Kansai — Restaurant in Oakland

Disclaimer: I was avoiding making this review because I didn't want them to get review bombed by TikTok (I made a video about this situation and it went pretty viral...with hundreds of people demanding me to say the name of the restaurant. Despite this situation I don't think they deserve that but I think it's been long enough now so I'm leaving this review...)

Now the review: I had a very terrible experience for my birthday dinner which still makes me sad to this day since Kansai used to be one of my favorite places to get sushi and have dinner.

I made a reservation almost a month in advance for a party of 18, I called a week before to verify that the reservation was still good to go to which they put my card on file to secure the spot, and I even called the day of to let them know I was on my way.

When I arrived at Kansai, some of my guests who arrived before me made me aware that they gave my reservation to the wrong group...a group that wasn't even close to 18. You're probably wondering how that happened? Well, when this random group came in, the wait staff asked if they were the "reservation for Liz for 18?", to which they answered "yes" despite the fact that they were not the group...and no there was no way that this group had someone else named Liz because they were all men. And there were only about 8 or 9 of them...why they said "yes" to a reservation that wasn't there's...I have no clue. One of my guests even went up to them and asked if they were part of the party (assuming maybe they just didn't know those friends of mine) and they laughed and said "we don't know who Liz is we just wanted to get seated. Want to join us?"

Despite the fact that the group wasn't there for long, the Kansai staff still didn't kick them out because "they had already been seated". So instead we had to wait for a new spot...for a group of 18. This took about 1.5 hours, where we had to stand outside in the cold. When we were finally seated, the wait staff barely checked on us and we had to get up and go to the counter to ask for service multiple times. I also was never offered an apology, discount, or any sort of acknowledgement of this mistake. I sincerely regret not asking for the manager, but I also shouldn't have needed to. I overall left feeling very sad and disappointed on my birthday, and I haven't returned since even though I used to eat here pretty regularly (hence why I wanted to have my birthday there).

Overall, I'm still very upset that this happened and I've never experienced unprofessionalism like this before. Again, this used to be one of my favorite restaurants in the bay but this is something that I just...

Sigh... where to start... they always say that first impressions always are the ones that count the most. Unfortunately, this first impression turned out to be a bad impression.

This was a dinner for our daughter's 15th birthday dinner. She loves Japanese food, so we ordered a variety of food for dinner on her special day. We ordered the Sushi & Sashimi platter, which was almost $50, for the birthday girl. For the rest of the family, we ordered beef teriyaki donburi, Katsu donburi, and a California roll.

The expensive Sushi & Sashimi platter was pretty with an assortment of fresh fish (3 each of tuna, salmon, hamachi), 8 piece California roll, and 8 piece Nigiri. My daughter said the fish was good but the Sushi rice in the nigiri and California rolls were undercooked. The rice kernels were just dry and hard with bits of crunchy raw rice.

The beef teriyaki donburi was pretty good with tender strips of grilled beef and plenty of sauce to go along with it. The meat had a nice grilled burnt taste and was not dried out or tough and chewy. The rice that was included was undercooked as well.

The Katsu donburi was, I think, the worst I've ever tasted. Every mouthful was a bite of disappointment. Not only was the rice undercooked, crunchy, and extremely dry like it was from the day before and microwaved, but the pork katsu was one of the saddest pieces of pork I've ever seen. A proper pork katsu should be at least half an inch thick. The Kansai version looked like it was a candidate headed for a meat jerky factory. In other words, it was thin, hard, and drier than roadkill on a lonely desert road. Even the egg and katsu coating felt bad for it and tried to revive the pork, but they ended up dried up too.. sigh... I ended up giving most of the food to the dog to eat. At least he didn't complain or mind eating it.

The dishes also came with the standard miso soup, which was okay, nothing to write home about... the salad had that sweet sesame mayo dressing that was pretty watered down.

Overall, the sushi and sashimi was just okay, except the beef teriyaki was good and the katsu is to be avoided at all cost. If I could rate each individual dish or would be 4 for the fish and beef teriyaki and -4...

One of (if not the only) sushi places in Temescal. Serves decent quality sushi, and is always hopping with people. A popular spot for a nice evening sushi dinner.

Good for the mid-range sushi restaurant. This isn't your fancy place with perfectly cut beautifully uniform sushi, so don't come in with Jiro-level expectations. You'll find all the familiar rolls here, as well as some local specials like the Oakland roll, Temescal Roll, etc. Their menu is quite eclectic so whether you're looking for your favorites like spicy tuna or want to venture into one of their specials, you'll find something you liek. They also have Japanese staples like donburi and Udon, for those that don't like sushi.

MAKI ROLLS: Spider roll (5 out of 5): Inside: Soft shell crab, imitation crab, cucumber, avocado, gobo, kaiware; Top: Fish egg; Sauce: Unagi sauce. Fried crab was crispy and was balanced by the sweetness of the eel sauce. I notice this about spider rolls in general, but they were quite huge and I couldn't fit it into my mouth in one piece. Had to eat it in two bites like a newb!

Make it hot (5 out of 5): Inside: Spicy tuna, cucumber; Top: Seared tuna, jalapeno; Sauce: Ponzu, sesame oil, hot sauce. My favorite maki that we ordered. Had a nice spicy kick to it, with a balance of sweet from the ponzu and spicy from the sriracha and jalapeno.

Kansai roll (4 out of 5): Inside: Tuna, salmon, yellowtail Top: Unagi, avocado & fish egg Sauce: unagi sauce, spicy mayo, wasabi sauce. Had to get the namesake roll. It was a good roll, it just had some items that I personally am not a fan of (mayo and fish egg). Why is it so hard to find sushi that's not slathered in kewpie...

New Port (baked roll): Inside: Salmon, hamachi, Top: Scallop & fish egg, Sauce: Bake sauce, unagi sauce. I liked the idea of having a hot baked roll, but what I didn't know was that their bake sauce seemed to be mayo based and I absolutely hate mayo. I'm sure it was good and others had enjoyed it, but for me I had to scrape that stuff off! The rest of the roll was decently good, and the hot sushi roll was actually...