Kaiyo — Restaurant in Town of North Hempstead

Kaiyō Sushi is going to make it's way onto Long Island's best sushi restaurants list. The intimate, well-run, and family-owned restaurant truly simulates the realities of Japanese cuisine, its character and above all, it's food.

Located in the heart of Mineola, Kaiyō hosts its customers in a modern, simplistic space where you have the view of the street and the sushi bar. The owners and staff are friendly and constantly attentive, with the fast sit-down, orders, and the "endless tea". The sushi rolls list is extensive, with starters of many and well within many's price range.

For the appetizer, the tuna carpaccio was well-seasoned with black peppercorn soy sauce and wasabi mayo, the tuna seared to the perfect degree, allowing for the texture of the sashimi to go well with the cooked exterior. The tempura appetizer was pleasantly tasty, with the panko and breading light and complementary with the gingered-infused tempura sauce that accompanies it. The miso soup was well-flavored, tasting surprisingly better than other Japanese restaurants in the vicinity.

The sushi and sashimi boat, as the entrée, was above standard, the fish (salmon, tuna, yellow tail, mackerel, and more) was extremely fresh, and the Mikado roll's spicy tuna and special mayo sauce was delightful. The fried rice squares (an appetizer too) were perfectly crunchy and seasoned at the same time - a wonderful complement with the soft rice and fish.

Fried ice cream, bananas, and mochi ice cream was ordered for dessert, and all three were amazing. Will definitely order the mochi ice cream the next times that I come to Kaiyō as it was not too sweet, but the ice-cream and mochi were fresh and nice after a meal of sushi.

Overall, the first time at Kaiyō Sushi was extremely delightful, and I will be sure to come back and make it my Japanese restaurant go-to. The family-run restaurant is great, as is the food selection, and even price. I will definitely be back in the future, and soon, before this place gets...

A small Japanese restaurant on the east side of an easily overlooked block of Main St. Between 2nd St and the railroad tracks. An easy walk from the train station. I had lunch there on a cold December day that had me in Mineola for yet another medical appointment.

A couple of steps at the front door might make access a problem if you are physically handicapped.

Service was prompt and friendly. They put a glass of ice water on my table without my having to ask plus a lovely big carafe of water for refills. Lunch includes hot (green) tea upon request.

I had their katsudon panko coated pork with egg. I was expecting it was just going to be dipped in egg to make the panko adhere to the pork. It turned out to be a pleasantly generous bowl of sticky rice topped with a layer of pork and a surprisingly big serving of scrambled egg cooked atop the pork. It wasn't photogenic, but it was tasty and filling.

Lunch included a choice of salad or soup. I had the salad and it was good. Before I knew how much food the lunch bowl was going to be, I also ordered their shrimp tempura roll. I used chopsticks for the salad but wasn't deft enough to manage the roll with chopsticks without crumbling it. So I requested a fork. No problem. Promptly provided.

The bathroom there is tiny, tiled, unisex and very clean. Be careful at the sink as the hot water is very hot.

With tax and tip lunch came to about $25. I left with a full tummy of good food and hot tea. What better way to face being outside on a cold December...

Stopped in for some sushi while in the neighborhood for NYU hospital. I chose Kaiyo because of the high rating on here, however, the rating is not representative. Inside, it just looks like an average, barely decorated neighborhood sushi joint. As soon as I stepped the first thing I noticed was how my shoes stuck to the floor.

As I waited for my order, there was a small but steady stream of folks stopping by to pick up their orders, so I was excited for the food. First came the salad, typical cheap sushi restaurant salad, essentially rough slices of iceberg lettuce and some shredded carrot, but hard to tell under the huge amount of the low quality carrot-ginger dressing. It was closer to soup than salad.

Next up, I had the three roll lunch: eel & avocado, salmon & avocado, and shrimp tempura. All the fish and avocado were good, at least fresh. The rice was okay as well (not special, but not bad). The two areas of trouble were the nori, which was wet and therefore had no snap, it became almost cloth-like. Also, suboptimal was the sauce, so much cloying eel sauce on both the eel and shrimp rolls. I scraped off as much as I could, but it's corn syrup base stuck effectively.

The shrimp tempura was freshly fried. And the servers were friendly.

I have no interest in going back though and if you're in the neighborhood, maybe...