Kyoto Japanese Cuisine — Restaurant in Symmes Township

By far THE BEST Japanese I've tasted in the Mason area! Absolutely love this place. This is how I'd rate the items I've ordered there over my past 3 visits:

Miso soup - excellent!! (very flavorful, not too much seaweed). salad - a little simple/plain but still good. You seem to get miso & salad with anything you order. sushi - very good, huuuge variety. tempura - very good (a bit heavy and crispy for tempura breading, but otherwise fine. I really like the taro & sweet potato tempura they give you with the shrimp.) fried rice - yuuummy! hot tea - very good (I usually need sugar with tea, but I liked the taste of their tea so much I didn't even sweeten it). mochi ice cream - EXCELLENT! I tried mochi ice cream at Soho Bistro and hated it... gave it another shot here, and loved it! Glad to see at least this place knows how to do mochi!

So the food is great, the price is very reasonable, how about the service? It was a little... much. The servers were extremely attentive, always in the room (it's just one dining area), whisking away plates as soon as we finished them and constantly asking if we wanted drink refills. I won't give them any points off for this because the servers are dears, I know they mean well, and fast is great!! Just keep this in mind if you're looking for a quiet, slow-paced, relaxing meal... might not be the right place. Probably better for lunch and take-out. They are kind of on the casual side.

Anyway, still love the place and...

I’ve been going to Kyoto for the past 10 years at least, it’s my all time favorite sushi restaurant. However, I’m very sad to say it’s gone downhill recently. Much like how others have stated, the service is bad. The waiters are inattentive and last visit I sat for 15 mins with an empty plate waiting for a check, the place was empty, just me and a couple at another table, so it’s not like they were busy. I’m truly disappointed, they used to be so attentive; when I frequented the restaurant previously as a regular they would get me my drink, soup and salad without me having to order. They remembered me and I got great service and great food. Kyoto has always been pricey, but for awesome food it was worth it. I really think it’s a bad choice charging for soup and salad now considering how expensive the rolls are; 3 rolls, a fusion, Kyoto and samurai, typically cost me at least 30 bucks. I was willing to pay it with the better service and soup and salad included but now I really hesitate to return which deeply saddens me.

To the new owners of Kyoto, we’ve loved this restaurant for years and want to support you guys as a great local business. Please please please up the server standards, keep it tidy and keep the soup and salad free for dine in. I want to support this business so bad but if it continues to be negative experiences, myself and others will stop showing up and spending money here, consider what the...

Very disappointing experience. Ordered the standard sushi (2 shrimp, 1 california roll) plus 2 pieces of striped bass. Sushi was excellent.

We also ordered the fish tempura. Oops!

The salad consisted of a few scraps of iceberg lettuce, crisp enough, but lettuce alone is not a salad. This came with a large dollop of hosreadishy dressing. (OK, just too much of it for the lettuce.

The tempura was coated in panko breadcrumbs, not the traditional tempura batter. Result was exceptionally large amount of coating relative to fish content, and all of it very greasy. They need to NOT DO THIS. Tempura is tempura.

Accompanying the fish were two large slices of thinly sliced potato (1 sweet, 1 white) which WERE coated in a more traditional batter, but like the fish were cooked at too low a temperature and were greasy.

My wife had a small amount of seaweed salad instead of the normal salad, and she liked it.

The pickled ginger that accompanied the sushi was very good quality, as was the Wasabi.

Service was good but a little helter-skelter.

We had green tea for me and a soft drink for my wife.

Total bill was about $52.00 including tip. I feel this was very high for the quality of the food (sushi excepted).

We won't...