Cafe Japon

Found the place again since they closed the old location. Food and service was good and would be coming back. Parking on the other hand was hard, since I drive a lifted truck. But ordered the same food that I had before and still taste the same.

A roach crawled across the table. We immediately got up and told the waitress we needed to leave. We hadn’t received our food yet, just the terrible looking (and tasting) salad that came with the special. The waitress told us to wait to get the check so we could pay it. I wasn’t rude, but i was laughing when I told her that we wouldn’t because A ROACH crawled across the table.
Eat at your own risk

So I was hungry one late Saturday night and decided to dine at this place. First thing I noticed was that their sushi (no not rolls) is expensive: over $ 10 for a piece. I’ve been to better places and you at least get 2 pieces. That is absoluty expensive.
So I ordered the baked mussel for appetizers and I was expecting it to be something similar to Aka’s baked mussel, well it wasnt. These are MINCED mussels, mushrooms, onions with spiced mayonnaise spooned over the mussel shells garnished with green onions and baked. It’s decent and but it’s mostly mushrooms. What happened to the mussels? I ordered baked mussels not baked mushrooms. They served me 5 pieces of mussels but there seems to only have 2 pieces of mussels in it and the rest are fillers.
Next, I ordered a sushi platter, selected by the chef, The no uni, no unagi, no sweet shrimp, no torched salmon just plain 10 pcs sushi and the usual California roll. Good enough if you want regular sushi.
The place is essentially a neighbourhood sushi joint. If you crave sushi and you live in the neighbourhood and you do not want to drive or deal with ungodly Houston traffic, this is good enough to satiate your sushi cravings.
Sidenote: It irks me whenever a reviewer mentions «fresh» together with «sushi. No such thing. FDA definition of «sushi grade» means the fish has to be frozen at a certain amount of time at a certain temperature to kill the parasites. Frozen is not the same as fresh. The only fresh fish you’ll ever get is the one you catch, cleaned, cooked and eaten.

I was glad to see that Café Japon had re-​opened so close to home. We came here on a Sunday. The place was pretty empty when we arrived which made me a bit nervous. They have all day happy hour on Sundays with some pretty good deals.
I started with a side salad with creamy miso dressing which was delicious. For appetizers, we ordered the crab puffs, fried calamari, chicken wings, and gyoza potstickers; these were all served with a side of slaw. The crab puffs, calamari and wings were good but the potstickers had an odd taste. I also didn’t care for the side of slaw; the plates could really do without it. Now for the sushi… the salmon sashimi (which comes with 5 pieces) was fresh and really good. This definitely calmed my initial nerves. The Snowman roll was pretty good too.
I hope this place is able to stay open. I really enjoyed my meal here. Overall, good food, good service, and great location.

Great ambience, great food! Highly recommend! It is even more beautiful than the original location. Still has the same great food we have enjoyed for years. If you were a longtime customer at the original location, you will love the new location. Covered parking is nice.

Me and the bf finally ventured to the new location after seeing the old location on Kirby closed but after today’s visit, we know that we have Café Japon back! On Saturdays they’re only open from 5 – 11 which is… different but we were on board since their happy hour is from 5 – 7 on Saturdays Parking is available in the parking garage on Westcott and its a small walk to the entrance. We were greeted warmly when entering and our hostess let us sit wherever we chose. We ordered the vegetable tempura as an appetizer and 6 regular rolls and 3 hand rolls off of the happy hour menu and everything was delicious and fresh. Our waitress was very friendly and never let our water glasses or our iced teas go empty. Our food came out fast. We made sure to let our waitress know that the service was outstanding and complimented the sushi chef. We will definitely be back, especially to try the all day happy hour on Sunday and for the all you can eat lunch specials. :)

First time try. Was told this is the same Café Japon but they moved here. food wasn’t bad. Price is decent. Yummy Lunch all you can eat for only $ 12.95. From soup to appetizers and sushi. The fish piece are perfect. They didn’t skimp on the materials. Been back several times and the consistency is there.

Once upon a time, I loved Café Japon. But that was a long time ago. Moving locations has not improved their attitude about serving quality food. If you eat it raw, fresh and quality are a must.
First, the fish was covered with paper towels. I asked what was under them thinking the chef might unveil the fish to show me, but that did not happen. I was simply told salmon, tuna and yellow tail. Hummm… if you do not want to show me the fish, I do not want to take a chance of eating it. Usually sushi chef’s show their offerings with pride, but not here. So, I took the cooked option not wanting to risk getting sick and I was hungry.
I ordered the Tako Su, Unagi ($ 2.95 per piece), Spider handroll and some other cooked scallop handroll that was re-​heated to a cool luke warm. It was not worth the chance of eating tepid re-​heated shellfish. The cucumbers in the Tako Su were chopped without any of the elegance that Japanese food is presented with. When the salad was dressed, something black fell out of the tin can as he emptied the can of dressing on to the salad. He removed the black «thing» unceremoniously and handed me the salad — yuk. The soft-​shell crab in the spider roll had been cooked sometime earlier and no amount of eel sauce could cover that up. Eel sauce on a spider roll???
However, the rice was nice. There could be hope for them if they would add some pride and offer food that you don’t have to worry if it will make you sick.
I was asked if everything was alright and I told both the waitress and the chef that it was not. Neither cared enough to inquire further. I was simply handled my bill for $ 30 for my less than half eaten dinner.
It was not happy hour and I was the only patron in the place. I will not be back even if it is the closest sushi bar to my home.

Been a long time Japon patron. Will say one of the last meals at the Kirby location has uninvited ingredients. But that was one out of say 100 times there. They corrected the issue that time.
Went to their new location recently. The sushi was very good and fresh as expected. One of the servers is from the old location and is very good and friendly. I will say the 1 – 2 young hostesses were fairly inexperienced as I frequently had to ask for a water refill and one of them hadn’t a clue what ‘ice’ was. Aside from that I will continue to go there…

Good food, good location, friendly staff. I live and work close to Café Japon and I’m very happy they have chosen this location. The interior is nice and seems like a good place for a date or to take friends. I wish they would put a menu online so I can place an order for lunch when Im at work with a little more ease.

I just tried this place alone and found them very comfortable. There wasn’t many people there when I went in. They seem to have just opened and been not known by many yet. I told them I want some special fish they have today. The chef picked very nice sashimi and sushi for me and gave me a half price per their happy hour deal! Nice!

I went to the old location ever science i was little the food was fresh and chewy and not slimey (like cheap sushi places), but then one day the freshness got bad and it was cheap quality sushi

This was my first time at Café Japon, and I could not figure out if it were a chain connected to the on on Kirby and SW Freeway…
My friend and I went for their lunch options. I had the bento box with chicken teriyaki and California roll. It arrived in a lovely box with friend shrimp, seaweed salad, and an orange (already peeled and cut). It was too much for me for lunch, but it was very tasty!
My friend had the Sushi Roll Option, and her plate seemed more manageable than mine. I think next time I’ll go for the Sushi plate options.
Also, this looks like it would be a great date place with plenty of surrounding sidewalks to take your beau for an after dinner walk (or an after lunch stroll through Bayou Bend!).
Lovely place and I’ll try to order less next time.

Ok, 4 stars is generous here, but it irritates me that Heather would give a restaurant one star for being closed when she never even tried anything, so I’m making giving them a spare star to account for that person.
We had lunch here today. Overall it was good, but the place was EMPTY, which wasn’t a good sign on walking in. They have only been open for two/​three weeks and it shows. Seriously, put out a groupon or offer a check-​in benefit or something. My first thought was that there probably wasn’t much turnover in the food which made me wonder if they were serving fresh (a bad concept in a restaurant where the main food is RAW MEAT).
No one was in the front to greet us when we got there — we walked through the restaurant before someone came out and greeted us (she was surprised to see us there).NO ONE else came into the restaurant during the entire time we were there. The only other person I saw sitting there appeared to be an employee.
Food ordered:
edamame
baked avocado
Lunch special #2 (spicy salmon? roll and 3 pieces of sushi)
Lunch special #8 (three rolls)
There are a few signs that food isn’t moving. See attached pictures. The slaw decoration under the backed avocado appetizer was dried up and sad looking. BUT, the appetizer was AWESOME. There really is no excuse in a restaurant to telegraph that you don’t care enough to keep your ingredients in the best possible condition. I get you are just open, but if you want to stay that way — don’t put old, dried up food on my plate. Also, the «salad» on that plate was cheap. Chopped iceberg lettuce. You guys need to use mixed greens and you need fresh food on the plate. Don’t be cheap on this of all things.
Same problem, different food. The tuna in the other picture. Dry looking — did not appear fresh.
The miso soup was inedible and I have NEVER had miso soup that wasn’t good ANY WHERE. It was like someone took one bowl of soup and watered it down to two.
The edemame was good but a little squishy on the ends on occasion and it made me think I was being fed something that had been left in the fridge too long.
Two of my rolls were good, the spider roll (soft shell crab) was gross. I’ve never had one before, but it smelled dry and fishy and not good. I tried one bite and spit it out. The other rolls were good. As mentioned, one of the sushi pieces was dry from sitting out. I never saw anyone behind the sushi counter — everything came from the kitchen, so I think some (or all) of it was pre-​made. When it was good, it was really good.
Hopefully, more customers will mean less food waiting around to dry out and I hope they do well, but regardless, you can’t feed people old food, it’s not my fault you don’t have customers. There are TOO MANY OTHER SUSHI restaurants for you not to put out your best. We tried your restaurant over one of our favorites, but probably won’t do that again.