Aji Contemporary Japanese

Linda’s Take

Jason and I want to try some different sushi restaurants around us, and we want to work our way through the restaurants in Hopkins. We found Aji and thought Hopkins, “Great! It’s nearby and it looked nice, being right on main street.”

All I have to say is, really? This place sucks!

Bad service, the food is not much better than going to any Chinese buffet shushi.

Just don’t go.

1 out of 5 pants off!

Jason’s Take

Ditto.

The service was awful and the food was bland. It’s an all-you-can-eat sushi place and it took at least 15 minutes to place our order. “Yep, we want the sushi” should be a fast order to take.

If you’re considering going to Aji, do yourself a favor and reconsider.

1 out of 5 pants off.

Total score: 1 out of 5 pants off.

98 Pounds Buffet

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Linda’s Take

Jason has been to 98 Pounds Buffet many times for lunch meetings, and he said that they have a pretty good sushi bar. I wasn’t very hopeful, thinking that it was going to be like most Chinese buffet places, but I was really pleased.

The Chinese food choices are not huge, but they make up for that in quality of the food. Everything tasted really good for a buffet, and I did notice that they changed out the food on a regular basis so that it was fresh.

My favorite was the sushi buffet! Yummy, and delish! I would go back over and over again, a fair price for good quality buffet food.

I give it 4 out of 5 pants off.

Jason’s Take

First off, sushi has to be judged by category:

Sushi restaurants
Buffet sushi
Vending machine sushi
Old bait

98 Pounds Buffet has the best buffet sushi in the state, hands down. While it may not be in competition with Ichiban, it is good and fresh. It’s worth the $11 lunch price just to fill up on sushi.

The rest of the food is good too. The serving tables are kept at a good temperature, and the food is rotated regularly. Quite honestly, I’ve never eaten anything here that sucks.

I give it 5 out of 5 pants off. Best Chinese buffet around.

Total Score: 4.5 out of 5 Pants Off

Crave

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Linda’s Take

So, one night, we didn’t know what kind of food we were in the mood for. But we wanted to stay close to Toby Keith’s to get some good dancing in and have drinks.

Jason suggested Crave; it has hearty food and light food. Kind of an American/Asian twist on everything. I thought it was a superb idea!

I really love the atmosphere in this place. It is high scale business feel, but warm and inviting. I don’t know if that makes sense to you, but that is what ran through my head.

Our waiter was really nice, he even gave me a wine to try for free because Jason ordered an Old Fashioned and the bartender hadn’t muddled the fruit in the drink. I said something politely to the waiter because I know it makes a difference in the way the drink tastes. Jason agreed with me when he got his corrected drink and I could tell by the look on his face that he was satisfied! (Almost like that after-sex look men get!) I asked the waiter for suggestions on food, and the way he was describing some of his favorites sounds as if they would be the perfect choice for me.

I ordered a beet salad and I really enjoyed it, fresh and crisp. Also I ordered a “Godzilla” sushi roll. Oh my god, this was huge. Packed full, about twice the size of regular shushi rolls, and I couldn’t even finish it. However, I do want to go back and get one again. Delightful and delish!

This is a great place to take someone out for a date. Really great food, more pricey than a place like Applebees, however not over the top pricey. Also they have a couple of other locations around the Twin Cities.

I give it 5 out of 5 pants off!

Jason’s Take

We’ve slowly been working our way through all of the restaurants in St. Louis Park’s West End district. We’d eaten at Crave before, but not at all recently. Definitely not recently enough to review it accurately.

So off we went.

We ordered drinks. I ordered an Old Fashioned, because I’m a geek and a Mad Men fan. You can only get good Old Fashioneds at good restaurants, and I thought Crave fit the bill. I was wrong. With an Old Fashioned, you have to muddle the fruit and the bitters into the sugar or it doesn’t work. Hell, they even know that at Applebee’s. Without doing that, you’re basically drinking a glass of Rye.

Thankfully, the waiter understood and got a replacement quickly. I watched and the bartender didn’t spit in my glass. Yay!

We started with the beet salad and walleye cakes. I can’t stand beets, so I only tried a bite, then graciously let Linda have the rest, cuz I’m awesome like that. The walleye cakes, however, were right on the edge of really freaking awesome.

After that, I had the baked mac & cheese, which always looks so damn good on the menu, but never–at any of the restaurants I’ve been to–lives up to my hopes. Don’t get me wrong, it was good, especially with the chicken-apple sausage, but it didn’t wow me.

The bill ran $78.90 after tax. That’s two appetizers, two entrees, and a round of drinks.

I give it 4 out of 5 pants off.

Total Score: 4.5 Pants Off.

Raku Sushi & Lounge

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Linda’s Take

There is a nice quiet sushi place to go in the West Metro called Raku Sushi & Lounge. I liked the decor, the staff is ready to help, and the lunch prices are good.

Jason and I wanted to get some lunch and I wanted to spend time with him before he was going to go deer hunting for the weekend. I didn’t want to do all you can eat sushi, so I looked online and Raku looked like a good spot to go. We really like the West End area and it is so convenient for us.

This place has been there since the West End shops have opened and they seem to be having repeat costumers. I overheard another couple say they come there for lunch often.

The food was really good and pleasing to the eye! This is a place I would go to for lunch with friends or by myself again.

I give it 4 out of 5 pants off

Jason’s Take

I was leaving town and wanted to have lunch with my beautiful wife first. We were in the mood for sushi, so off we went. Linda looked up Raku and it seemed like a good place.

They’ve got little, sit-on-the-floor tables by the door, but traditional booths and tables beyond that and pretty decorative fish hanging all over the ceiling.

The place is affordable. We got the lunch special–3 rolls and a bowl of soup–and spent about $30 after tip. More important: the sushi is good. Cheap, bad sushi isn’t worth paying for.

I give it 4 out of 5 pants off.

Total Score: 4 out of 5 pants off

Ninja Japanese Steakhouse

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Jason’s Take

I took the family on a trip out to work’s HQ a couple of weeks ago. One night, we went out to dinner at Ninja Japanese Steakhouse, a sushi and hibachi restaurant in West Bend, Wisconsin.

We got seated quickly, and served well. The kids and I all hit the hibachi, while Linda ordered sushi. The hibachi meals are filling. You get soup, vegetables, rice, and your protein. That was all good. Since my girls can’t seem to finish a meal, I got to try the shrimp and the chicken. Definitely worth eating. I’ve had the sushi here other times and it was great.

And the drinks are reasonably priced, which makes cramming three kids in a hotel room for the evening easier to bear.

I think we got the rookie hibachi chef. The dude dropped a spatula and just wasn’t as impressive as other hibachi chefs we’ve seen. When you go for teppanyaki, you’re going for the show as much as the food. He did cook with lots of fire though, which was fun for the whole family.

I give it 4 out of 5 pants off.

Linda’s Take

We had the whole family with because we all wanted to see the main office of Daddy’s work and to get a chance to meet friends and coworkers at the office.

Jason thought we should give the kids a show for dinner and I wanted sushi. West Bend, WI is not a super big place so there was only really one place to go. Since Jason had been there before with coworkers, he knew the kids would like it, and he was right; the kids loved seeing the show in front of them of their food getting cooked. Especially seeing fire!

My sushi tasted good too! Not the best that I have had, but really not bad at all. However our waitress was not the brightest bulb in the lighting system, she must have been new, or god for bid I hope she was. If the whole family goes out to West Bend, WI again I’m sure we will go back there!

3 out of 5 pants off

Total Score

3.5 Pants Off!

Sushi X

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Linda’s Take

I asked Jason if we could go out for sushi on our date night, I’m really starting to like sushi! He had mentioned Sushi X had moved in really close to us and we said lets give it a go!

At first when we got seated we were a little confused. We ordered the all-you-can-eat sushi bar and nobody explained to us how the menu worked. But after looking puzzled for a bit and trying to figure it out we checked with someone and we were doing it right.

So you place an order of what you want to try, hand it to a waiter and then they make it for you. You have to wait for a little bit, especially if you put in a big order. But then everything is delivered to you and you dig right in.

Some things are better than others, but overall it wasn’t bad. The waitress is pretty good about always filling up your drinks and if there is something you really like, you can just keep ordering more!

So the sushi isn’t the finest, but not awful by any means. And since it’s close to us, I would go again, but next time I’ll do the sushi bar lunch price instead of the dinner price!

3 out of 5 pants off

Jason’s Take

Osaka, one of the nearby Teppanyaki restaurants closed, but I didn’t notice right away. One day, I just happened to see a Sushi X sign in it’s place. Same colors, same decor outside. They really didn’t make a splash moving in.

So we decided to try it.

We walked in, asked for the all-you-can-eat sushi and asked to sit at the bar because it’s fun to watch sushi chefs work. The waitress took our drink order and left us a checklist of food without another word.

Turns out, you put little numbers next to all of the things you want and the waitress will eventually come take it from you to hand it to the sushi chef 2 feet away. There’s a pretty good list of appetizers and soups that are included with the sushi.

Service was slow, but the chefs were nice and threw in some extra when they saw we were waiting. The yummy roll is appropriately named. It was good.

I’d prefer going to Ichiban (downtown, not the crap place on the other end of St. Louis Park), but considering Sushi X is 3 minutes from our house, while Ichiban involves a drive downtown, I can’t complain too hard. It was good food. We left full, but not stuffed, then went dancing.

I give it 3 out of 5 pants off.

Total Score: 3 out of 5 pants off

Ichiban Asian Buffet

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Jason’s Take

The normal cycle for a Chinese restaurant runs something like this:

Restaurant opens.
The owners want to build a clientele, so they rock the food. Everything is awesome and the service is great.
The owners realize how slim the margins are when you run a restaurant, so they cut back on the food quality. Egg rolls are bought frozen, and taste suffers.
People quit coming.
Store closes, unless they are primarily a money-laundering operation.

Grand City Buffet in St. Louis Park ran through this cycle in about 6 years. Their replacement, Ichiban Asian Buffet, has skipped step two completely. They did a great remodel and the place looks wonderful. I walked in and saw the giant sushi bar with dedicated sushi chefs and was ready to be wowwed.

Unfortunately, the food doesn’t live up to the classy decor.

The Thai Chicken was good…until I found a feather.

The egg rolls were really good, which is pretty rare at a buffet, and one of my benchmark tests for new Chinese restaurants in general.

The sushi spread was impressive, but it all tasted the same.

I did find out today that cold squid rings are not worth eating, at least not when they are meant to be served warm. Really, the first thing a buffet restaurant needs to do is make sure the steam tables keep the food at a safe temperature.

All in all, I can’t give it a zero, because the atmosphere is nice and classy. The food was mostly bland or cold, though a few pieces were good.

Jason’s Rating: 1 out of 5, just for the quality remodel. I hope the next owners do something about the food.

Linda’s Take

Today we decided to go on a lunch date and bring our girls with us. I suggested we try a new Chinese buffet that opened about a month ago, thinking that there should be great new food there.

Boy was I wrong!

The place looks wonderful–great atmosphere–but 95% of the food was cold and not very flavorful. Everything looked pleasing to the eye, but not to the taste buds.

However, if you are looking for place to get a cheap lunch for the kids, it will do the trick. They do have a few good looking deserts and all of the fruit looked really fresh.

But I will not be going back to this place, even to take the kids if they are hungry. I would rather wait to get home.

Linda’s Rating: I give this place a 1 out of 5 pants off.
Total Rating

Masu Sushi – Mall of America

By Jason Leave a Comment

Linda’s Take

The service at this sushi place in the Mall of America is really nice. The atmosphere of the restaurant is pleasing to the eye. I ordered a soup that I have never tried before and I loved it! The sushi we order took a little long to get, but it was soooo worth it. So pleasing to the eye and artful. Also it tasted wonderful and I would love to go back and try something else from their menu. Prices are very fair and I highly recommend go here!

I give it 5 out of 5 pants off! (Jason’s note: It really did knock her pants off!)

Jason’s Take

Ever since I convinced Linda that sushi wasn’t just misplaced bait, we’ve been trying a bunch of different places. Yum.

On this particular date night, our dancing lesson was cancelled, but we were already by the Monster Mall, so into the lion’s den we went. A quick spin through the girly-cowboy-jeans store and then we got dinner.

Masu Sushi is literally a hole-in-the-wall in the third floor food court, but they make some good sushi. I can honestly say it was the first time I’d had raw quail eggs, but I’d eat them again. The rolls were good, and reasonably priced. The saki wasn’t for me. If–like us–you’d never had saki, here’s what you need to know: if you don’t like wine, you won’t like saki.

4 out of 5 pants off

Total Review

4.5 Pants Off