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| - Kabuki just might be the restaurant that makes me quit trying new places because they happen to be in the area where I'm running errands (I've had terrible luck with this lately), but that's how a friend and I found ourselves there after doing some shopping in Town Square.
Service issues abound. When we walked in, the host was on the phone. So we waited. And waited. Finally, rather than get off the phone, he just handed us menus and told us to seat ourselves. Seriously? We were not sure we should actually just seat ourselves at a random table in the dining room, so we carried our menus like vagabonds and headed over to the sushi bar.
The food wasn't necessarily terrible; just mediocre and stinking of a lack of execution and effort. The "Niku Kushiyaki" was tough and way too salty, nothing like the tender, well-marinated version you'd find in authentic Japanese restaurants - especially disappointing as it's $6 for a very small portion (2 small skewers). The "Steamed Clam" on the menu mentions sake, so I hoped for something like asari sakamushi. Don't make that mistake, as it's nothing close. Kabuki adds soy sauce and it just overpowers everything else.
My friend ordered two rolls; I forget Kabuki's names for them, but basically a dragon roll and a baked crab roll. The rolls were not made well and were sliced super thinly to boot, so nearly every piece disintegrated when we tried to pick them up. Also, the rolls took forever to arrive (around 20 mins after we finished appetizers, even though we ordered them at the same time). My sushi (saba, hamachi, sake) was actually passable, although maybe it's just because my expectations were lowered so much by all the lousy dishes that preceded it.
I admit I agonized a bit over giving a +1 because the sushi chef and busboy were very friendly (and the busboy is the only reason we ever got our drinks refilled, as our waitress just ignored us or forgot) - but I just can't do it. Again, it's not that anything was so terrible, but that nearly everything was bad or at best, mediocre. Even if you're in Town Square and need a sushi/Japanese fix, go somewhere else or manage your fix for another day.
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