Kawaii Japanese Restaurant

Don’t bother … They claim to be «All you can Eat «but now when they give you the menu they hand write «limit 10 pieces». Ummmm, sorry but that’s not all you can eat Kawaii ! Very deceiving ! The sushi is just ok, nothing great, not fresh. The place in general is a lil gross. Definitely in need of renovation and heat. It’s was freezing in there. Bottom line, there’s way too many better places in the area to go for sushi.

Got dragged here by my friends for dinner because and it was a much better experience. I ordered a salmon lover and an avocado mango hand roll with their green mango tea, it has a weird name like forbidden love or something. The sushi was good but the mangoes in my avocado mango hand roll were not fresh and on the sour side, I understand that mangoes are not in season right now but I’d rather pay more money for a better quality mango. My green mango tea was very good, it had a tangy taste to it, almost like a Midori sour. My boyfriend normal gets a taro tea but he didn’t really like his and ended up sipping on my drink most of the night. Our waiter was also very friendly.

Terrible customer service!!! Don’t waste your time. Not the best sushi I have ever eaten. There are many great sushi restaurants on Ave U which are far better!

Really a hidden gem amongst sushi chains in Sheepshead area. This is probably the best bang for your buck sushi spot. Lighting is pretty good and place looks well kept. Service is good. The sushi is pretty fresh (sashimi and rolls). The soba and udon noodles are delicious. The scallion pancakes are a must have. Seats are comfortable. I usually order takeout or do AYCE ($ 20). The only bad thing about this place is their AYCE menu is limited (and has never changed) and it’s weird how they got a C sanitation grade (and they put it in the bottom corner of a door *suspicious*).

Bad food and service. Came here for dinner. I ordered a bunch of sashimi. However, when I tasted it, it tasted rotten. When I told them about the funny taste, they just said that was how it is. I have tasted sashimi from multiple restaurants and none have tasted as terrible. They refused to do anything about it.

If you’re looking for delicious sushi this is the place to come!!! Even tried their hibachi chicken, outstanding!!!.

Customer service at this place is horrible. Tried to go 5+ times and was always the same. Food is decent but the customer service is unacceptable.

Came in for my mama’s birthday dinner on a Thursday at around 7. There was only one other table dining but it actually started to fill up later on.
The good thing about Kawaii is that they have a lot of options on their AYCE menu. There are plenty of dishes to choose from for all of you non-​raw fish eaters. The bad thing about Kawaii is that they have a lot of options on their AYCE menu. There is a such thing as too many options! You’ll want to order all of these non sushi options because you’re starving and everything sounds delicious (keyword: SOUNDS). So my advice to you is to just stick with what you know. Kawaii is not the place to be branching out and trying new things. Because most of the dishes we ordered (that were not something we would normally order), did not end up tasting good.
Here are some of the things we tried:
Mango Kani salad — this was probably the only thing that I really liked. Although I didn’t taste a lot of mango, I didn’t mind. Everything was perfectly sliced into really fine shreds. They didn’t overuse mayonnaise, like many other places tend to do.
Teriyaki — avoid any of the teriyaki options. It’s served on top of a bed of spaghetti drowned in teriyaki sauce, so they all taste the same. So sweet that I’m not even sure if it was teriyaki sauce, or if it was just simple syrup with added food coloring.
Chicken katsu — surprisingly not bad. It wasn’t too greasy or overcooked. But it definitely needed that sauce that comes with it.
Rock shrimp — pretty big portion, so make sure to just order one first! I liked the sweet/​spicy mayo that was drizzled on top.
Shrimp tempura — way too greasy. All you could taste was oil. Oh and mushy mystery seafood meat.
Salmon skin salad — I hate fish skin. But my Mom wanted to try this. So I decided to try it too. The whole thing was overfried, and a lot of it was burnt. It was pretty much inedible so really, you’re just eating burnt bits of tempura.
Vegetable gyoza — this was SO BAD. The vegetable filling they used was basically just old veggies they threw into a food processor.
Sushi — you would think that this would be their saving grace. But it’s not. It’s not that the fish is spoiled but it just doesn’t taste like sushi should. It almost didn’t taste like anything at all. And for the sushi pieces, it just seemed like they cut rectangular pieces of fish and threw it on top of a ball of rice. None of the rolls we tried were any good either. Let’s just leave it at that.
I really wanted to like this place but with each dish I tried, my mental Unilocal rating just kept getting lower and lower. But hey, maybe you’ll like it! There are other non-​sushi items I didn’t get a chance to try, so maybe those are awesome?

I went to this restaurant about 2 – 3 years ago, manly for the hot pots. Disappointingly they no longer offer that. Parking is always easy to find which is a plus. The restaurant itself if very outdated, and slightly underkept.
The AYCE is averaged priced but by far the biggest selection that I’ve seen which is very nice. They offer a huge variety of sushi (single piece) that I liked, although they did use a little to much rice. One of the dishes that I LOVED was the tuna salad. It was very fresh and richly made, I highly recommend it. The sushi rolls were just okay, not bad but not great. One thing I found odd was that desert wasn’t on the AYCE menu. In my personal option they should lose some stuff of the menu and add desert, this is the only place I know that doesn’t include ice cream on the buffet menu.
Service was great, mainly because my group and I were the only ones there.

Real good sushi here. Fast service. Although Osaka sushi is one block over and I’m a big fan of theirs, I think I’ve converted to a Kawaii guy. They have a large selection of specialty rolls, which is all that I order. Sometimes they have specials and coupons in their menu so it always helps to open one up and flip around.

Came here for dinner on New Year’s Eve. We had been looking at several options in the neighborhood, but chose Kawaii for its proximity and positive reviews. My friend also said that their take out options were pretty good in the past, so we figured we would go and try their AYCE menu. It was definitely a wise choice. This review is written in comparison with similar AYCE sushi restaurants (namely Sake, actually, since I haven’t been to others before).
Ambiance: ³⁄₅
For New Year’s Eve, it was relatively quiet. There were quite a number of take out orders, but for the 2.5 hours that we were there, there were probably only 4 other tables (we were there around 5:39 — 7:30), with the only other noise coming from the flat screen TV hanging in the corner. Seating was comfortable, well-​lighted; seats also had nice cushions.
Service: ⁴⁄₅
Perhaps because there were so few people, the waitress was relatively attentive and came to refills our tea and orders pretty often. She also processed our bill almost within a minute of paying — pretty quick compared to most of the restaurants I’ve been to. Not to mention that she was super nice and not rude at all, despite the fact that we were ordeering so much. Compared to Sake, where you get your orders pretty quickly, Kawaii is relatively slower, but we were never left without food on the table. And the quality of the rolls warrants the wait.
Food: 3.75÷5
I’m so torn here. Now, the AYCE menu is extremely expansive. Extremely expansive. In addition to regular appetizer items, regular rolls and sashimi pieces, there were also special rolls that filled up a whole back page, which is unheard of for many places. We ordered about 7 – 8 special rolls along with some appetizers; all of them were so fresh and DELICIOUS. However, half of them were also fried, which was not noted on the menu. It became a little overwhelming after a while. One can only eat so much fried food. Portions were also quite generous.
Not all food was made alike, though. Some of the appetizers, like the chicken tempura and shrimp tempura and fish teriyaki, were not fantastic and were either too salty or did not taste fresh. I mean, it is understandable that a sushi restaurant will more likely than not carry frozen meats for some of these instead of fresh meat.
They also do not have check off sheets; instead they give you a laminated menu and some scrap paper to write down what you want. A little inconvenient in my opinion, but I appreciate their efforts to be green.
Tips for Eating Here:
— Go a little later in the day. Our tea was cold when we first got seated at 5:30, probably been sitting for some time.
— Get: spider roll, dragon roll, avocado mango roll… but all of them are good!
— Ask before ordering if you want to know whether some items are fried since the menu will not tell you.
— Don’t wear tight clothing because by the time you’re done, you might not fit anymore :)
All in all, I would definitely come back. I prefer this place more than some of them other AYCE places, especially if you want better menu options, better service and better ambiance. You won’t get world-​class sushi here, but compared to its counterparts, it’s such a hidden gem!

This place deserves 5 stars because the AYCE is AMAZING. For about $ 20 you will leave incredibly full and happy. I always get the kani salad, rock shrimp, chicken teriyaki, a ton of sushi and a few rolls. They have a very large selection of appetizers and special rolls and you have two hours to order whatever your heart desires. When eating buffet-​style, I usually expect the food to be mediocre at best, but I was pleasantly surprised with the food here. It keeps bringing me back — I’ve been here st least 7 times. The servers here are kind and attentive. The last time I went they must have filled my cup of green tea — also really good — about 8 times because I drank so much of it so quickly. The food also gets to your table within minutes. I wish I lived closer to this restaurant. Or maybe its better that I don’t…

Went to this AYCE Japanese place after camping with a group of friends. Hadn’t been here for a couple of years but remembered it being a good place so I told my friends to try it out. It looks like management had changed but the head waitress still the same. Basically, the food was okay. Not the best I have ever had but also not the worst. Sushi tasted fresh. The down side was there was no sashimi and no dessert in the AYCE menu. As my bestie pointed out, the Service although there was three waitress and not a lot of customers was really lacking. They weren’t attentive to our needs and seem like only the head waitress was doing all the work. In addition in one of my friend’s mushroom soup there was a piece of plastic inside. OMG! The one thing that pissed me off beyond measure was that although there was two sushi chef, after I ordered 9 special sushi rolls the waitress stopped me from further ordering and said let me put this order in first, if you want to order more you will be charged extra. Like really? Lady you should take my whole order and bring out the food separately. Not this way of saying its too much for the chef to make at once. Besides we had 5 people. Second thing that pissed me off was that the sushi chefs did our order wrong. We had duplicate roll and one roll didnt even come to our table and also my bestie had to order the rock shrimp three times before it finally came but the head waitress insisted that she brought it to us before… ummm. No we never got it the first two times. Overall they lost stars for service, disorganization, poor attitude of staff, and plastic in the soup. The special sushi rolls did taste good and the spicy tuna, spicy salmon salads were huge portions. Which you hardly see in other Japanese restaurants so they got an extra star and thumbs up for that. The cost per person was $ 19.95, but with tax and tips we each paid $ 25.

We were so hungry and walked in to have dinner. We saw the sign announcing «all you can eat».
The way it works is that everyone at the table has to order it and must be done within 2 hours. They charge for leftovers.
We tried a huge variety of rolls, sashimi, salads, and appetizers.
Everything was really delicious.
Can’t wait to go back.

UPDATE: 4÷21÷2014
I’ve been ordering delivery here for over a year on average 1 – 2 times a month. So far the sushi has been very good for delivery. Of the 20+ times I ordered only once or twice I was disappointed by the sushi rice itself. Most of the times everything was super fresh and tasty. My usual order consists of the scallion pancakes, eel cream cheese sushi roll, 20 or so piece of sushi/​sashimi a la carte along with their Dragon roll and ²⁰¹³⁄₂₀₁₄ rolls. I tried their uni a few times and it was very good each time. I would definitely recommend this place.

Finally went inside for dine-​in this time. I was more disappointed that take out.
I order their sour and spicy seafood Udon noodle soup this time, it was very mehhhh.
not much flavor, the broth is too clear and little.
When we went in, we were the only table there, and I can see why.
Their whole resturant is very out-​dated especially for a Japanese resturant, the carpet’s very dirty looking, the «arts» are are inappropriate. Overall, I will probably not come back here.

I love sushi, it’s one of my favorite foods. I am also a sushi snob, I have gotten so sick from bad sushi, I’ve had to go to the hospital thinking my appendix burst! If I find a good sushi spot, I stick with it and don’t usually venture out.
Kawaii is my all-​time favorite sushi restaurant in the Marine Park area. My parents live around the corner and I have been coming to this place for as long as it has been open. The location has been many different sushi restaurants, but Kawaii is DEFINITELY the best! Their Kawaii dumplings are a delicious blend of savory and sweet. The spicy kani salad is always on point. Of all the years I’ve spent coming to Kawaii, I have never had an issue with freshness– the fish smells fresh, tastes fresh and is overall delicious.
The staff is VERY nice, they are more than willing to make whatever accommodations you want and actually know my order by heart. They are very friendly and apologetic if an order is made incorrectly. A friend of mine and I came here to catch up and have lunch and ended up spending 5 hours in the restaurant, just talking and ordering a few things here and there. Not once did they ever make us feel unwelcome. It’s only 2 or 3 girls that wait the tables, so they get a little behind when it’s busy. I also think a lot can be said about someone who is rude to wait staff because they’re trying to do their job the best they can. Have a little patience, and if it’s too long, just waive them down and they’ll look into it.
My FAVORITE thing about Kawaii is that they offer noodle soup! There are 5 or 6 kinds and you can have either soba or udon noodles. Their roast duck noodle soup? ugh I’m starting to drool! My bf calls this place «Our Spot» and we often bring our friends for the AYCE, 2 for 1 hot sake, and for noodle soup; we can spend hours there just having a good time!
Before you go to Osaka across the street just because it’s been there longer, TRY KAWAII!

After reading a review, I decided to try this ayce sushi place. Its rather different from other ayce restaurants because they do not have a separate menu for you to check off what you want. Instead the waitress writes all your orders down (which is VERY VERY time consuming). So here goes my review:
Portion: ⁵⁄₅
The portions of the ayce appetizers and noodles are rather big. Most ayce places provide a small platter for your appetizers (bit size) while at Kawaii, these appetizers are good for two people or more. (If you order the Mango Kani salad, you probably would want to find someone to share!)
Food: 4.5÷5
Kawaii has a huge variety of sushi, appetizers, noodles, sushi rolls etc. The quality of the fish is not the best but the quality is obviously better than other ayce restaurants. The teriyaki appetizers were very tasty! They included noodles on the bottom which was very interesting but. The only complaint I had was towards the end when we ordered more salmon nigiri and there were bones in them… owww, not good at all.
Décor: ³⁄₅
Yes, the decors looks like a Chinese Living Room. LITERALLY. There is a hugeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee long couch on one side of the restaurant. Yes, instead of cushion benches, they just went extremely casual and bough a couch. (very comfortable though)
Service: ³⁄₅
I was upset at the service. It seemed like there was only one waitress working and she was missing half the time. Our food came veryyy veryy slowly, so if you are starving, I would recommend ordering a few soups, salads and appetizers for the table ASAP. Our sushi orders also came in one at a time (meaning one roll at a time).
Overall ⁴⁄₅
Overall, this is a pretty good ayce place that has not yet been overpopulated with starving people so the food quality is still good. I would definitely recommend going here and trying even if its far from your neighborhood. I would however, recommend you knowing what you want to order before hand because the wait is pretty long!

I am slowly moving my way down the list of all the sushi restaurants on/​near Avenue U. There are just so many! To me, they are all around the same quality (3 stars). What I’m learning is that no matter which one you go to, don’t even bother with trying the yellowtail. Yellowtail is a fish that really varies in texture and taste from restaurant to restaurant, and I actually secretly gauge the quality of a sushi restaurant by their yellowtail. I think only the best sushi restaurants can make yellowtail yummy; small sushi shacks like the ones on Avenue U just can’t get it right. The yellowtail roll I ordered from here looks like it was made with ground-​up yellowtail. The fish wasn’t smooth like it should be, and it tasted mushy and had an inconsistent texture. I couldn’t get myself to finish it. Don’t bother getting it.
On the bright side, the salmon was very delicious here, especially on the nigiri. For $ 3 a roll and $ 1 per sushi/​sashimi piece (a price that’s pretty consistent across Avenue U), it’s so easy to just order every then and now to satisfy your sushi craving. I may or may not come back here, as Tokyo Sushi near Ocean Ave (
) also offers pretty good salmon.

My boyfriend and I are big fans of AYCE sushi places. We’ve been to Oh Sho and Sake in Bensonhurst, we THOUGHT they were amazing until we tried Kawaii.
Yes the décor looks like a Chinese livingroom, but honestly it can be in a run down tent for all I care. The sushi is absolutely amazing! (And I hate sushi). Their spicy salmon salad has me dreaming about it every single night! They have a huge selection of various yummies for All you can eat, (19 $ a person). Even if you’re not a sushi lover like me, there are tons of noodles to choose from and katsu.
BOTTOMLINE: I strongly suggest this place… you will leave this place begging for mercy, because you are too full. Everything over there is too delicious!