Kitaro

Better order your sushi elsewhere!
My order was missing the salad. When I called to inform the restaurant, I was told they can’t bring it because they were closing. I was told they’d bring it with my next order. I told the woman on the phone that I believed they should provide an additional item in order to compensate for their error, but she did not seem to understand me. I tried several times to explain, and eventually hung up the phone because I was not understood (I’m a native English speaker).
When I called back to place a new order, I explained the problem from when I last ordered, and requested to be compensated for their error. I was told they’d bring the salad, but refused to do anything to make this right. I didn’t even get a chance to suggest a low cost appetizer.
I requested to have the salad delivered and informed them that I’d never order from them again. After all, this is New York. We have several sushi choices, and most restaurants that make mistakes do something to try to make things right. Not them! They definitely need to improve their customer service.

Based on reviews I had high expectations. The interior is nice.
I took the fixed menu for 38 $: soup or salad, 2 appetizers, main course and dessert. Portions very good, not too big, not too small. The fixed menu goes per 2 persons, but I was ale and I could still get it, nice.
So all good, except that the taste of the dishes was not extraordinary, nothing really stood out.
I do not regret going, but I will probably not go again

I like to get my lunch here sitting at the window. Nice location next to the park, and the prices are reasonable!

Its sooooooo good! Amazing food and free spring rolls! We ordered it twice in one night!

This has the same name as a (formerly) well-​known Japanese new age musician. I wonder if that is intentional? As in many Japanese restaurants, the environment was attractive, with lots of natural wood and modest lighting. The rest of the experience was fairly typical — a standard menu, and sashimi that was on the dull side. I don’t mean to disrespect the place — an average Japanese dining experience is a good dining experience — but I didn’t see anything outstanding here.

The food is so good that the terrible service is worth it! Walked by several times without saying in but my hunger required an immediate pre dinner.
The tuna and salmon tartar is otherworldly. Really. See picture.

Are you F’ing kidding me? I was absolutely MYSTIFIED. We order two green teas on a chilly night. Scene goes as follows:
**ENTER WIERD OLD LADY***
WIERD LADY: ONLY TEA? that’s it yea? no food only tea…
ME: Yes, do you sell green tea?
WIERD LADY: you want tea, you must make mistake. YOU Go to Dunkin Donut or Café Bene, they have tea
ME: So you don’t serve tea in your restaurant?
WIERD LADY: Tea you pay for tea. Tea only for costumer!
ME: OBVIOUSLY we are going to pay for tea!!! (seriously bro?)
She huffs and puffs, runs off to register and bickers to coworker about us, might as well have pointed a finger or shot a smoke dart in the sky. Comes back, literally drops tea, saunters off again, prompting me to practically yell…
ME:…EXCUSE ME! May we have some sugar please?
WIERD LADY: OH NO NO. this Japanese Restaurant, japanese people no use sugar in tea. Nobody do. Why you put sugar in green tea?!!
ME: right right thanks, can we get some sugar please?
WIERD LADY: green tea no go with sugar!
ME:THANKS, sugar please!!!
(lady already walked away. in the middle of yelling at me about how Japanese people dont like sugar.) DROPS sugar. scoffs off again! Staring me down at this point. Real relaxing.
Let me level with you guys for a sec. Since WHEN do you (in any establishment, fck a restaurant, just a business in general) TURN DOWN PAYING PATRONS?! WHERE THEY DO THAT AT?! How you gonna tell me to go to another spot? That’s just ABSURD! Then, you RIDICULE ME on how I like MY tea, THAT I AM PAYING FOR? «The customer is always right»? How about you just STFU and give me my sugar? Especially after you rudely dismiss me, and then tell me I’m not drinking my tea right… MEANWHILE there’s a poster behind me about food specials you guys have THAT AREN’T EVEN JAPANESE!!! GUAC SHRIMP? PAD THAI SAUCE? I’m done. Gave one star cus it was warm in there. thanks for the heat guys.

I ordered a pickup for 3 roll lunch special. It was 6 pieces each and kinda disappointed. I got eel with avaocado, white tuna with cucumber, and crunchy spicy salmon. But they messed up my order with one of thr rolls and gave me a plain salmon roll instead of crunchy spicy salmon.
The miso soup was decent but I don’t recommend their lunch special rolls. I’d rather get other lunch specials like other people did!
Also, the staffs weren’t friendly at all! Idk if u sit down they treat you like a real customer but when I walked in to pick up my food, no one came up to me to see why I’m even there. … so I had to go up to the sushi man and asked for the waitress or somebody who can give me my food I ordered. and the old lady showed up and gave me a sheet of paper to sign. And handed me the food. No eye contact, no greetings, no anything!

The food is Okay. Just Okay and the price does not really help considering there are a million and one other sushi places in the Upper West Side.
I’ve ordered from here a few times and have eaten there a few times also because it is less than a block away but the service is HORRIBLE.
HORRIBLE. HORRIBLE. HORRIBLE.
I took my mom there for lunch one afternoon and had to call the waitress over for everything. She brought us our check TWICE without asking if we wanted anything else (which we did). Every time she had to bring something over she basically just threw the plate on the table. Mind you, this was a weekday and we were the only people in the restaurant. We left and the waitress literally ran out of the restaurant asking for a better tip. She was running and yelling in the middle of the street. Who does that?
I went back one more time and again the waitress was horrible. Laughing and talking to the co-​workers I had to get THEIR attention to get her to come over and she did not bring me my entire meal. Needless to say, I left.
Wish I could love this place but I think that it is time to move on.

I checked my trusty Unilocal app and came across this place for lunch. 3 stars weren’t appealing but, how bad could it really be?
Well its BAD, I had the 2 sushi roll lunch special $ 8, the eel was so tough and barely there, the roll itself was limp, the Shrimp Tempura roll was bland and once again the shrimp was barely there it was all batter.
I asked for Low Sodium soy, a bottle saying as much was given to me but I’m pretty positive it wasn’t and then, to add insult to injury I was charged a $ 1 for Siracha! WTF

If the food had been good then maybe it wouldn’t matter that when we stopped by here on a Sunday when they were all but empty, we were treated like a nuisance by the server. It makes for a really unpleasant meal experience. We won’t be back here when there are so many other options to choose from in the neighborhood.

I ordered edamame for an appetizer, which was very good!
For dinner I had the vegetable tempura roll and sweet potato roll. Both were very good, though a bit hard to eat at once. I’d eat here again :)

I ordered on seamless from this restaurant, the prices were decent, definitely cheaper than the surrounding sushi places. The order arrived fairly quickly, and quicker than the 45 minutes that was suggested online. The food was good! I would order from them again.
The only setback was that, no soy sauce was included with my order. Chopsticks, napkins and the spicy mayo I requested but no soy sauce! It somewhat ruined the experience but nonetheless a good place to go to in the neighborhood.

Excellent lunch special, quick and fair price. Loved it, will be back. Nice people :)

The menu at the restaurant was torn apart, but we got to order right away– I got the Kani Salad, Spicy Tuna Crunch Roll, and the Red-​Hot Dragon Roll. The salads (my father ordered one, too) took about 10 minutes to come out, and it was actually pretty delicious. The rolls came out 5 minutes after the salads. I would say that the making of the rolls was fast and rushed, but then again, we were the only ones in the restaurant. The Spicy Tuna Crunch Roll was a huge let-​down for me, not enough crunchies in it. The Red-​Hot Dragon Roll, however, was amazing, and I HIGHLY recommend it. Spicy tuna, crunchies, cucumber, and more spicy tuna on the top? It was like a dream, believe me. We got the bill, and no, there was no, «You didn’t leave us a big enough tip, sir.» Instead, we got the bill, and it came with 2 Blow Pops! I got watermelon, and my sister got sour apple, our favorite candy flavors.
Also, I used Siri to show me the way there. She said, «Kitaro Sushi, 0.0 mi. I look behind us, and it’s right there. I nearly died of laughter.

I’m so angry at the service here that I am writing this review as I sit at the table. The waitress was so rude and basically demanded that I leave her a higher tip than I originally gave. This is on top of the overpriced but very mediocre food we receieved. I really do not recommend this restaurant!

Just come in and try there lunch believe me it is best sushi lunch special of the UWS creative rolls and a large selection on menu. And not so expensive

Staff was friendly when we entered but the place was empty which made my dining partner and I nervous. The sushi was just okay. Maybe below average.
Won’t be returning

Almost overwhelming amount of sushi roll choices. Normally this would be a good thing but it was like reading a novel.
Sushi was average. Got the job done. Spicy salmon is a go to favorite for me at any sushi restaurant but it was almost too spicy — only a problem because salmon flavor was completely lost. Got a couple of special rolls — some worked better than others. I was excited about the «Iphone 5C is for suckers» roll (and yes, I’m sure 99% percent of the reason I ordered it was the name) and it was mediocre. Ordered one with apple because I thought it sounded interesting… turns out, there’s a reason that’s not a popular sushi restaurant thing. Shrimp tempura was the one I was least excited about but a friend ordered it and it was my favorite.
Prices are decent so I’ll probably be back (or at least order) but not much to make me go here over any of the other UWS choices.

I was craving sushi so badly so I got the two rolls for $ 8 lunch special.
One cucumber roll and one shiitake mushroom roll.
First impression: TINY TINY PORTION. six little cucumber rolls and six little mushroom rolls. what?! for $ 8? I’m new here, and will definitely be searching for other sushi places because this is ridiculously overpriced compared to what I can get in california for the same price.
Anyways, on to how it tasted. you can’t get cucumber rolls wrong, so that passed. the shiitake mushroom roll was gross. the mushrooms tasted like they were drenched in soy sauce overnight and then stuffed into the roll. too much mushrooms, too little rice so it was wayyy too salty. I had to pick out most of the mushrooms!
Idk if I will be back. Hopefully other sushi places are more generous.