Kintaro Sushi Lounge

Backed scallop with California roll: is perfect amout and their cosmos are muy feurte! It’s a good place to go if you want to try something new! They know what their doing here and you can enjoy it all!

For sure… Closed. I drove by today and there’s signs all over the place. How is that possible! Food was SO good and the place was always packed!

Sushi was okay. It was good, but I’ve had better. I don’t remember what it was called, but I think it was a crunchy shrimp roll? Not sure.
Calamari was good. Just as always.
We also ordered one of those kbbq plates. It was okay… It came with a salad which was… eh. Lol
Good service though :)
Paid $ 45 + tip for 2 people.

We stumbled upon this restaurant one night when we were craving sushi. Looks like Unilocal let me down. Not sure how this place can garner 4 star reviews but to each their own.
It took a while for the waiter to give us menus and he seemed to be forgetful throughout the night. I think they need to hire more waiters, since he was the only one on the floor.
We ordered an array of sushi and the only thing that was edible was salmon nigri. I had an order of halibut and it was so damn chewy that I had to spit it out!
I wanted white tuna and they took forever to get that to me. Finally, the sushi chef comes by and tells me they are out. This is after asking for it 2 times. He sent me a free order of spanish mackerel instead. The gesture was nice and the fish was okay. I wish they had told me 20 minutes earlier they were out.
We ordered some rolls which I didn’t eat since they were packed with mayo and looked very heavy. My 2 dining companions ate them and said they were meh. Yeah, looked pretty meh to me.
Waiter forgot my water even though I asked for it twice.
Sushi chef sent over a free yellowtail sashimi and while I appreciated his gesture, it was the most disgusting yellowtail I have ever eaten. We both took a bite and spit it out. Spitting out sushi? Not good!
We had an order of shrimp tempura and it was so oily and gross that no one finished it. What a shame. Shrimp tempura can’t be that hard to mess up.
The kicker were the blue crab hand rolls. We were so excited for these since we’re big fans and they took forever! 30 minutes later, they finally arrive and were so disgusting and nasty that we left them on the plate after 1 bite. What a huge waste! Crab was mixed in with the rice and it was a gross mess.
Bill was over $ 80 for this. Dinner was so unsatisfying that I had to stop at In N Out and get a burger on the way home.
2 stars for the sushi chef’s efforts. I’m never coming back here.

This is hands down my favorite sushi bar! First off, it’s in a great location, right on Ventura in Sherman Oaks. The have a nice outdoor seating area with space heaters in case it gets a bit cold. The inside is always clean and welcoming. I’ve never had a problem with the staff, and even the few times an order was wrong, it was fixed right away and quickly. My girlfriend and I are regulars here. Each time we come we usually get something for free. Whether it’s the edemame or an upgrade from a hand roll to a specialty roll, or last time it was an extra bottle or sake. I’ve never ordered anything from the bar, but the drink selection looks very good. The price is cheap for the quality of food you’re getting. I can’t highly recommend this resturant more, A+ all around :)
I don’t know what people on here mean by «they don’t have real traditional sushi.» Sorry, I’m not an expert on food like so many people on Unilocal seem to pretend to be. I love the place, some people don’t, we all have opinions. Just please don’t be rude about it.

There are tons of sushi places on ventura but none are authentic, so I’m not here expecting it to be so. I came for a pitcher (hh $ 7) of sapporo and some over-​sauced baked/​fried rolls. The rolls were overall decent and pretty huge. I guess I somewhat got used to smaller hand-​rolled ones and ordered way too much. For two people, we got 4 rolls + yellowfin belly + miso + edemame. I love toro– fatty tuna belly, so I wanted to try yellowfin. It wasn’t good.
The place was pretty dead… well very dead. The service was excellent though. I came here more to catch up with an old friend so I didn’t mind the lack of background conversations or the top 40 music.

Not the best sushi place I’ve been too but there is 1 thing I love here and like always I forgot its name!!!
If you love spicy then its for you. Its actually an appetizer, they look like potato skins but they are jalapenos with spicy tuna and goodness all over it.
The service was actually really good, we were a group of 15. Sake was following, hot and cold, lol.
Prices are suspect for the quality.
I believe they have karaōke on the second floor on certain days.
Not sure about happy hour but I’m sure they have some kind of Luch special

The people giving this place 5 stars were drunk off of sake bombing and probably like rolls that have more cream cheese, wasabi, eel sauce and mayonnaise than fish.
This is NOT real sushi. The fact that a place like this can remain open on Ventura Blvd. amazes me.

My friends and I were out celebrating my friend’s 24^th birthday and we were walking down Ventura st looking for a place to eat. Instead of the usual Gyu-​kaku, we wanted to try something different. We took our chances and walked into Kintaro. We were greeted by a friendly host and seeing that we were a large group of 7, they sat us upstairs in the lounge! He said they usually close it at a certain time, but that he’ll open it just for us. VIP service, what? Haha but we were so happy that we were seated here because the seats were individual couches, we had the room to ourselves, and it was really nice upstairs!
I ordered yellowtail belly sashimi, salmon handroll, and we split a bunch of rolls together. The yellowtail belly sashimi was SO good! It was great quality and cut well. The other rolls were okay too. We had many rounds of beer and sake so the bill did stack up, but by the end of the night we were too drunk to care.
The people here are so nice and friendly! When we ordered 1 hot sake and 1 cold, the server came to give it to us and he made us play the guessing game from the way he was holding it haha. We had a blast this night and when we are all in the neighborhood, we will definitely be back!

If you’re in Sherman Oaks and craving sushi, you may want to try this place out.
Service — they kept getting our order confused. Staff was nice…
Food — It was pretty good~
Overall — Fun place to grab a quick bite with friends.

I thought the sushi here was okay, I probably didn’t try the best rolls they had out of their selection– but I have to say I’ve had better.
I tried the albacore sushi and I felt that the taste of the fish was masked behind the over powering taste of the wassabi.
I also had the Philadelphia roll, which was served differently from what I’m used to, but it was pretty good.
We also ordered the seared tuna sushi, salmon baked roll, and the California roll-​tempura– all of which were good but not amazing.
The menu was small not much to choose from, of course I came here during lunch.
I felt kind of let down though because they ran out of blue crab and I was looking forward to a blue crab hand roll.
They also have a lounge on the second floor where I think there is karaōke available at a certain time.
It’s not a place I’d go to often, however if one of my friends wanted to go there I certainly wouldn’t mind it. =]
Happy Eating! =]

Better than those cheap sushi places, but not outstanding. Don’t get me wrong, I like going here because the quality is good and it’s a decent place to go to in the neighborhood local to me. Happy hour ends at 7pm. Service lags a little, but at least they try and are not rude.
TIP: Sign up for
and look for their 80% discounts. You can get a $ 25 gift certificate for $ 2 and use it here. The fine print? Sun-​Thur for dine in only. You have to order $ 40 worth of food and they apply an 18% gratuity, but still you can pig out on their sushi, dinner plates, appetizers — it’s a deal to me!
LIKES: Kirin is ice cold! White fish tempura, yum! Lobster roll (i think) — has scallops on top and lobster in the roll. Baked mussles are always a win and I do like their Snow Tuna, mmm! Their cuts of sushi are a decent size & quality…

I feel bad giving this place a bad review because the staff was very nice. We had a specialty roll with fried garlic, which was good (can’t remember the name). The fried garlic was the best part. The sashimi plate was also just ok. The worst crime was the regular shrimp sushi they tried to pass off as the sweet shrimp sushi.
Still, I wouldn’t put up a fight if my friends wanted to come back. One of my friends ordered an unagi bowl and loved it. I think if I came back I’d just get some chicken teriyaki and a cocktail.

Very rarey do I disagree with the majority of my fellow Unilocalers on a particular place, but this one I surely do.
I dined here on a Monday night — we initially went to Little Islands but sadly realized they were closed Mondays. I recalled reading about Kintaro’s on Unilocal awhile back and the good reviews associated with it, so I thought it was a safe alternative.
Let me get this out of the way, but preface it by saying this is not the reason for the poor review: It was our server’s first day working there. She told us a few different times, as a way to explain the mistakes.
ANYONE who has served before, you know your first day doing it you’re not so great, you suck basically — but that is the reason you «shadow» another seasoned server and actually train and learn the menu, etc before you’re put on the floor by yourself (past server talking here ;)). I don’t blame this server for the bad service because it was acutely obvious she didn’t get a lick of training. I blame management. I’m sure by now she is fully trained and doing a great job.
The reason for the 2 is the meh-​to-​bad food. We started with Miso Soup that was barely warm. My boyfriend and I usually down our entire soup bowls of Miso, but we barely had a couple spoonfuls. It wasn’t flavorful, and lukewarm Miso is just not good. The edamame was mushy, mooshy, yuck.
For the sushi, I recall it being aok… not bad, but nothing memorable. There was one roll we got that the piece of avocado (which was overripe and mushy) was bigger than the fish — not sure what that was about, but not my idea of good.
Overall, for how many great sushi joints LA has, I’m surprised this one is still around.

Went here for my 2^nd visit today at Kintaro, and I must say I am really impressed with the service and the quality of sushi. My last experience here was ok… but I believe much of your sushi experience greatly depends on the personal touch and presentation of the sushi chef, along with the obvious fresh sushi.
Our sushi chef was Min. He was amazingly talented. Really takes his art seriously. Very friendly too!
I had the incredible roll. I highly recommend it, and get soy paper instead of seaweed.
I may be a silly white girl, but I have been exposed to every kind of sushi you could dream of, and my expectations are high.
Ask for Min. You won’t regret it!

Happy Hour 5 – 7:30pm…awesome and tasy deals on appetizers and shots… Hot Sake anyone.
Started off with the Edemame & Seaweed salad and had both the Hamachi roll & the 911 roll. I have to say they are generous in size,& tasty too.
Service was great, i probably got asked 5 times by different people how the food was and if i needed anything else. The prices were exorbitant either. You can also find parking in the back lot.
I would definitely recommend it as one of my top sushi-​experiences on Ventura.

Five star service. Three and one half star sushi. That balances out to four right?
Alright, so in a wild fit of spontaneity, Miss Paradise and I broke out of our two restaurant Valley sushi regiment. (between Miya on Magnolia and Laurel and Ahi on Ventura and Cold Water) We went out to Kintaro after some somewhat successful Xmas shopping. (yeah X! I said it) Both Ahi and Miya are five star locations in this writer’s humble opinion. So son, do your thing. Impress me.
Honestly, the sushi was pretty good. Not great, not bad, but good. The yellow tail was a bit sinewy. But, a couple of mis-​steps by the staff brought on some complimentary stuff. Without asking, of course. Por ejemplo: girl forgot to bring out another large Sake, we eventually got the next one half priced. We asked for Albacore and it came out seared for whatever reason, we got another dish sent out courtesy of the chef. Not really sure exactly what that free roll may have consisted of, but with extra Ponzu sauce and when you fry that shit up enough, it all tastes pretty good.
The service was extremely attentive. No problem there. While the previously mentioned big Valley two have this place beat with taste and quality, this is still a fun and worthwhile joint when your in this side of town.

Snow Tuna is fish.
A fish that has not been cooked.
Put it in your mouth.

I had a phenomenal lunch today at Kintaro. It’s been a very long time since I’ve had sushi this good!
I ordered Yellowtail sushi, Salmon sushi & a California Roll with Baked Lobster, my friend got two different spicy rolls and everything was delicious and amazing. I haven’t been this stoked on every single item I’ve ordered somewhere in ages and ages.
The service was present and attentive and the space was quite nice as well. I’ve heard they have a karaōke lounge upstairs, and I’ll be back sometime soon for drinks, and then write a review with more exact details, but my first impression is that Kintaro is a rare gem!

This restaurant is on sushi row of the Valley, which is Ventura Blvd between Sherman Oaks and Studio City. There are half a dozen sushi places in this area, and I don’t think any of them are Japanese owned.
True to form for the melting pot that is Los Angeles, Kintaro is not Japanese owned, either. It is owned by a Korean businessman, and has been in business about 4 years. The design of the restaurant is OK, and there is a full bar in addition to tables and a sushi bar.
I came in about 8:30pm on a Saturday night and the place was almost empty, although it picked up after 9:30pm a bit. My sushi chef with the black hat, Eddie, is Mongolian. His assistant in the white hat is Mongolian, too, and his other assistant with the glasses is Korean, but fluent in Japanese. The waitress is a cute Filipina who knows how to say «welcome» in Japanese. One manager is Caucasian, with a tatoo up the side of his shaved head, and the other manager is Korean of slight build. I believe the owner was floating in and out, too.
I don’t know how they make money in these times, with that many people. All the customers were Caucasian valley types. No Asians.
But I had fun. I ordered all Nigiri like I usually do, and it came out typical Korean style, which is small rice balls with no wasabi on them, covered with long, thin slices of fish. The fish wasn’t bad actually, and I had Salmon Roe and Uni, two risky orders in a slow turnover, non-​Japanese sushi-​ya. They didn’t have Mackerel, so Eddie made me a special roll instead, which I wasn’t charged for. It was tempura fried crab roll with mayo secret sauce, teriyaki sauce, and a dash of Sriracha hot sauce on top. Not real sushi, but pretty good!
The Koreans gave me their recomendations for good Korean food in K-​Town (I asked!). The Mongolians gave me the name of a good Mongolian restaurant, except the only place you can find it is in Mongolia. It is called ‘Modern Nomads”. They told me there isn’t any real authentic Mongolian in L.A., or anywhere in the US.
So if you are ever in Mongolia (I am not sure where, and it is a big country), look for Modern Nomads. If you are in the San Fernando Valley and want creative «Japanese» sushi rolls in a Korean owned restaurant with Mongolian chefs, a Filipina waitress and Caucasian customers, this is difinitely your place!
PS — they do have patio seating out front!