Kanpai Sushi

Great restaurant. The sencha green tea is good, the tempura udon, sashimi, salmon roll, and agedashi tofu were amazing. Will definitely come back.

Had a wonderful time here. I got a dinner item that was all sashimi on a bed of sushi rice, a yellow tail tomo, and some green tea ice cream. It was all great.

Kanpai is located on an quiet street adjacent to the bustling University Ave. I have to say I agree with the star rating on Unilocal.Food is just average and service could be improved. Though it was pretty busy for a Friday night. I think there isn’t a lot of sushi or Japanese options in the area. Met a friend for a quick dinner. We wanted something light but ended up over-​ordering and then not being able to finish everything. Haha. I mainly picked the 5 piece omakase (sushi). It was $ 15 so that’s three bucks a piece and I think that’s kinda pricey. Then we shared an edamame appetizer and a spicy salmon sashimi appetizer. My friend got some soft shell crab and a sashimi plate. So much food. Everything was just ok. Didn’t think it was amazing or super fresh. As for the service, we started off without utensils and had to flag someone down. Then there was no soy sauce in the container at the table. We got hot tea and I finished it and had an empty cup for the majority of the meal. It did get refilled twice within 10 minutes of the end of the meal. This place isn’t my favorite so I will try to seek out other places.

Very average sushi restaurant.
I saw the reviews on Unilocal,but it was nearby and someone in our dinner group wanted sushi… so I gave it a shot. I should have pulled a diva move and made us walk further in the name of good food. Oops.
First off the service was sloppy. It took a while before they asked for our orders, the food came out at very different times, and they didn’t clean a piece of sushi I dropped on the table. I was staring at it awkwardly for a good 20 minutes after they had bussed our plates away.
The food wasn’t terrible, but I wouldn’t eat it again, given the multitude of dining options nearby.
The gyoza was the best thing I tried. Good flavor on the filling, thin skin, and nicely fried.
The sushi was poorly made. My nigiri salmon sampler was falling apart (and one piece literally fell apart onto the table. oops). The fish quality was average. The knife-​work was shoddy.
The miso chicken dinner was tiny and over-​cooked.
Presentation overall was not impressive as well.

A cozy sushi joint with a polite and helpful staff. The sushi was good, and affordable. But the fish was not top-​notch quality, and the rolls were slightly lacking in flavor. The wasabi and ginger were weaker than I would have liked. It was a good place to go for sushi with a friend for a casual dinner but not a memorable dining experience.

I’ve been here several times. Food is always very good, never had a bad meal. However, the wait staff has Always been not very pleasant, warm or welcoming. Tonight, Toyokon, was so great. She was on top of my girlfriend and i. She was funny and knew the menu very well.
To me that was the missing link at kanpia. Now they have a decent wait staff, I’ll go all the time:)
Thx Toyoko

Went there for the first time and they tried to steer us away from staying at almost every turn.
Having come through the door, and having asked for a table for four, she looked scared. You have a stroller? Er, well, maybe… but it won’t fit beside the table. No problem we can leave it by the door or outside. Er, well, there is a seat of four that would perfectly fit your family but I’m going to just stare at the table forlornly and hope that some other Dinks appear magically. OK fine, sit, but did I say you can’t keep the stroller beside the table?
Having been seated, we ask for orange juice. Nope, they don’t sell orange juice she says confidently despite me pointing at the menu where it says «Orange Juice». She leaves with a huff.
Being brought some orange juice, we order a huge bowl of Udon for a six year old and a two year old. Er, well, each guest must pay $ 15 dollars for their meal. For the kids too? Er, well, next time we will enforce, but we don’t want to fight.
Don’t want to fight!!! It’s been nothing but a fight since we walked in the door.
So coming to their senses that we ain’t leaving cause we need to feed the kids (who were seated quietly this entire time), they try to serve us quickly, and give us bad sashimi to start.
Some of the other sushi was a tiny bit better but overall, our experience was barely a 2.
You got what you wanted Kanpai, we ain’t coming back.

Chirashi portions where small but also only $ 15, maybe they need a larger portion one. Food was good enough.

This is the place sushi place I know of in the university ave area. The food is delicious and the price quite descent. The atmosphere of the place is quite nice and relaxed.

Came here for dinner on a monday night, got there a little too early (by about 5 minutes) but the staff was obliging and let us in. The sushi was pretty swell, nothing to write home about, but definitely the best that I have had on University. The service is where it got a little iffy, at first they were all over us like seagulls on bread crumbs but as soon as there were about four other parties we got ignored. At one point we wanted to order more and then gave up when the wait for our server to return elapsed 20 minutes. It took us an additional 10 minutes and a bathroom break for our check to come… my oh my… we even had to flag someone down!
All in all, try to go here when there are 1 or 2 other parties in the restaurant, that way you’re not bombarded by servers nor neglected.
If I was craving sushi I may come here again, only if I was in the immediate area, it wasn’t busy, and I didn’t have a car to drive to California ave or El Camino.
Overall: I wouldn’t recommend, nor would I encourage big groups.

I really wish I could give a better review because their location is very convenient. Unfortunately, I’m not really sure what happened over the past year, but every time I go there, it gets worse.
The fish used to be average, it’s now below average.
They used to give you soup with the take out, they don’t anymore. When I asked about it the answer was «we don’t do that anymore”(!). Note that you still pay the same price as before.
They used to get your order ready in 10 to 15 minutes if you called ahead. Last time I was there it took them 30. On a not so busy weekday.
It’s just sad to see a restaurant’s quality of food and service worsen over a few months.

Came here for lunch a few times, love the bento box (awesome price — $ 10.50)! Always fills up but never crazy packed. The food is very light and palatable. The bento box has a salad with a very tasty salad dressing (vinaigrette-​y), garlic noodles (served cold), miso soup, bowl of rice. Then you get to choose two items. I got the grilled mackerel and California roll today, and last time I got the dragon roll.
The grilled mackerel is SO DELICIOUS, very well seasoned, not dried out, and the skin is crispy. Amazing. Get it.
The sushi is done right, it’s soft sushi rice, not densely packed, great ratio of rice to filling. Downside is it’s pretty small (but hey you’re eating in Palo Alto) so you might wanna order 2 or 1.5 rolls per person.
Service is decent. Would love to come back to try more!

Food was pretty average, quite difficult to communicate with servers, we had to carry our menus to our table and didn’t grab a dinner menu, and thus didn’t realize that there was more than just sushi.
Stanford roll and toro nigiri were pretty great.

Hard to comment on price as it is in Palo Alto. However Stanford roll, dragon roll, and el camino roll were all excellent.
If nagiri was 2 pieces instead of 1 i would give it 5 stars.

Solid sushi, but there are better options in the South Bay. The food here is overpriced and the sushi quality is mid-​range. I ordered a couple of sushi pieces (salmon) and a roll. The roll was good. It had a variety of sashimi pieces on top of it and the center was avocado and cucumber.
Not sure that I’d come back for this since there are better spots like Sushi Tomi not too far away.

Horrible. Arrived for lunch, waited for 9 minutes where it was written «please wait to be seated». Place was not even full, tables
were available and there were waiters idle.
Nobody even cared to come and say Hi.
Came to tell one of waiters I was waiting for a long and he just said «yes, that’s why he have the sign: please wait to be seated» so I just left.
I guess they don’t need more customers so don’t waste your time. There are far better options nearby.
To the owner /​manager: That’s the easiest way for a place get a bad reputation. I’ll never have plans for coming back and will let my friends know about it.

Love their Bento Box for lunch. I work down the street, and am definitely making this spot a regular. For $ 10.50, you’re not offered the biggest quantity nor variety, but it’s probably the best quality I’ve tried in the Bay Area.
Most Bento Boxes I’ve come across give you sashimi as an option. This is not the case with Kanpai, but what they offer flattered my taste buds much more than other restaurants. For my options, I chose the tuna roll and the grilled mackerel. The tuna roll was simple, just how it should be, but I did feel as though there should have been a large piece of tuna. If I can see tuna at one end, but not the other, there’s not enough. The grilled mackerel, however, was spot on flavor-​wise, and cooked splendidly.
The salad was great for the simple fact that it wasn’t drenched in creamy dressing, deeming it actually edible. Dark greens were also included as opposed to the usual chunky stems I’m used to receiving. The salad was dressed with a light ginger dressing, which I highly prefer. In addition to the rice and everything else, they threw in a side of soba noodles, which were intensely flavorful compared to your usual soba noodles; I really enjoyed them. My colleague told me that Kanpai includes a random side dish every time, so I guess it was soba noodle day.
Great interior — cozy and authentic. The place was PACKED when I arrived around 12:45pm to pick up my to-​go order. I did have to call a few times to get someone to answer, but after seeing the restaurant in person, I can assume that they were too busy to even hear the phone ring. I’m supposed to dine-​in for lunch this Friday with colleagues, so I’m excited to return!

I have mixed feelings writing this review, which is appropriate because I had kind of a bi-​polar experience at Kanpai. I got the sashimi. I always get sashimi because (for me), it’s the only way to actually taste the fish without all of the other stuff getting in the way. The sashimi was delicious so that would have earned this place a 5-​star rating.
However, my friend got the «Firecracker Roll» which was completely disgusting. Maybe it’s her fault because she assumed the Firecracker Roll would be like a spicy tuna roll, only more so. Instead, she got this deep-​fried monstrosity covered in some kind of sauce and other strange garnishments. It was horrible.
I don’t understand deep fried sushi rolls. I mean, I generally LOVE deep-​fried food. Mozzarella sticks? Yes, please. Tator tots? Give me seconds. Funnel cake at the fair — can I get two of those?
But don’t deep fry sushi rolls, please. It’s really gross, and also the fish gets fully cooked so you’re not even eating sushi. You’re eating bland steamed fish surrounded by rice and then crunch greasy seaweed. Weird.
If the roll is deep-​fried, maybe Kanpai should make that clear on the Specials board.
I would like to update my review with 5 stars. I hope to come back and have a better experience.

The service here was a little slow and off. We got there right at 12pm and had a reservation; the restaurant was about half empty. It filled up pretty quickly, though, and it took a while for someone to come by with waters, then to come by to take our order. While we were looking at the menus, someone brought over a piece of white board (about 8“x12″, the small cheap kind you’d find on an office door) with the specials handwritten in marker (it seemed kind of an odd thing to get at the table, and the other tables didn’t get one of these white boards). Still, the special sounded good (about $ 15 for a 4 course meal) and when I ordered it, they were out! Why did they specifically hand us this board if they’re out of the special?
* Chicken/​shrimp tempura udon — 3.5 stars
The noodle was thick and just the right texture. The chicken was fairly good and tender. The tempura on the shrimp was a little soft and got soggy quite fast — if it’s going to be sitting in soup, they should make it much more crispy so it can last longer. I like the mix of seafood/​meats in the soup, and the egg is a great addition.

Im surprised by the middle of the road reviews. Maybe I had a good day meal? Sat at the counter with an old co worker and both had the omakase:
2 sushi bar appetizers, 1 dish from kitchen, chef’s 5-​piece special sushi plate, miso soup, and dessert for $ 35
Not too bad a deal considering it’s Palo Alto.
Mixed tempura, Agedashi tofu, Nabeyaki Udon, Sawara, Unagi, Tai, Uni, and Shiro Maguro hit the spot. Sitting at the counter you get a rapport with the chef. We ended up sitting next to someone that was into cars like my co worker so we ended up chatting for a bit. Solid sushi and some unexpected company to boot.