Kiku Japanese Fusion — Restaurant in Tallahassee

I'd heard about Kiku's BOGO sushi deal a few times and have always been wanting to see what the fuss was about, so I took a chance and went for dinner on a Saturday night.

The decor on the inside is very nice but it's pretty small, granted the place is positioned into a shopping plaza next to other restaurants. So that being said, it can fill up fast. Make a reservation or get there early if you don't want to wait a bit.

The staff was very friendly, usually smiling and taking care of us. It was very appreciated.

The menu is a decent size. They have a good spread of things to choose from like soups and salads, hibachi, teriyaki style, noodles, rice, sushi, etc. You can get the BOGO on sushi any time as long as you buy a specialty roll and get a regular roll that doesn't have an asterisk by its name. However, if you go during lunch they have specials for sushi as well.

In my opinion, it's a little more expensive than it should be. The plate of hibachi I got was about $14, but it was good. Also, since they have a BOGO deal, the specialty sushi prices seemed to be raised a few dollars to compensate. I paid about $16 for a specialty roll.

The quality of the food is something I cannot complain about though. The Ocean Wave roll is now one of my favorite sushi rolls I've ever had anywhere. The combination of flavors, and the sweet and tangy mixture of sweet chili sauce mixed with cream cheese, avocado, crab, a dab of soy sauce, and a few other things was perfect. It had a great mouth feel and kept me wanting more. I tried the crunchy roll and the spider roll too, both were good. My hibachi plate was excellent. The star was the chicken, which was covered in a rich teriyaki sauce, had great texture and flavor. Everything else was fine as well in the dish.

I think I would go back at lunch and take advantage of the deals they offer then. I can put away some food, so the price can...

One of Tallahassee's BEST sushi, nigiri, sashimi bars - bar none. Rationale? They've always had fresh sea urchin (uni) when I've visited. I even do the "visit Tuesday" test to verify.

Today was no exception. My friend Ernie treated me to a VERY generous birthday lunch at kiku's. He had a couple of sushi rolls in addition to sashimi conch and seaweed salad. To boot, he also had his first taste of uni with quail egg topper.

I had (here's where I break out over-the-top (yet apropos) vocabulary) a most splendid lineup of conch, sea clam and octopus sashimi, a spicy tuna hand roll, the pair of uni /quail egg nigiri all following the de rigueur miso bowl.

Admittedly, the hand roll is really the only display of talent here, other than the miso soup. I mean that these two items require assembly/construction. Everything else simply requires a regular purveyance of fresh, high quality product. Sure, there is clearly talent in forming the rice and wrapping the seaweed but the freshness factor is paramount.

I digress.

Bottom line: Depend on kiku as a premier TLH sushi...

My husband and I ordered takeout from here and it was the horrible! We got the dinner for 2 hibachi (steak, lobster, shrimp), and we upgraded the steak to filet. We also got chicken teriyaki hibachi, and a volcano roll. Nothing was good. The hibachi didn’t seem like it was cooked on a hibachi grill. The steak was flavorless and dry, cooked well done (not my preferred temp). The lobster…that thing was so overdone it was a hockey puck. The shrimp were cooked ok but lacking flavor. The chicken seemed like it was already cooked frozen chicken, thawed out and teriyaki glaze thrown in top of it. This was the absolute worst hibachi I’ve ever had. The volcano roll was ok, but not anything I’d ever go back for. Publix sells better sushi. This was a total waste of $114. Maybe the dine-in experience is different, but I’m not willing to risk it. I will not be going back here again. On another note, the hostess was very nice. That was my only pleasant...