Koji Osakaya

Recommends

michelle3485

Joined 4 years ago

Good variety of japanese food. I like this location the most out of all the others. The manager always checks on you to make sure the servers are doing their job. When it's busy it takes a while for our food to come but still great. Depending on which server you have, the experience is great. I had a bad experience with one server: she was rude and uptight, didn't care for our needs, and took a long time to bring our food out. You can see when the food is ready on the counter. The restaurant is open so you can see mostly everything, but still get privacy in the booths. Overall great place!

Recommends

aleeka

Joined 4 years ago

Always Excellent!. I love this Koji!

The manager is key to the success of this Koji. He cares about the freshness of their fish and the hotness of the fryer. I've NEVER had soggy tempura at this Koji, it is always crisp and fresh tasting!

The manager is also very helpful if you want to get to know sake better, offering sake flights for tastings or can recommend a sake to go with your chosen dish.

I even eat sushi here on Sunday... that's how well they keep their fish (there's no Saturday fish market so EVERY restaurant's fish is from Friday's market).

I appreciate the consistency of this Koji and their helpful and friendly management and staff!

OH and they have happy hour from 3pm to 6pm and 8:30pm to close DAILY! Great if you're on a budget!

Recommends

molteni

Joined 4 years ago

Great, fresh, sushi!. People drive from across town and out of town to partake of some of the best Sushi in Portland. Try the Sunset Roll or Angry Dragon for a new sushi experience!

Doesn't Recommend

greenwizardco

Joined 4 years ago

Rice says it all - not recommended. One of the oldest and well known Japanese restaurants in Portland, Koji Osakaya on Barbur needs to sharpen their sushi knife and to regain the intentions they had when it opened on Macadam.

The nama biru or draft beer of Sapporo was as flat as days old Coke. The Sashimi platter sat on top of crushed ice was well presented, but the slices of maguro was in the color of murky, pale-orange, nowhere near the fresh transparent ruby-red color you usually imagine at a fine restaurant. Other slices of sashimi was rather dry and nothing special. After a couple other grilled seafood dishes, we wanted to complete our meal with a bowl of rice and miso soup. To our surprise the rice was not steaming hot and lacked the pearly glow from the grain. Instead it appeard to be stale grain as if it were just microwaved from yesterday's batch. I can't imagine what sushi would taste using that kind of stale rice. I hope that Koji realizes that most Portlanders are now familiar with and educated about cuisines from other part of the world including Japanese, and that they try harder to provide high quality Japanese dishes.

Recommends

jshull

Joined 9 years ago

Variety and quality. I have to fess, I use to work at Koji's, but not this location. I have eaten at this location a few times, and I find their variety and quality to be higher than most Japanese restaurants, and I have eaten at a lot of them. Where else can you find a lot of creative sushi rolls, ramen and udon, alot of appetizers, rice bowls, and various lunch/dinner options? Can be expensive, but aren't most Japanese restaurants? Staff are friendly and efficient. Fish is bountiful in sushi. Nice ambience. Really can't complain about much.

Doesn't Recommend

petunia815

Joined 6 years ago

worst sushi I've ever had. I didn't try any of their other dishes, but I did try a variety of their rolls and nigiri and couldn't find a single one that I could stomach. The fish tasted like it had been bathed in chlorine and many of the rolls had inadvertently been placed on spots of wasabi. I've tried lots of sushi places, including ones that are a lot cheaper and more sketchy than this place and nothing was worse than this sushi.

Recommends

webavant

Joined 6 years ago

Great food and service. I'm not an expert on Japanese, but I love Koji Osakaya. The Sukiyaki is less than mediocre, but everything else is superb. My personal favorites are the tempura udon and the mackerel sashimi.

I do have one major complaint about a problem that I had with a waitress here, which may no longer be an issue because I didn't see her last time that I was there and she probably was fired. My girlfriend and I came to dine on a very busy night. There appeared to be at least one clean, unoccupied table with room for four people, but the waitress insisted that we sit in the noisy lounge with seating that is less comfortable than the dining area. After ordering our dinner, I requested to move to the dining area from a different server who had no problem moving us.

The food was great, but when the original waitress came back to take my credit card, she slid my soy sauce dish across from the middle of the table and onto my lap and pretended that it was an accident. I didn't leave a tip, but I have had a great experience every other time I've been to Koji.

Recommends

paulms999

Joined 8 years ago

Great variety of sushi and other Japanese fare.. Cozy restaurant with attentive staff and masterful sushi artist. Portions are generous enough, yellowtail is fresh, and they offer a very nice vegetarian "super veggie roll."

They offer live blues/jazz music every few weeks.