Kinoko Japanese Restaurant

Used to go here when it was $ 20 and named Kinoko. Now a year later, under different owners/​chefs/​staff, it has reopened as Kumo with less cluttered décor and higher prices ($ 26.95 for AYCE); it now features better sushi, higher fish: rice ratio, and better service (all admittedly based on one visit). Lots of the special rolls are included with the AYCE special; a huge upgrade over Kinoko’s limited triumvirate of Dragon Roll, Godzilla Roll, and Spider Roll (which always seemed to be out of season). Overall, a good place to take a client, enjoy a date, or treat yourself to some good-​but-​not-​fantastic sushi in a great part of the UWS.

Not worth it. the rules scare me, they always run out of fatty tuna, and the service is awful — i was dying of thirst and simply could not eat without water, which they are super slow to refill — maybe taht is their ploy to get you to eat less sushi. Either way, not what you would «dream» for in a sushi buffet.

Kinoko no longer exists and has been replaced by Kumo Sushi. The owners and all of the sushi chefs are different now, =(.

holy S!!!
I’m gonna cry! What happend!!! I move to LA and you close???
This has been my secret spot since ’92 when my father first introduced it to me. I’m seriously upset.

I will really miss you. This is the true end of an era. I have been going there for eighteen (18) years. An update to the story. I still miss your hot tuna roll.
Did I say that you are missed? That is an understatement. It’s 2014 and I still think about your sushi.

sayonara to kinoko. After waiting months and more months for the redo, we are sad to announce the untimely demise of AYCE sushi at Kinoko. No more delicious spicy tuna rolls, no more unlimited yellowtail, and oh, and the ikura… How sad. Where will we find AYCE sushi uptown to match kinoko? Any ideas, please tell me ASAP. I need my sushi.

Don’t be afraid, Kinoko will quell any fears you have about all you can eat sushi. The décor is next to non-​existent and the service isn’t all that great at times but at $ 21.95, the all you can eat sushi special is a pretty tasty bargain. The smoked whitefish salad rolls keep me going back again… and again… and again.

Its a shame their prices spiked up to $ 21.95 or this place would’ve earned more stars and more praise from a total sushi obsessed fool like me. Unlike most of the other AYCE sushi joints, Kinoko actually serves decent rolls like the spider roll for example and in pieces so large that it reminds my friends and I of a burrito. A sushi burrito albeit, but a thick, chopped up burrito nonetheless.
I think the service at times can be a little rushed /​frantic and its probably the paranoia from working at a place that gets this busy and for the fact they serve AYCE. The same rules apply here like other places, as unfinished pieces will be charged to the total bill. Beware of bringing groups here as they only have so much seating and most of the time its full even before rush hour in the evening.
At the same token, don’t come here expecting the highest grade or quality of fish. Most AYCE places use subpar fish, but Kinoko happens to serve large pieces which for the most part have tasted fresh each time. If only they reverted back to their old $ 20 per person price, this place would easily become the most sought after AYCE sushi place in the city.

I’ve been here twice, and more recently was the better experience. Last year they padded the sushi with quite a lot of rice, but this time the pieces were just right. The fish is fresh, but as one would expect thinly sliced. The dragon and spider rolls are huge and yummy, but be careful not to order too many since you have to finish every bite. The white tuna/​albacore is probably their best regular sushi. We noticed these were the freshest and largest slices. It’s a no frills restaurant with spotty service, but it’s a great place to fill up cheap when you know what to order.

Sushi review from a Japanese guy’s view:
Hey, I was just there earlier today! Thought I’d give a shout out to this place, as my experience was excellent — especially considering the $ 19.95 AYCE price.
Here’s my take on the items I’d ordered:
SPIDER ROLL
4 large pieces per roll — texture and flavor were quite good. Despite what another review said (sorry)
— the soft shell crab in this roll is real —
the soft shell crab is breaded and fried tempura style, giving this roll a nice flavor and texture. Inside the spider roll is a stick of artificial crab meat; that’s the fake portion.
*highly suggest the Spider Rolls*
TUNA and SALMON SUSHI (individual pieces)
these were very fresh, and well-​balanced with just the right amount of rice. When sushi is crafted correctly, the fish is highlighted, sitting atop a small portion of rice. The fish slopes down over the rice and onto the plate. When the fish portion is fresh and a good cut, the fish (depending upon species) will be supple, and bend down over the rice, onto the plate. This is one way that Japanese restaurants show you that their fish is fresh. If the fish is not fresh, nor a good cut, it’ll be tough not tender (at least for tuna and salmon). Many good sushi restaurants will show off the quality of their fish this way; watch for this on your sushi tray as the sushi is delivered. When a sushi place skimps on the fish, or has lesser quality fish, the cut of their fish will be smaller, and the rice portions larger; the fish is no longer highlighted. Remember, that with the Japanese art of sushi, presentation is everything; some places actually present the sushi as artwork for your senses to enjoy even before your palate does. Kinoko is not an upperscale sushi place, yet I was impressed to see that their tuna and salmon sushi was presented with large, fresh, supple, and tasty portions, with a proper amount of rice; especially for an all you can eat sushi restaurant. I had anticipated their tuna and salmon sushi to be about par with market sushi at this price, but this wasn’t the case at Kinoko.
*highly suggest the tuna and salmon sushi*
SPICY TUNA ROLL and SPICY SALMON ROLL
called «hot and spicy tuna» and «hot and spicy salmon» at Kinoko. These rolls are usually two of my mainstays with many sushi places, yet I actually did not like them here. They had far too much of a vinegar taste (it tasted like a heavy dose of Kikkoman rice vinegar) mixed into them, which made these rolls taste tangy. I didn’t care much for the flavor of them. Also, with an abundance of vinegar (if that’s what it was), the flavoring can mask the fact of fish not being fresh when it’s bundled up in the roll (yet, here the fish was probably fresh; I’m just picky with my sushi). Perhaps, the unpleasantness of these rolls was only in my batch I’d gotten? Yet, because of the quality of the other sushi I’d gotten, I’m still rating this place 4 stars baby!
Overall, I’d visit Kinoko again, as well as heartily recommend this place to others.
Oh, and what’s more, I’d noticed that one of the sushi chefs spoke fluent Japanese. Being Japanese myself, this is a biggie for me to see in a (Japanese) restaurant. Perhaps not a big deal, but something that I’d noticed.
That’s my $.02 … keep the change.

BOO — KINOKOS IS CLOSED! (March 2008)
— — — — — — –
Been going here for years… The all-​you-​can-​eat-​sushi is the best deal I’ve encountered in the city thus far, but I have to agree that the quality isn’t the best. No doubt, this is a good, reliable place in the UWS, plus you can’t beat the location.

This place has a great $ 20 all-​you-​can-​eat sushi special.
But the quality of the sushi is just so-​so.
The dragon roll (avocado and eel) is pretty big and the spider roll (soft shell crab and crabsticks, so it says) is ENORMOUS, but the the spider roll really didn’t taste very good and only had the imitation crabmeat stuck inside. It wasn’t the fresh soft-​shell crab I was hoping for. And of course, they stuff all the sushi with extra rice and smaller pieces of fish.
All the other rolls we had (eel, california, philadelphia, yellowtail) along with sashimi (salmon, tuna, scallop, unagi) were pretty good, but nothing great. We ordered a fried clam roll which we never got.
Warning: the dragon roll is EIGHT very large pieces and the spider roll was FOUR ENORMOUS PIECES so be careful about over-​ordering! (they will charge a la carte if there are any leftovers, so we had to stay an extra hour so people could finish the 40 – 50 extra pieces they had!).
Otherwise, this is a good deal just because you can get more of the special rolls (dragon, spider, godzilla, fried clam, etc) as part of the AYCE deal (a lot of other places only let you order the small rolls like california/​avocado/​salmon/​tuna/​etc for their AYCE specials).

$ 20 all-​you-​can-​eat sushi
Yeah, I freak out, too… when I see all-​you-​can-​eat. Especially if it’s sushi! The secret? Find out when they get their fish fresh… and @ Kinoko? It’s Mondays (or TUES… call to check)! Definitely gotta sit at the bar with sushi chef Rafael taking care of you. I fell in love with raw Scallops because of him! Kinoko also has a weekly lunch special: $ 9.99 for 8 pieces (your choice) of sushi and a hand roll (also your choice) from 12p to 3pm Mondays thru Fridays! Gotta love it!!!

Great AYCE Sushi place. For $ 19.95+15% gratuity, this place is great. Although my last visit was a little heavy on the rice for the rolls, this place has almost always been a great place to go to fill up on Sushi. I recommend this place!

Okay, scratch that. I went for the third time last week and I’m hooked. We arrived at around 1:20pm on Monday. They had JUST gotten a brand new order of fish so everything so fresh. And if you happen to go by for lunch, the host is really nice, really patient guy. So I suggest definitely for lunch.
It’s not 5-​star (hence only four stars given) restaurant but their $ 19.95 deal is excellent. I’ve gone twice and I had two different reactions. The first time, my friend took me for my birthday on a Saturday night at about 8pm. It was busy and the host asked us how many. Table for two. So without a word, he goes over to an empty table where the busboy was cleaning it. We followed him and he turns around and rudely says, ‘Please wait! We are very busy!” So we walked back to the «reception» and as soon as we get there, he waves us back over so we’re like… errr. Then we waited a while to order but we understood they were busy. Our first order was very good so we decided to order some more. The waitress walked over to the guys next to us and we said ‘excuse me’. So she says, «Wait! I am only one person.» Uhh… Okay. Then everything else went good after that.
We went back recently with two other friends. It was very quiet, guy took our order, was very helpful and it was quick. Good stuff that time.
I’m not too crazy about ordering the raw fish but the cooked ones, are like the best thing in the world. The spider and the boston, yum-​o!
So yea, lets disregard the first incident because I used to be a waitress and I know how difficult Saturday nights are.

I was a little afraid to try all you can eat sushi, and unfortunately my experience at Kinoko today confirmed my fears. Although the shrimp tempura roll was quite tasty, everything else my friends and I tried tasted less than fresh. Even the imitation crab in the spider roll tasted off. And yes, everything was definitely heavy on the rice. Our service was very friendly though.

Japanese Cuisine.
A friend of mine recommended to me this place because she liked the sushi here and said that it was better than another AYCE (all-​you-​can-​eat) place that I normally frequent. My verdict? It isn’t that great for $ 20. If they raised the price a little more and the fish was fresher, I wouldn’t have mind paying for it. However, I wouldn’t recommend coming here unless you don’t have any other choices.
Why? I might sound like a sushi snob after this review, but I don’t think the fish is as fresh as most places I’ve had. I figure the fish is supposed to have some type of flavor to it when you put it in your mouth. Mind you, too much fishy taste means it’s bad, but each fish in itself is supposed to taste a bit different in some way, right? Some fish are sweeter to the taste than others. However, all the fish I ate here tasted the same. Visually you could tell what fish it was, but if you blindfolded me, it would taste all the same. Mind you, I wasn’t expecting Yama (or better) quality in the fish, but when we’ve all had really good sushi places, you can tell whether or not if the fish you are eating is fresh. As bad is this review can get, the fish is even worse than the ‘miss’ days, that I eat at my normal spot.
The rolls are loaded with rice. I swear I was eating a bowl of rice myself. If you really have to come here, stick with the sushi because they don’t overload the rice on them. As much as the handroll/​cutroll menu includes alot of items that most AYCE places don’t have, they overload it with rice. To say I can eat 36 spicy tuna cutrolls myself at my main place. If I ordered 36 here, I would have to pay extra because I couldn’t finish them because of all that rice.
Other than the fact that spider rolls are on the choice of the roll menu without paying extra, saves this place from a disasterous review. But it was still pretty huge and full of rice.
Maybe I’m picky, but it was a little annoying having to tell my order to the servers, instead of filling out a form with boxes of what I wanted. Sometimes when you are ready to order, no one is around to take your order because they are busy with helping someone else out. It’s not like they go around in a certain pattern to take the orders. It’s here and there. 2 servers? for a place that can serve about 50 or so people. and then compound that with having to wait for your food to be prepared, I recall it took about 20mins for my second serving of sushi to be completed and the time my order was taken, and it was not even busy!
I only reviewed the sushi here, so I do not know how the cooked food stands up.

Their $ 20 all you can eat is pretty «special.» It has the usual caveats about no sashimi, finishing everything you order including rice etc… but they offer a really large selection of possibilities including the usually more expensive specialty rolls and it is hard to imagine how they make money.
I went here once with 7 big guys and we taught them an «economic lesson,» over $ 600 worth of sushi if purchased a la carte for a pre tax check of $ 140. A quick disclaimer… this was completetly gross and I have almost never felt worse or more full but what the hell. Anyway, it’s a good deal and the sushi isn’t bad at all. the décor is nothing special and the waitstaff is a bid odd (not rude or innefective, just odd) so it gets three stars.

I’ve always enjoyed this place when I’ve gone. The selection for the all-​you-​can-​eat option is good. Of course, the fish portions are pretty small in relation to the amount of rice.
I’m a big fan of their giant eel and avocado rolls (godzilla, etc).

You are not going to get Nobu quality sushi at this joint. That disclaimer being said, Kinoko is probably one of my favorite places in the city. The staff is super friendly and is attentive, even at the busiest of times. They will accept reservations for large groups without blinking and eye, and then have everything ready and waiting upon arrival. By far, the 19.99 all you can eat sushi special is the main allure here. With all you can eat soup, salad, green tea, and sushi, the value rocks. Beyond that, at other AYCE places the menu tends to be rather abbreviated. Not so here. The menu is extensive for an AYCE place with lots of fish and vegetarian options. Rolls and hand rolls, too, as well as the ability to order some larger rolls by the piece. Definitely worth checking out with friends!