Kaori Sushi and Sake Bar

Came here on a Saturday night to treat my mom to an early Mother's Day dinner.

Food:
The fish was fresh. I would say the sushi quality was good. The tempura dinner was massive - 4 pieces of shrimp tempura and a variety of veggies. We were pretty impressed. Sushi rolls were typically priced at $20 and above.

Service:
I appreciate how accommodating they were. I called them around 5:30 to make a reservation for 6:30. We ended up not being able to make it at that time so I called them back and asked them to switch it to 7:30. We ended up arriving around 7:15 and they sat us almost right away. The sushi came out pretty quickly but there was a longer wait for the tempura.

Ambiance:
It was incredibly stuffy in there. It had been one of those hot days and it was probably over 70 degrees at night. There was no AC or fresh air if you were sitting in the middle of the restaurant. The water was room temp so not ideal.

Overall, this place was decent.

First time here and would have never known this was here if it wasn't recommended by a family friend. I'm so use to venturing in downtown San Mateo however there are other small restaurants on this block as well.

Our group of four came right before lunch closing. Only one or two other tables were in the restaurant so no wait. We ordered four rolls and a sashimi combo which was the perfect amount for our group. The quality of the sushi and sashimi were decent. As a bonus, we checked in on Yelp for the free appetizer and asked the waitress to surprise us because we couldn't decide from the three options of appetizers. Instead, she was super sweet and gave us an order of takoyaki for free which wasnt an option initially!

Friendly staff even around lunch closing time. They didn't rush us out at all. Worth a try if you're in the area!

Can you say "Sushi Happy Hour"? I can and will tell you to head on in here between 4:30 and 5:30 to get 15% off of all sushi!! Wooooohooooo! And you can take another 5% off when you pay cash. Say what? Best of all, the sushi is dynamite. The fish is fresh, with huge portions and luscious sauces. Sigh... Just talking about it makes we want to jump in the car and head right over for a Dragon Roll.

Now, I'm a big fan of having a salad before my sushi and their salad, though simple, was a crispy, fresh delight with a lovely miso dressing. Add to the lettuce a slice of tomato and two wedges of orange and you have a fresh start to your sushi dinner.

Let's move on to those yummy rolls. I'm not a fan of fake krab, and will avoid it like COVID, so I order any rolls that don't have fake krab. My go-to roll is Spicy Dragon Roll with its sweet and yummy tempura shrimp, rolled tightly in a comfortable rice blanket and decorated with avocado and eel. Add some hot and seriously caloric sauce, and you've got a winner of a roll.

The menu offers much more than sushi with house specials, boxes and pretty much anything to please anyone. Follow your heart and stomach to find something that pleases you and it shouldn't be too hard because everything is good. But make sure to take advantage of the Happy Hour. 20% off is nothing to sneeze at. (Pardon the COVID pun!)

Perfect location, easy parking. Quick service! Great food.
Tuna Take Don! Great combo with the seaweed salad.
I'd definitely go back here!

Nice convenient lunch located in San Mateo and Great service.
Food and portions were good

Needed sushi at lunch. I mean needed! Dining out with my Mama, I used Yelp to find Kaori. Off we went!

There are quite a few things to really like about Kaori:
==========================================
* Very cute and clean restaurant
* Very pleasant, warm, and welcoming waitress (shout-out to Annie!)
* Great menu, long and wide of sushi and many Japanese items

Mama and I both got the lunch Bento box ($17.95, 4.5 stars):
==================================================
Many choices for the bento. I chose the beef teriyaki, tempura mix, and spicy tuna roll. It came with a small salad (amazing dressing), good miso soup, rice, and one of the best bento's I've ever had. Real sliced steak (4 oz), a spicy tuna roll guts were mushy (but still tasty), and the tempura had the wow factor (perfect and crisp shrimp, and lots of variety of veggies with care....1 of each). So so good, and perfect.

Will I be back? Oh yes!

Soooo fresh!

Here fishy, fishy! I love their sushi! Would love to eat in their restaurant soon but I had my order DoorDashed. The photos on Yelp are pretty cool of the restaurant, love their menu!

Super fresh, very nice quality fish and ingredients. Oh the Hamachi Lover roll was exquisite! I ordered the Cherry Blossom, Titanic and Rainbow rolls, also.

Definitely a highlight when you try out a new restaurant and it turns out to be such a sweet surprise. I will definitely return, hopefully to their dining room next time.

If you like sushi and you like it raw, try these masters of the art! Loved every bite. RAWR!

Cheers!

We went to Kaori yesterday Saturday pass lunch time. The restaurant was very clean (and the restroom!). The restaurant is spacious, high cealing, and child friendly. Food was good! Much better than we expected. There was only one server and he was attentive to all of the tables and he was very professional and kind! We also ordered Tempura Mori (not in picture), the shrimp was perfect but the veggies' batter was not good as the shrimp one. It could be perfect if they make the veggies' batter same as the shrimp Sushi and roll were good We will go back to try more items in the menu.

We came here on a late weekend afternoon and were able to find problem and nab a table without any issues. With a toddler and an infant in tow, I was floored by how accommodating the restaurant was and how they really made it so easy for us to have a "quick" and delicious lunch.

My son is fairly picky in that he loves fresh, high-quality food (he refuses to eat non-organic vegetables and fruits!). He absolutely loved the salmon & avocado sushi here and also gobbled down some of our leftover grilled (or broiled?) hamachi kama.

We also tried the sashimi salad, which was extremely tasty and had generous chunks of fresh fish and the right amount of dressing to pair with the salad greens. The Volcano was also a hit, with its pieces of spicy tuna, avocado, salmon, crab salad, tempura flakes, and special sauce.

This very well may be my favorite non-omakase Japanese restaurant in the Bay Area (I haven't tried their omakase yet so stay tuned!). Price is reasonable, atmosphere is laid back and family friendly, and service is attentive and helpful.

Decided to try a new sushi place and heard good things about this place. I ended up ordering the California crunch roll and it's good. I think next time I'd say no to the pool of flakes I got on top of my sushi. It almost seemed like they were hiding a treasure behind the insane amount of flakes lol.