Kissaten Jin

I love this place. Sadly, they recently upped their prices so it’s a little less affordable on a college student budget, but that doesn’t stop me from coming by with friends every few weeks.
The Sukiyaki Don ($ 14) is my go-​to: marinated beef with tofu, onions, and peppers and topped with a poached egg. The portions are pretty large, and I usually eat half and take out the rest to save for lunch the next day. I’ve tasted the Oyako Don and it’s very light flavored and a little more bland. I have also heard good things about the Sake Ikura Don and Tuna Yukke Don. I find that the Sukiyaki Don, at the very least, is incredibly consistent (and I’ve been there upwards of seven times.)
Service is very friendly, and they’re also really great about splitting checks.

Got to meet Jin Japanese chef at a bar, and he told me all about Jin’s handmade soba noodle. Hence, I went for a try. The best Japanese noodle I’ve ever tasted! This has been my first choice now when I’m in the neighborhood. This food is good that it gives you craving. I often get Tuna Yukke Soba or Chicken Nanban Soba (or both if I can convince my friend to get the other). Seating is limited, so try to go early.

The Bosa is pretty good, but not enough for me to be full.
btw, the waiters are really kind!

Ordered the tuna yukke don for dinner, because I was craving raw fish and the reviews for that dish seemed rather good. It wasn’t that great. The tuna was meh in freshness, and there wasn’t much of it. The bowl was perhaps about 50% rice, 40% cucumbers/​greens, and 10% tuna. Overall, just not very impressive in flavor or balance.
My friend got their chicken soba. He didn’t ask for it warm, but they somehow made it hot. The chicken was good, but the soba wasn’t anything special.
I ended up with minor food poisoning, aka approximately 3 – 4 hours of nausea. Based on other reviews of the tuna, I’m not the only one.
If you end up eating here, for the love of your own body, don’t get any of the raw stuff. You will get an okay meal here, but don’t expect it to be anywhere near extraordinary.
Also, staff is super slow, despite the fact that this restaurant has very limited seating capacity (approx. 16).

One of my favorite spots for dinner in Morningside Heights! The sister shop of Jin Ramen, Kissaten Jin specializes in donburi (rice bowls), and has a chill café vibe. I’ve gotten the Yasai Don ($ 10), which was filling and had a nice variety of vegetables unified by a toasty, sweet soy sauce. Tonight, I got the Tuna Yukke don, which was AMAZING. It was reminiscent of poké — fresh raw tuna, avocado, some watercress and nori, with a poached egg on top of a bed of rice with spicy chili/​sesame oil on the side ($ 13). Great service, huge portions, definitely worth the price. Would highly recommend!

This place is a really small joint next to Jin Ramen, and the donburi here is awesome. Seating is very limited and tight, but there normally isn’t a wait. I’d highly recommend the Tuna Yukke Don. The poached egg on top is cold, which is a bit of a surprise, but when you mix it all in it works. The tuna is fresh, and the sweet soy sauce comes on the side so you can adjust it to taste. The katsu curry don is also good, and the portion is huge.

I LOVE this place. Jin Ramen next door is good too but this place has a very cozy feel (since it’s so tiny…) and the food is great. The rice bowls are absolutely delicious and the Soba noodles are delicious whether cold or in a broth.
but PLEASE bring back the ginger soba. It was the best item on the menu. Still a great place but the ginger soba is my favorite dish.

This is a small but decent Japanese restaurant. Unlike JIN Ramen, its neighbor, it doesn’t sell ramen but instead rice bowls and sobas, as well as other appetizers. It’s also less crowded than JIN Ramen, in most of the time, so it’s a place for quick but good quality lunched and dinners.
Their rice bowls are particularly good and it’s worth a try if you go there.

Stopped by Kissaten for take-​out today to satisfy my donburi cravings. The restaurant itself has a nice, quaint atmosphere and offers a decent variety of donburi and fresh soba noodles. After looking through the entire selection, I decided on the trusty, classic oyakodon. Shockingly, the server told me that oyakodons, along with several other options, were NOT available today. Shouldn’t oyakodons be a stable of any donburi restaurant??? Anyways, settled for the sukiyaki don instead. It was tasty, with lots of ingredients and a poached egg! However, I still felt a bit unsatisfied mainly because I really, really wanted that oyakodon. I guess now I have another excuse to return again (which I definitely will)!
Overall,
— Solid spot for donburis (haven’t tried the soba yet, but it looked pretty good)
— Take-​out service was quick
— Restaurant itself is tiny, with enough seating for maybe twenty customers max
— Worth a visit if you’re in the area, otherwise there are probably plenty of similar, if not better, options downtown

This place is a gem just a short walk from Columbia. The Sukiyaki Don was great, loved the poached egg. I inhaled it within a few minutes.

Came at 2pm on a weekday, friendly staff, great music! More importantly-​delicious food! Will come back again!

I ordered Sukiyaki and it was awesome!!! The Japanese style poached eggs with beef… you are in heaven! Ok, but there’s a reason why I didn’t make it 5. The beef was too savory. Btw the waitress was amazing!

I love this place! Delicious clean food in a comfortable and friendly environment. It never disappoints. I love that they always check in with me unobtrusively a couple of times during my meal to see how it’s going or if I need anything at all, unusual for a café, as I usually only get that service at a restaurant.
Yesterday I ordered the Bento Box. It was a chalkboard item and said «lunch only» and I realized I usually go after 5PM, and that’s why I hadn’t seen it before. There was regular and a deluxe, I had a voracious appetite so I opted for the deluxe. Wow! It was a mighty bang for the buck! Beautiful presentation and a perfect balance of flavors. I couldn’t finish it, but they were happy to package the leftovers which I had for mid-​night munchies just a little while ago.
I can’t wait to go back with friends at lunch time so they can experience one of the best bento box I’ve ever had, and I have had MANY!
Thanks Kissaten! Keep up the good work!

I came here for a casual lunch at 12:00 pm on a Thursday with a friend. Having visited their sister store, the original Jin Ramen next door, I wanted to try this one out and see if it was just as good.
It wasn’t crowded at all — there was no difficulty finding a seat, and service was quick. We were handed a short menu and waited maybe 15 minutes for our meal.
I ordered the Kimchi Pork Don and was very happy with it! Portions were large, more than enough rice very liberally covered with mushrooms, tofu, pork, and kimchi. Not incredibly spicy, but very flavorful. Would definitely order this again!

Came here on a whim after an attempt to go to Dino BBQ failed. I was not going to wait 45 minutes to an hour for lunch on an empty stomach at 4pm. Wanted to head to Jin Ramen next door to here but it was on its hour break so we settled for Jin Kissaten and I’m glad we did. My friend and I ordered the tori nanban cold soba and the 3 set obanzai.
The tori nanban soba was pretty good. The chicken had a very nice sweet and slightly spicy flavor and the soba noodles were perfectly cooked to the right texture. The downside was that the dipping sauce was somewhat bland. And the way that the soba is served is not very authentic. I wasn’t too fond of the fact that the chicken sat on top of my noodles and that the soba sauce was probably meant to be poured over the noodles instead of dipped. But overall, I enjoyed it.
For the 3 set obanzai, you can choose one choice of meat and 2 vegetable sides. We chose to have tonkatsu (fried pork cutlet), tororo ume (chopped mountain yam with plum sauce) and kimpira (burdock with lotus root). It also comes with rice and miso soup. The portion for the veggie sides were very small, but the tonkatsu was regular. It was pretty good as well although the quality of the pork wasn’t that great. But it fit the price and I like the variety.
This place is like a mix between a café and restaurant. There’s only about 20 seats. It’s cute. The service is friendly and efficient. I would love to come back here again some time to try some of their other items like the bowls and bento but it is a bit far uptown. If only it were closer…

Very pleasant café experience, great food.
i came here because the next door Jin Ramen was pretty full. The café has a nice belief in that tables can’t be reserved, and so during full hours a patron must share their table with others. I didn’t come during busy hours, but it certainly did seem like an interesting philosophy.
I liked the menu. There isn’t ramen like their next door counterpart, but the rice bowls that they have are pretty good. The atmosphere was nice; it was pretty quiet. I also enjoyed the decorations, which I thought were pretty adorable. I would definitely hit this place up as a lunch spot again.

Now, as I understand it, normal people don’t get debilitating salmon roe cravings.
And those who regularly crave caviar don’t tend to live above 96^th St.
Well anyway, I was thrilled to happen upon the ikura oroshi soba ($ 11, includes a side salad), and ikura oroshi ($ 5).
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The other comfort foods here are hit-​or-​miss; they taste rather home-​cooked. Comforting, sure. The oyako don was on the dry side, the sukiyaki don was a tad too marinated (too salty), the kimchee buta don was only okay…
I don’t like Jin Ramen next door at all. But will be back for Kissaten. The sister restaurants share a bathroom. So if you gotta go, you gotta ask the server for a laminated hall pass to go nextdoor to Jin’s bathroom. Like high school all over again.
As others have mentioned, the speed of service is baffling here, for the simplicity of the dishes. Three of us came for lunch AND dinner on the same day (lol) and lunch service was slooow, but dinner was pretty prompt.
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Bottom line: The most economical and delicious way to kill an ikura craving – especially above 80^th St.

Jin Ramen was packed as usual so I came to the empty Kissaten with a friend.
Apparently they changed their menu which was disappointing because I thought my favorite dish, the Tuna Yukke Don, was updated without avocado since it wasn’t listed as an ingredient. I asked the waitress about it and she said it no longer came with avocado and said that she could put avocado on the side for me. I figured that I would be able to live without it so I passed on her offer. Lo and behold, avocado is still part of the dish and just wasn’t listed on their new menu. I suggested to my waitress that the menu should be updated again but she didn’t seem like she cared.
Also, the waitress didn’t give us water until AFTER we finished eating. Oh, and she was trying to rush my friend and I out by asking my friend if she was done with her dish when she had half of her bowl left and clearly was still eating.
On the bill, «Jeremy» was my server so I can’t tell you what her name was but she was the least helpful waitress I’ve had here.
Not sure how long I’ll keep coming here anymore. I might actually wait for Jin next time.

I liked this place better than its ramen counterpart. The interior is almost more like a café than a restaurant, and yes, it’s well decorated with Asian hints. The waitstaff here was friendly and attentive and food was great.
I got a rice bowl with minced chicken and egg and it was delicious. It was a bit spicy, but the sprouts, poached egg with the meat, seaweed all worked perfectly together. Portion size was good too! Not sure if umami is the word to describe it, but the dish was exactly that, and savory and elegant.
Give this spot a try for your Japanese fix!

Good move Jin Ramen, good move. Kissaten is a sister restaurant just next door to Jin, complimenting it very nicely. While Jin is still the more popular sister, Kissaten is comforting and less busy w/​o sacrificing the taste. If Jin and Kissaten were older and younger sisters in real life, Jin is the pretty popular one, but Kissaten is coming into her own and will soon rise up out of Jin’s shadow.
When you’ve had your fill of ramen lately at Jin, stop by Kissaten for some great rice bowls and katsus and japanese small dishes.
The dishes are quite filling. I got the katsu kurry dish and my friend got the salmon rice bowl. We also shared the japanese small dishes (select three smaller sized portions) you can’t really go wrong with any of them. great light affiar to go with main dish. entrees come with salad and miso soup which were good and boded well for the rest of the meal. I’ll be back, and looking forward to trying the other dishes.
Forgot to mention, the service is also incredibly friendly. There’s seems to be a little friendly with the sister Jin Ramen.
OVERALL: the Jin ramen, kissaten one two punch is unbeatable in harlem.