2 words, Chef Combo. Â It's so good. Â I love that they deliver, so I have never actually had the expereince of being in the restaurant. Â Friendly service. The only thing I don't like is the fact that the delivery guy asked me to give him a tip, when you are already charged for delivery. Â The delivery fee is treated as a tip, so watch out for that.
Review Source:This is one of those places that any where else in Chicago would probably be more like 3 stars, but being in Hyde Park, it's one of the far better places to eat down here.
Preface this by saying that my wife grew up in Hawaii and her mother is Japanese, so her Asian food standards are pretty high. Â The sushi/sashimi is nothing to write home about, but it is better than any of the other places we've gotten it in Hyde Park. Â But the rest of the dishes are pretty tasty... the Don, the Udon, tempura... all of it is good enough that my wife requests to go back there. Â So that's a big deal.
I think it's all pretty tasty, reasonably priced, very good service with an incredibly friendly owner. Â If we didn't live in Hyde Park, we probably wouldn't seek it out, but since we do...
The owner of this place is a very friendly man. Always cheerful, and has always been nice to me. The staff are also very friendly, if once in a while they get their priorities mixed up (I come first!). Prices are pretty reasonable for sushi.
So why the so-so review? If I could give them a 3.5 I would, but if you are looking for sushi the selection is pretty limited, the maki remarkably uninteresting, the bento box stuff pretty limited. I have never had a problem with the quality of the food--they could easily step up their game.
This place is definitely not the best, but it's pretty good and it is definitely the cheapest sushi lunch I've ever had. I got a 3-roll combo with soup AND salad for $8. Nothing particularly stunning about my food, but nothing at all bad about it either. Â And the service was quick for me today. Â I've been passing this place for a decade until I finally tried it today. I'll be back!
Review Source:Kikuya is my home away from my home.
Kikuya's owner is the friendliest owner I have ever met in my life. He has the sweetest smile ever, and reminds me of my grandfather who recently passed away. He remembers most frequent customers' names and their needs, which always makes me coming back again and again.
Although Kikuya's food is not the best, its service is top-notch, and is as good as, if not better than services in Michelin stars restaurants.
Kikuya, you are the best!
Food: 3
Decor: 2
Service: 5
I moved to Hyde Park a few months ago and have been eating here pretty regularely. Sometimes I order delivery, but most of the time I dine in for lunch. They have the best priced sushi lunch specials of anywhere I've been in Chicago. The fish is good quality, and I'm picky, not hesitant to turn my back on something suspicious. Yes, you can find a wider selection of fish and rolls, and pay a lot more, but Kikuya is a lunch bargain.
Review Source:A fantastic little "mom & pop" Japanese place. Â All of the standard stuff is on the menu, not too many frills, but what they have is of great quality/taste. I don't know that if it should have a "$$" rating, $3.50 for a Tuna Maki roll seems like it's as reasonable as it gets.
I order the $1 house salad with the delicious sesame/ginger dressing and the $1.25 miso soup every time, along with one of their dinner specials or just a couple or rolls. I highly recommend the Firecracker roll that has "tempuracrunchies" in it along w/ tuna, spicy sauce, etc. Amazing.
There are only ~8 tables so on a busy evening there's sometimes a wait to be seated --had to wait for 10mins one time.
I love Kikuya. The people who work here are really friendly and helpful. I enjoy eating in or taking out (they also deliver and I have taken advantage of that on occasion). I usually order on my way home from work and pick it up to take home.
It is not a fancy place and the food is not fancy. If you want that, go downtown. This is comfort food.
My mainstay is their sushi. They have fresh fish and veggies and their maki are delicious. I am a big fan of saba (mackerel) and this is one of the few places that does it right.
In the winter I also frequently order the veggie udon. It is delicious!
The portions are always large. The food is always tasty. The service is always top notch. The prices are very reasonable.
This is a Hyde Park gem.
This place has my "bad day... I want take out" food... my "Movie night in with my family" delivery place... and my "out for an inexpensive dinner with friends" place. Â
It is a small little family business that consistently serves good sushi at a VERY good price, especially for Chicago. Â I am a maki lover, so generally I will just order a 2 simple maki rolls, a side order of sushi rice, and water (for under $14 total) and I leave completely full. Â I know there are different entrees like teriyaki chicken for about $12 and my friends always seem to enjoy those. Â There is never a big crowd there so the service is always pretty quick. Â It is your basic sushi place menu wise, they have a few fun rolls, but if you are not feeling particularly experimental, their regular maki rolls satisfy the craving.
You can eat in, pick up, and get it delivered... I have done it all and have never had a problem with getting the wrong thing! Â
I really recommend it for a calm night out with family or friends.
Ended up here today for lunch with the lab because it was my birthday. There's literally no amazing food in HP so we settled for this one as my friend really enjoys the lunch special.
We all ended up getting sukiyaki don because my friend highly recommended it. First the miso soup was not tasty at all. Then our lunch took so long to make even though there were only 3 tables there. The sukiyaki don itself was nothing to rave about, but I ate it anyway. I have to admit it was a lot of food for $8---Tofu, mixed veggies, marinated beef, clear noodles and rice.
This place is depressing...I definitely would not eat here again. Happy birthday to me.
I'll be the first to admit that Kikuya is not super great sushi.
The prices are amazing though.
Hungry? Â Get the mixed maki mono. Â $8.50 and the super nice lady lets me substitute the tuna for spicy tuna and the cucumber for avocado.
Three rolls (california, spicy tuna, and avocado) for $8.50
Lazy? Â Get it to go.
Not so hungry? Â Get the firecracker maki. Â $6 and delicious.
This place really is 3.5 stars, but I would be embarrassed to give it 3/5 given how often I frequent this establishment.
Kikuya is the answer to my prayers for cheap, quick, second rate sushi. Â Amen.
Popped in with a friend at about 7pm on a Thursday night. Â There were only about 4 tables filled, and it was pretty quiet and empty. Â This would be a GREAT place to get studying done!!!... if I had anything I had to study!
We both ordered the tonkatsu. (Panko breaded pork cutlets.) Now, I make this dish myself- and so I know all that goes in to making this. Â Kikuya does this dish extremely well, and it looks like it is supposed to look, and is served with fresh Japanese sticky rice. Â Best of all, each dinner comes with a great bowl of miso soup and a side salad. Â I ordered a DietCoke- and was surprised when they brought a can and a cup of ice. We had gyoza for an appetizer- so-so.
Our waitress was very attentive and sweet, and popped by to clear plates quickly. Â However she did somewhat disappear once we were waiting for our check. Â And like others have said- the decor is very "YIKES" 80s, but it's clean, it's a calm place, and I'll go back specifically for the tonkatsu!!
Appetizer, drink, salad, miso soup, huge entree- about $15. Awesome!
This place is an inexpensive version of something better. Â Its good, but not great. Â and for the price even, we're getting a little better.
They family that runs it is very nice, the decor is cute, the tables are straight out of the 1980's.
Like I said, the maki rolls were good, but not fabulous. Â The ingredients tasted fresh and the rolls were presented nicely. Â For the price, its pretty good.
Okay, yes. As someone who tries to make a living doing things involving the aesthetic sensibility, walking into Kikuya I feel threatened. Taste is under attack, and I'll stop there before I make any highly offensive historical jokes.
However! The service is fine if not good, and the food is, factually, satisfying. Prices are alright. I recommend the beef udon, and the maki are generally solid, in particular the salmon skin (one of my basic tests). I used to live a half-block away, and Kikuya was always a fun place to bring a bottle of wine and just eat and talk with a friend. It's usually half full and there's something comfortable about the place. Let's call it the ugly sweater you feel good wearing despite the zig zag stripes.
Okay, does anyone else feel like they are in some flashback scene from Saved by the Bell in here?? It's totally decorated just like it!!
Anyway, I do think Kikuya has the freshest sushi in Hyde Park but that's actually not saying too much. And going to school near J-town in LA has made me spoiled. But I actually like it here (relative to the other options!) Sushi makes me happy.
The sashimi plate was like sooo huge! Those were like the thickest cuts of fish in my life! But I still loved it. It was a little more than $20 for that (most expensive thing on menu). Although I think my octupus was slightly frozen (but who likes those chewy things?! why do japanese restaurants always put it in every sashimi combo dish??) And the rolls are affordable and straight forward.
This place won't win anything for creativity, but it offers just simple and straight forward dishes. My friends also enjoyed their udon dishes as well. It's a good option for Hyde Park if you have a sushi craving. The fish is significantly fresher than at Shinju.
I'm pretty 'meh' about this place. The Sushi was edible, but not the best. Â Especially now that there are other sushi places in HP, I will probably not come back here again. Shinju on 53rd is better. All I really need to do now is try the Sit Down Cafe also on 53rd, and I will have completed the Hyde Park sushi trifecta. Sushi power activate!!
The one thing that really turned me off at Kikuya was the decor. It is atrocious. I half expected the cast from Saved by the Bell to show up. Â In which case, I would have given it at least 4 stars.
To be fair- I have only given this place one try, but it wasn't very good and I can remember quite clearly three main things:
1) The interior is laughably very '80's- and not in a trendy or good way.
2) The California roll (a staple with American sushi places, and therefore something that I use as a litmus test, maki roll-style) was not very good- in fact, it was warm........ Â I think it might have been served on a hot plate, but still, not appetizing at all.
3) The service was not good, absent and short. Â It could have been a cultural thing, but in my opinion, being the only ones in the place at the time (lunchtime), we probably should have seen our server more often.
I think I am better served at Sit Down Cafe, and their California roll is much better anyway (quite good actually).
i love the oshitashi here! the food is consistently good, especially the sushi. Â the servers are kind, and prompt. i have never had a bad experience here. fyi- it's BYOB. Â great lunch specials- good values.
my only complaint is the decor makes me feel like i'm in 1985. in a bridget fonda video.
They recently redid their menu and now have a number of different maki rolls which makes the experience much more compelling. Â There's nothing terribly exotic about the sushi, but it's reliably good. Â Great option if you don't want to haul all the way up to the south loop to get Sushi that frankly isn't even as good. Â
Added bonus is the fact that they're BYOB. Â The only possible detraction...you may run into a blowhard talking very loudly about Descartes.
The waitresses at Kikuya are sweet and adorable, and I never got upset when they asked me what I "was" because I knew they were trying to play obasan to my Americanized self. Kikuya never filled the sushi void as well as say...college campuses in LA or NYC would have. But it did a cute job trying. Like most traditional Japanese establishments, it's closed on Monday, and most cooked entrees are around the $10 mark. This includes miso soup, salad and rice. Honestly, best bangs for your buck are Unagi Don, Oyaku Don, Ton Katsu, etc. If you pay $2.00 for a la carte nigiri at this hole in the wall on 55th just east of the Metra stop, you too need to consider getting your tubes tied for the sake of mankind.
Incensed over the lack of smoked salmon? You know absolute squat about sushi. Philadelphia rolls? Please, the moniker gives it away. I love lox as much as you, but it belongs on my yummy bagel with cream cheese, not smushed between rice and seaweed. If you want rolls en masse with cream cheese...go up to House of Sushi. That's what half the U of C campus does.
Not worth the trip to Hyde Park. But if you're in HP, go with the decent traditional Japanese dishes and skip the sushi...then again, beggars can't be choosers.
Maybe all of those frou-frou raw fish joints north of here have me all messed up in the head still, but I found the prices here to be fair, damn near cheap even.
The quality was average. Â The taste was average - and that STILL made the California rolls better than Japonais. Â The service was quick, kind and casual. The bill was about $30 for two people - four rolls, two drinks and miso soup. I liked a tuna crunch roll. Â I didn't like that the salmon wasn't smoked, like someone else said, but I wholeheartedly accept that that just might make me a sushi idiot, so take it for what it's worth.
I liked the decor (colorful stripes mixed with natural wood tones)- reminded me of Mork and Mindy. Â If you just keep the same shit around for a long time, eventually it will be in style again, and that time for you is now Kikuya! Embrace it! Then, you know, you should probably paint or something.
I was intrigued when I found a sushi restaurant in the neighborhood and was definitely tickled by the very 80's decor on the inside. It's a tiny little place that manages to accommodate very well. Since I'm big on atmosphere, being the interior design student that I am, The food had some making up to do for the lack of ambiance. Â Well...it did just that.
I've read a number of reviews and Im wondering if I'm crazy because my boyfriend and I almost died over the sushi. I recently reviewed Tamarind in the south loop which is pretty good, Kikuya has blown em out of the competition!
I odered the unagi rolls and spider rolls and they came out on the plate a little warm which doesn't happen too often at other places, I don't know about others' preferences, but we love it like that. The spider roll was perfect and the unagi roll melted in my mouth! Lol.
(I think I even compared it to our experience with Sushi at Japonais)
So either we are insane, we got them on a good night, or all you haters are just plain wrong. :)
Loved it!
I actually really do like this place. I only eat the vegetarian maki rolls, and they were really tasty. The avocado and cucumber were fresh, and they have some really fun and surprising options on their vegetarian list- including a maki roll with tempura crunchies inside and spicy mayonnaise.
They have a lot of traditional Japanese dishes, including a list of different kinds of udon. We really enjoyed their tempura vegetables and found the tempura to be just right.
The miso soup is pretty standard, and the side salads are nothing to write about.
My SO ordered a Sushi dinner the first time we went and he enjoyed the fish. He actually thought it was quite fresh and tasty. Judging from the reviews here, maybe the quality is inconsistent, but we've only had good experience so far.
Bonuses include bottomless tea refills and decor that looks like a 1980s hair salon.
I love the combos, teriyaki chicken and tempura with sushi and miso soup! The last time I was there I felt like I was going to have to be rolled out the door it was so much food. I see some reviews have mentioned that the tempura was greasy. It's fried, it's always going to be somewhat greasy. I didn't think mine was any greasier than any I've had at much pricier restuarants on the north side. And I really appreciate a place where you can get a good look at the kitchen. Theirs is pretty clean considering it's about the same size as the kitchen in my apartment and there is a lot of activity going on in there.
I only have one compliant, it's small and BYOB which can be a recipe for disaster. The last time I was there we were seated next to an older gentleman who had just polished off his own six pack and spent the entire meal jumping into our conversation and rambling.
Although there seem to be mixed reviews here, this place is great FOR DELIVERY OR TAKEOUT. Â I wouldn't reccomend eating in the 80s BYOB haven with bad service. Â The food here is amazing if you love sushi rolls. Â Try the Firecracker and Futo rolls - Â you will be hooked. Â
My fiance and I lived a few blocks away and made this part of a weekly Office watching ritual. Â Mmmm, Firecracker roll.
Who knew you could get delivery from here? Â So, that makes this the best place to get delivery in Hyde Park when you're on call. Â Beats the hell out of Thai55, Cafe Florian, the Nile or Cedars (Please don't mention Pockets - is that really food?). Â Looks like their noodles are decently priced, although I wouldn't know re: portion size. Â I've tried the salmon butteryaki, beef negi maki, gyoza (please pass on these machine-made frozen sold-in-bulk, you're-better-off-buying-from-Costco sad excuse for dumplings) and spinach gomae. Â The tempura looks good, crisp even on delivery with decent-sized shrimp. Â Menu online.
Review Source:The pickings are slim for good restaurants in Hyde Park. so, considering what the neighborhood has to offer, kikuya is among the more "edible" places. They are overpriced as with all restaurants in Hyde Park, but  the trick is avoid sushi and sashimi (they have really mediocre cuts anyway, so no big loss). Their cooked dishes are a much better deal (though not necessarily a good deal) and make a much tastier and satisfying meal than their sushi and sashimi. I do like the atmosphere, you can settle right in whether you're alone or with friends and/or enemies. very homey indeed and very 80s... During dinner time on weekends, it is usually bustling [crowded in a good way]. i remember waiting for a table a few times, but never for more than a few minutes.
The eel bowl from kikuya is my ultimate comfort food [a rice bowl topped with a generous portion of sweet barbecued eel and a bit of crunchy pickles. also comes with the side of miso soup and a salad]. During the winter, i had it almost every other week... $10 a go, but what the hell, it was a good break from living off of saltines and orange juice.
but for those who might be slightly squeamish about eel, their beef bowl is a good alternative. same thing, but with grilled sliced beef on top instead of eel, and it is also slightly cheaper.
and for the especially cold winter nights, a big bowl of steaming beef udon is great. ah, but i agree, it's pretty salty and oily. but the flavor's still decent.
and lastly, long live green tea mochi, though please, get it at an Asian grocery store... the price for one here is just ridiculous.
Too expensive, but the only Japanese place in Hyde Park. The food is good, nothing spectacular. The sushi is decent though the actual pieces of fish in our maki rolls were disappointingly tiny. Cozy atmosphere with decor straight from the early days of MTV - wood paneled walls with strange turquoise and purple stripes and designs here and there, random christmas lights chintzy tinsel. Completely charming. Very nice staff too.
Review Source:I've been there three times whenever I was desperate some good noodles or something. Â I do like their udon, albiet a little bit on the saltier side of things. Â And their tempuras are pretty crisp, but very frickin' oily. Â But I don't think I can muster up the courage to try their sushi...that's just too scary to contemplate.
It's just that the place seems to be on the pricier side of things, and I wonder why. Â It is a Hyde Park restaurant, right? Â So why am I coughing up $15-20 a meal for food that isn't up to par?
The only sushi place in Hyde Park, besides the U of C food courts, Kikuya is a surprising little secret. The sushi is fantastic and fresh. The staff is also really courteous and polite. Service is sometimes a little slow, but that's forgivable. It's BYOB and a great place to meet up with a small group (8 or less) or with a date.
Review Source:
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