prefer.

Eel handroll had bones in it. Enough said. If it hadn't, flavor was good.

Sesame balls were delicious. Order them for yourself, they came out warm!!

Japanese donuts delicious. If you get a burnt one, take it back. They're like beignets with vanilla ice cream and honey. Light and fluffy!

The taikyaki red bean fish had a great amount of red bean filling!!

Mochi green tea I'd pass. It didn't have much green tea flavor.

Watermelon was fresh.

Not sure if I missed anything, but I will say that the service here is quick and they give you prizes if you reach a certain amount of plates. My group and I ate way too much and because they were celebrating their opening, the staff was sweet enough to give everyone a prize on top of prizes we have already won. I think once the hype dies down, which probably won't be for a while, this would be even more pleasant to come again. A perfect interactive place to even take kids!! The toys and television with the cartoons were absolutely entertaining. I hope they continue to maintain their great service and good...

I MANAGED TO GRAB 34 PICTURES EAT YOUR EYES OUT LADIES!!!

So despite the rating, eating at Sushi Kura was actually an experience that I quite enjoyed and believe anyone should have at least once. However, food-wise, I'm not sure if I'd be up to visiting it again. It's definitely something that you remember more fondly of way after the fact.

Since there are way too many things on offer in a kaitenzushi such as Sushi Kura, I'll do something a little bit different. Instead of going through each of the dishes that we tasted, I'll just give some highlights and talk a little bit about the gasp overall experience.

Starting with the food, a lot of their fishes are honestly below par even for kaitenzushi standards (like, I'm talking buffet sushi taste and freshness). The crab is also bland as hell, but that doesn't mean there aren't gems in the menu. I find that much of the "truly Japanese" stuff taste really good: Things like the seared scallop, kinmedai, tamago (egg cake), dashi olive sweet shrimp (YOU GET 2 FOR $3.25 BOIS!!!), and especially their uni. I've seen uni of worse quality selling for $7+ a piece. Here it's the same $3.25 price for a solid Grade A. Hence, if you are feeling adventurous and want to go really authentic, then Sushi Kura is the place for you. Everything else though, not so much. It's not a bad value, but there are only so many "truly Japanese" items and how they do so badly on the more basic and WAY more popular stuff is beyond me.

Now for the overall experience. Kaitenzushi is always fun, but what I'm more impressed about is their automatic plates-disposal system. You can put in any $3.25 plate (they use green for sushi and red for desserts, both work) to increase a counter, which will play a fun little clip every 5 plates you put in that advertises their condiments (the first clip starts at 10, though). Every 15 such plate, you'll also get a small souvenir from a lil' gacha ball. When we went, it was My Hero Academia can badges. There were 3 of us, and after some strategic planning and Japanese Zen, we did manage to reach 45 plates in total, so each of us went away with one. My friends got Bakugo and Shoto. I grabbed the last one which was a Deku because I'm an MC like that.

You also don't HAVE to engage in the kaiten either, which is great when you are seated in that one unfortunate table which never gets any food because everyone else could grab some fish before you. All of the dishes you see on the kaiten and more are also available à la carte, via the tablet menu. They come in the same gacha-able plate as well and should you press order, they'll automatically dash into your area via their own à la carte lane at breakneck speed. Just in case you needed a hint of that feeling of exclusivity that you never got in your life.

Speaking of seating, our seating process was a bit messy and we also had to change tables once because the machinery at ours didn't work.

TL;DR Go once. Grab some uni. See if you like it. Reach 15...