Kai Sushi

Bad customer service: our server tonight was Miae and she was prompt and courteous. The young dude training or supervising her, however, was a major jerk; lecturing her in front of customers about taking drink orders and then when Miae reminded him about a table’s dessert order, he said, «Yeah I know! What about it?!»
Salmon skin hand roll: super disappointing. While they crammed a good portion of salmon skin into the roll, the chef neglected to drain it of excess oil. Needless to say, I did not eat the grease hand roll that they served me.
Overall: usually is an average spot; fair prices, good quality, standard rolls and decent service, but I doubt that I’ll return again.

Sushi is pretty good, but considering I just waited with my coworker over a half an hour to get our orders, not happy. There were only 5 other people in the entire restaurant. We had to walk up to them to get out food. Thanks for taking up more than our 30 minute lunch break.

Wow. So disappointed with my experience last night. Took 15 mins for someone to greet me and my party when we walked in the door. There was no host, so one employee just handed me a clip board and asked me to write my name on a wait list which was pretty unprofessional in my opinion. We were seated 10 mins later which was fine, but our server was definitely in a hurry and made us feel rushed.
Despite him being in a hurry, he took our order and it literally took 50 mins for our 3 sushi rolls to come out! No one checked us to ask how we were doing. After we flagged down an unfriendly staff member, we finally got our food but it took another 20 mins to get our check.
The food was okay, but everything else was so poor that we will not be back.

Sushi is always good. However, I went today and the hostess literally tossed our check at us and was extremely rude. Service is so important and she definitely ruined our experience. Ruined.

I have to agree with Eric G. My family and I have been frequenting this restaurant for the past 3 – 4 years and the past year it has gone downhill.
New server gets 2 stars. He was in the weeds with 4 tables and visited us 4 times
— seat us
— take our drink order
— take our food order (I specifically said we are going to start of with = we will order more.
— drop off the check
Normally the service is a 4 – 5 star.
Food gets 1 star this visit. We started with 2 rolls (expecting to order more). Edamame was undercooked, rice was hard, dry and cold (seemed to be from the day before) and the fish was just chewy and old… Almost seemed previously frozen. We left part of a roll and voted to not order more. Normally the food is a 4.
Both restrooms were sticky and gross. Neglected. 1 star.
We use to love coming in every few months but unfortunately will not be back. Can’t justify spending money there with so many other options available.

Not really much to say, since I had my first visit here for dinner with my family. 45 minutes was way too long to wait at Poway Sushi Lounge, where we frequent for sushi. Kai Sushi is fairly large-​sized, clean, and nicely decorated. There weren’t too many patrons there for Saturday night dinner.
The first thing that I noticed was the naming of the sushi rolls. Some of their rolls that are similar to their counterpart in other sushi restaurants aren’t named their common name. I had their Red Dragon Roll, which is tuna on top of a California roll, which is usually the «Hawaiian roll» in other places I’ve been to. I ended up pretty dissatisfied with it, as I tasted more of the rice than the tuna or avocado or crab filling in the inside. Compared to other sushi places I’ve been to, the slice of the tuna on top was thinner. I had about the same reaction with the other sushi that I tried from my parents’ bento box dinner. I wasn’t full from the Red Dragon Roll, but I didn’t really have much of an appetite to have some of the bento box sushi after that.
Service was better. Our food came quickly after we ordered and our server came by our table often for requests that we had. As nice as the service was, I left feeling like we should have waited for the food at Poway Sushi Lounge.
0.5 star for food, 1 star for cleanliness and décor, and 1 star for service

We’ve had «OK» sushi from Kai and we’ve had disappointing sushi from Kai. Our latest was on a Saturday night so you kind of expect them to have their best product out there and everything was bland and didn’t taste fresh. Even the wasabi was weak. After two less-​than-​par experiences, we will take our sushi grubbing elsewhere.

I’ve been frequenting Kai for years, always impressed with the quality of their sushi. Until today. The first warning sign was that I didn’t recognize anyone in the place, as if the are either under new ownership or have fired their entire staff. Either way, the food quality was horrible. The sushi that I ordered was literally about a third of the size that it has always been and it was almost all rice. This is night and day compared to what I had come to expect from this place. Usually, I’m stuffed after lunch. Today, I’m thinking about going out and getting a hamburger because I’m still hungry.
Maybe it was a one-​time thing. I hope so and will give them one more chance, but I fear I’ll be soon looking for a new sushi bar if this is the new norm.
So, I’ll leave this with a big «beware.» Even if you’ve had nothing but great experiences here, it looks as if this may not be the same place at all anymore. Time will tell.

Good food, clean place. Pricing is about average for good sushi. It would be 5 stars but we had an incident awhile back for my birthday that they couldn’t accept more than a 2 card split. then as we walked out they offered to accept payment. All we had was a few beers and left it at that. So be sure to let them know ahead if you have more than 2 willing to pay separately.

Went here for lunch and food is ok had the Bulgogi Beef plate. Price is fair for its huge portion.
Service is fast and Servers are attentive and friendly.
Has booth and plenty of parking spaces.
Not certain if I go back for more since Poway has few Japanese resto to choose from.

I do really like Kai, though I am a bit biased because there are not a lot of great places in Poway, and since this is nearby, relatively affordable, and consistently tasty, my boyfriend or family and I like to pop in here when we get a craving for sushi.
I’ve rarely gone during the dinner rush – I’m almost always there for a lunch or very early dinner – but the service I’ve received has always been nice. It has a nice, relaxed, and private atmosphere, although the TVs can be a little distracting to some people. It’s a good place to talk and catch up, IMO.
I do a bento once in a blue moon, but it’s just ok. I mainly come here for the sushi, which is always tasty and frequently affordable! We’ve explored a lot of the menu, but some consistent favorites are the eel, caterpillar, rainbow, Poway, and crunchy rolls. Yum yum yum~ Super filling! These rolls are huge.

Plenty of specials and happy hour stuff,
But if youre looking for really good quality then dont expect much.
The rolls are pretty good, as well as the salads, theyre huge! This place is a great lunch spot for hapoy hour and cheaper rolls.

Horrible, horrible service. This is our second time
trying this place and unfortunately it’ll be the last. It’s really convenient because it’s right by the movie theater but the service is so stinking slow and all the servers have no idea what is going on. The sushi is okay but not outstanding. I wouldn’t waste your time.

I have been coming here for a few years now and highly recommend it. I usually get some rolls like the spicy tuna, philly, and the caterpillar. They also have great sashimi and the chefs will sometimes make specialty creations for you.
The chefs and staff are awesome! Very friendly and polite with great, efficient service. Great food and atmosphere at reasonable prices.

Not bad for Poway, good service, convenient location and good variety. This isn’t on my top 10 list but it was nice and easy with kids. We were out in east Poway and needed a place for dinner. It was recommended to me by a friend with kids. Atmosphere is very casual with half a dozen large flat screen TVs broadcasting women’s collegiate basketball this evening.
We ordered the sushi combo– which included a salad, miso soup, rice, teriyaki chicken, 5 pieces of sushi, tempura, and orange slices. Portions are generous and freshly prepared. The tempura is mostly vegetables– a carrot, sweet potato, Kabocha, with one shrimp. Sushi includes shrimp, salmon– delicious, tuna– downright CHEWY?!, yellowtail– flavorless, and whitefish– bland. Also, having read a children’s book featuring Samma as the ‘stinkiest fish in all of Japan’ we just HAD to try it out. Wow, it is very stinky but also tasty. It’s bbq’d and a very oily fish in general. My son thought it tasted a bit like smoked salmon. I only recommend it for the culinarily adventurous. Overall decent but geared more toward families than foodies.

CT Tower rules!!! Think of ahi poke and chunks of avocado coated with a rich tasty sauce, stacked high and topped with fried sweet potato strings. When we first ordered this, Hubby and I shared and savored every bite. The second time we visited (which was exactly a week later) we ordered one each. LOL One of the most delicious versions of poke I’ve ever had — it’s definitely a must-​order!
Aside from the CT Tower perfection, the rolls are delicious and well-​priced, menu is extensive, service has always been wonderful, and they have a happy hour with great deals if you can make it before 6pm. Already planning our next visit.

Overtime this restaurant’s quality went down. Sushi is sloppily made. I got the sunshine roll, salmon skin hand-​roll, and shrimp hand-​roll. Sunshine roll had lemon that was falling apart instead of accompanying the roll and didn’t really taste different than a California roll. The salmon skin was not crispy making it a little gross and super oily. Shrimp tempura was just ok. They were all boxed in the same box instead of hand-​rolls on a different box and sushi in one box. Not sure if i will be coming back soon here. I hope they step it up again because they were good few years ago.

The score would not let me do half stars. I give it 3 ½ and rounded down.
My children and I just got back to the states from living overseas in Okinawa, Japan. We got hooked on sushi while there, and had our craving, so we decided on Kai’s.
It was lunch time. The service was great. The servers are very polite, will explain the menu thoroughly, and givenplenty of time to eat and seamless refills.
We ordered a caterpillar roll, spicy tuna roll, and a california roll. I love that they have the chopstick helpers for unskilled users. My kids have ok skills but it helped them a lot. The spicy tuna roll was bland in my opinion. The caterpillar roll was good, but had too much sauce on the eel. Making the top of the aushi slide off before reaching your mouth. The flavors itself (once you piece it together) was very nice. The california roll was made far too wide to fit in even an adult mouth, i struggled, and I have a big mouth. It was a no go for the kids. The crab in ot was dry, and the rice wasn’t holding in the ingredients. They kept sliding out, which can be a sign of a poor prep.
Maybe we were just spouled by our time in japan. It did help sate thr craving, but it was not what we would call out of this world sushi. A nice lunch! Especially if yiu aren’t picky about yiur sushi.

I’m not always in Poway but this place came up on Unilocal for sushi so I went ahead and tried it. I tried four of their rolls and they were just as good as the usual places that I go to for sushi such as RB Sushi. They also have a lot of other foods as well like bentos and other usual Japanese appetizers you’d want to order. The only thing I noticed was that their sushi rolls kinda break apart easily when you try to pick em’ up. Not really bothering but I’ve never been to a restaurant where the sushi is like that lol. Other than that everything was goin’ good. Probably my go to spot for a quick sushi fix if I’m in Poway.

Nice find! The sushi was good and great prices.
One quick note — I got the Rainbow Sashimi Salad, thinking it was a small salad, it is not! It’s like a meal by itself. I ordered sushi + this salad and it was too much food. It was all really good and I’ll be back the next time I’m in the area.