Kana Japanese Cuisine

Kana’s a really interesting place that’s Chinese run which isn’t necessary a bad. However, this isn’t the exception, expect the kind of service you would get in a cheap Chinese restaurant except you’re paying more. On the weekends, they have their TV on tuned into Cartoon Network playing animé. Other times it’s something Japanese related to give off a more Japanese feeling I guess. Sometimes you’ll see the waiters here stand and watch TV or chatting and having a good time with each other. Kind of the wrong impression to be giving off to customers. The service here sometimes is very slow and sometimes it is somewhat fast. There’s quite a bit of inconsistency when it comes to their service.
The food, I’ve tried things from sushi to sukiyaki here since my friend keeps wanting to go back. The sushi is average size and the quality is under par. There special rolls taste like how it is supposed to, but there isn’t any great about them. The sukiyaki comes out all brownish literally and tastes really sweet. It’s hard to eat finish the entire pot since all the ingredients especially the cabbage soaks up all that sweetness. Their bento boxes comes with rice, meat, salad, cali rolls, and miso soup. The meat quality is pretty low and the rest of the sides are already pretty cheap to begin with. The price is a bit cheaper compared to other Japanese restaurants, but the quality is definitely not there.

Overpriced. Slow service. Nothing wow’d me

I’m rather turned off by their generous use of the word «CRAB» on the menu.
A note to the fellows at Kana Japanese Cuisine: Crab is that exoskeleton crustacean that lives in the ocean, crawls and has claws. It is NOT, I repeat NOT that artificially colored red and white stuff that comes in sticks made out of flour and processed white fish. You should either start using crab or add «imitation» to every crab item you list on your menu.
As I’m not a fan of misleading descriptions of menu items… Veggie Roll in my past experience would indicate a roll that had various vegetables– hence the use of the word Veggie. I mean if I knew that I was getting a cucumber roll, then I would have just ordered that but why the redundancy? IF veggie roll = cucumber roll and cucumber roll = cucumber roll… WHY WHY???
I hate it that I decide to go forward with eating at a restaurant that is nearly empty during peak dinner hours, only to walk out feeling even more regretful for being the only one who didn’t get the message. Point received on why it was empty in the first place.
I’ll give them one star for service.

Chicken Teriyaki Bowl — 7.95
5 slices/​pieces of chicken in teriyaki sauce. Rice. Pieces of lettuce. An orange slice.
Miso soup for appetizer.
Wait, why is it 7.95? –_​_​_​–

We were originally supposed to go to Tani’s Kitchen, on the other side of the mall. ‘Cause we read good reviews, but we had no idea that place was like a tiny little baby. Lol. You could fit like 7 people in there. She wanted Japanese, so we went to the next closest Japanese spot. I feel bad, ’cause I’m going to have to agree with everyone else who wrote a review about this place.
2 stars.
1 star for the decent Gyu Don. It straight up reminded me of Yoshinoya which is awesome, since I haven’t had that since I lived back in LA. (I mean, who doesn’t like fast food shabu beef/​rice bowls?)
1 star for the nice service. He didn’t know what Sriracha was, so we had to say, «You know, red, hot sauce?» At first I thought he brought us ketchup, but it was like a downgraded Sriracha. Lol. He was still nice, nonetheless.
The sushi she ordered, was hella bland. Probably could’ve made something better myself, and to be honest, I’ve never made sushi in my life. Lol.
Sorry Kana, but we’ll only come back if you’re the only place open the day the world ends. Sad.

It’s sad to say that the food has become exceptionally okay rather than great as it was before when this place first opened when my mom and I were frequent customers. We haven’t been here in a while and decided to just get sushi since we’re on a special kind of diet. We were disappointed when we ordered the tempura roll because the rice was a bit hard, disappointed when we ordered the dragon roll because it had a lot of creamy-​ish taste rather than the «expected taste» how it’s supposed to taste and it was oddly spicy?!
Other than that a dinner just for 2, who ordered deep fried tofu, and 3 sushi rolls, the dinner turned out overly priced compared to the other sushi restaurants we have been to.

I agree with the rest of the reviews here that this place is merely ok.
The only reason why I even came here was Tani’s kitchen had a line six deep on a rainy day, and Burgermeister is officially the last place in the world I’d go to now.
Suffice to say, the food here is just ok. There isn’t anything special here, but at the same time I didn’t have anything that was horrible either.
Me and my girlfriend came here and got the Hawaii roll, the spicy scallop, the fried spicy tuna roll and a dragon roll. All in all the bill was 50 bucks which I feel is ok for sushi, but for what you pay it’s a little underwhelming.
It’s all sort of forgettable, but the spicy scallop roll was decent, the Hawaii roll ok. The dragon roll I’d avoid like the plague as there was just some sort of weird taste to it. And yes when you come here it’s probably going to be really empty, and the place is cold as heck.
Pros: It doesn’t suck as bad as some places
Cons: Shade pricey, cold like the North Pole, sushi is forgettable. But, any port in the storm is a port.

I came here for lunch. The food was okay, but the price tag that came with the food was too big. There wasn’t anything special about the food, and therefore should not have been charging what they were.
The restaurant is just about empty during lunch. I wonder if it’s always like this? Maybe if they had some better specials, people would frequent this place more often. Just a thought.
I don’t think I will eat here again any time soon.

come if you want over-​priced food, and gross food at that. There is a reason why this place is empty most of the time.
go to Tani’s on the other side of the mall, waaaaayyyy better.

My family and I arrived at Kana for a late lunch. Once inside, I began to have doubts about this place. Aside from a girl sitting at the sushi bar texting away on her phone, the place was completely empty. Nonetheless, we were greeted by a very friendly woman who escorted us to a table of our preference. It made me think, ‘perhaps Kana is okay after all…’
Unfortunately it wasn’t. Despite being the only patrons in this relatively large restaurant, we were rushed through all stages of ordering. We literally just sat down and opened our menus when a waiter appears asking for our drink order. We requested more time, so he gave us about 20 seconds. A minute later, he arrived with the drinks, then stood there waiting for our food order. How do they expect us to read an eight page menu and decide what we want in a minute?
Long story short, the food quality is inconsistent. The miso soup was TERRIBLE. The chicken teriyaki was tasty. The pork katsu was subpar. The sashimi was decent, but was served WAY too cold, suggesting not-​so-​fresh fish pulled from the fridge.
The ultimate faux-​pas was at the end of the meal when we tried to pay for the bill. «Oh, sorry. Cash only.» What about the bigass logos of various CC companies in the window? «Oh, our computer system is down.» Well, thanks for letting us know… not.
I will not be coming back here.

Yuck! I totally should have checked out Unilocal before stepping in here to have lunch with my husband.
I was starving so before we headed to Home Depot to pick up some home design supplies, we decided to stop by Kana to have a quick lunch.
I should have known when we stepped in that it wasn’t going to be good — there were only 2 people in the entire restaurant sharing a booth.
I ordered a lunch bento and so did my husband. Bleh — it wasn’t good at all and to top it off, our waiter almost dropped my food when serving it to me and when he was cleaning up our soup bowls he dropped the bowl and some of the leftover soup squirted both my husband and I on the face.
I hate writing bad reviews but this place is so not worth your time, tastebuds or money.

The sushi is dry, the presentation is admirable but ultimately falls flat, the price is way too high for the quality (or lack of), and the service is terrible.
The place was practically empty (me and my girlfriend and another couple) and most of the workers stood around instead of helping us. No wonder this place was dead.
Bottom line: forgettable.

[M]ona: 3 Stars
[W]ayne: 3 Stars
Average: 3 Stars
+ Happy Hour
+ Accepts Credit Cards
+ Easy to find parking
— Food was Bland
— Not very Japanesy…
[W] So after reading everyones’ reviews about how horrible this place is. We wanted to try it out for ourselves to see what the deal was. Every time we walk by here, Mona always want to try it out and I always joke that this place is going to get closed down like Gerry’s Grill was haha. Well today was the day and we just sucked it up and walked in. Luckily for us, it was during happy hour [
so we got a chance to try out a couple of things and not get hit by their «expensive» prices. Honestly it’s not AS BAD as you all say but me and Mona agreed that the food here was very bland. Of course this place is once again conveniently located at the Westlake Mall, about 2 – 3 blocks away from where I live so it’s pretty close by.
Parking here is never an issue at this location either. So today we had the Fried Egg with Onion, Onion Rings, the 2 item Bento Box with Salmon and Beef Teriyaki, Egg Rolls, and the California
Roll. We had the Cali Roll first which was ok. The imitation crab wasn’t bad but tasted pretty regular. This was the small bite sizes which is normal and you get 8 pieces which was nice. [
Second was the Onion Rings which was really more like a tempura batter. Honestly this wasn’t too bad either. The rings were very light and crunchy and of course you get the tempura sauce for dipping. [
The next item was the Bento Box. The beef was pretty tough and on the dry side. Normally I like my Beef medium rare with a little pink inside for moisture but this was cooked all the way through so it was hard to chew. The salmon was very ordinary and nothing special to it. Of course the teriyaki sauce just soaked in for the flavor and that was it. [
Next were the Egg Rolls which were interesting. They look like your normal veggie egg rolls that you would see at a Chinese restaurant but this was different. The only thing that sucked about this dish was that it didn’t come with any type of dipping sauce so we had to ask for it on the side. On the inside of the Egg Roll was some sort of mushy meat. I still don’t know what it was exactly so I don’t think I would order that again. [
Last dish was the Fried Egg with Onion. Me and Mona were joking like, what if they literally just give us a fried egg and an onion on top? That would’ve been funny haha. But then again when they brought it out, it was just an omelet style with green onions mixed in. Nothing special about the dish other than we were thinking that we could’ve made that ourselves at home. [
While we were sitting at the restaurant, Mona noticed how large it was on the inside but we kept thinking how they were able to pay their rent because we NEVER see this place busy. I guess when the owner originally bought this place, they had high hopes that they would be a successful business but I honestly don’t see that happening.
Another thing that Mona did point out was how this place didn’t feel like a Japanese restaurant. I couldn’t agree more because their food isn’t your typical Japanese menu and they don’t have a lot of sushi to choose from. What really annoys me is that most Japanese restaurants have that same sushi menu poster board and menu type thing that they set on the table that also shows that they sell «sapparo beer» and all that stuff. In reality, a lot of these places don’t even serve the sushi that they are advertising!
Anyways, getting back to the point here. The food again is really bland and not very flavorful. Luckily we came at happy hour once again so now we had a little taste of the caliper of the food. The service wasn’t bad but then again, it was really dead in there and I believe we were one of the three groups that were sitting in the restaurant.

When this place first opened a few years back it was really good. Today, I ordered some sushi and a bento. The food came in a jiffy but.
WTF HAPPENED TO PRESENTATION?!
What happened to the fresh fish I used to get?! UGH!
I guess that’s what happens when restaurants get cocky.
Sorry Kana, you’re not on my list for Japanese restaurants to go to anymore. =\

Dang you, Jeffrey. I knew I should have checked Unilocal before I came because ya’ll are right on this one. Friend Jeff wanted sushi so we decided to hit this place up. It looks very nice and comfortable, great dim and open-​spaced ambiance. Service is great and the sushi-​makers and waiters/​waitresses are great. HOWEVER, I asked the waiter what is the most famous roll at this restaurant. He proceeded to say the «SWEET HEART» roll. Laughed a little because it sounded a little romantic for my hang out.
When this roll came, it was served beautifully in 3 hearts. AWWWW… NOT. I cracked up because I think the waiter thought we were on a date. But the worst part is, IT WAS NO GOOD AT ALL. RICE=COLD AND FLAKY. SHRIMP TEMPURA=NOT CRISPY. WHATEVER BLOB IN THERE=NO GOOD. SAUCE=EH DECENT. If this is their most famous roll, please do not enter this place.
We also ordered bento boxes (9.99 each). I got the chacken and salmon terriyaki. When I first saw it, it kind of looked like pale skin or phalanges… but moving on… the salmon was decent. It was pretty soft and juicy, but could not taste Terriyaki sauce. It was more of watered down sauce. The chicken was decent too… MEH. I think the best part of the box was the salad.
Sorry Kana, no WOOT WOOT for you… just a…
«KAN-​A-​GET-​A-​NO NO!» (I just laughed really hard at that one…)

I’ve only been to this place once & once is definitely enough. I came for dinner around 6PM which sounds like a busy hour but the place was empty & I could see why. As I was obviously still reading the menu, the waiter kept coming to our table to see if I was ready to order. It didn’t seem like an eager «I’m here at your service» attitude more so a «can you hurry up» feel.
I ordered the Volcano Roll & a Philly Roll. The Volcano Roll had too much crunch and not enough sauce. The tuna inside felt fried & dry. I feel like you can never go wrong with a Philly Roll, however, this one tasted like it had a little too much cream cheese. The prices seemed over-​priced for the quality given. I’ve had cheaper food for a better taste.

I agree with most of the ratings on here. I really did want to like this place because the employees really do try. I’ve tried this place twice and my rating is still 2 stars.
Summary: Overpriced food, rolls/​sashimi tasted a little less than decent, and awkwardly nice wait staff.
Pass!
The only people that go here are people that do not read Unilocal

nvm

[placeholder] 3.5 stars. two item bento box was 8.99 and the three item {see picture] was 9.99. Was good, good value and the service was quick but not particularly friendly. Went there late afternoon around 3:30.
Miso was good and the green tea hot and good too.
I think it depends on your choices and the time you get there.

You might think about going across the street to Sheng Kee (sheng kee, sheng kee very much – sorry couldn’t help myself) to fill up on some carbs before you eat here. It’s all very deceptive really. They seat you pretty quickly and the restaurant is done minimalist style so you think there’s plenty o’room for everybody. But the service – well, let’s just say the economy will recover faster than you’ll get your menu. In their defense, there was a «Help Wanted» sign posted out front. So the staffing shortage may account for the long wait times. When we did get served, the food was nothing more than your standard average bento box.
Good things come to those who wait? Not at Kana.