The Raw Sushi Buffet Bar – click to enlarge
Sushi, one of your Food Adventurer’s favorite foods. Let’s get this straight up front, not all sushi is raw. There are many types of cooked sushi that involve shrimp and crab for example. But, we crave it all, specialty rolls, sashimi, hand rolls, nigiri, you name it. So you can imagine our delight the first time we heard about a sushi buffet south of Dayton off of I-71 near Cincinnati. We know, this is DaytonMostMetro.com, but once in very blue moon, we spread our wings and have to tell our fellow foodies about a special place outside the Dayton area. This is one of those times.
The place is called Kyojin and it is a truly unique place. They have sushi, lots of it, probably 40 different kinds of rolls on their buffet, and for dinner they add more items including sashimi, raw scallop, flying fish roe, and giant clam sushi. Please check out our picture album below and you will see the vast variety of items. When we first tried this restaurant, we ate so much, we had to go directly to IKEA to walk it off. So here is a tip, if you go .. pace yourself!
The Dinner Buffet Includes Seared Ahi Tuna, and Tuna Sashimi
The restaurant is setup with 5 buffet bars and a dessert cabinet and ice cream freezer. The 5 buffet bars are a sushi roll bar, a raw sushi bar, a Chinese food bar, a shrimp/mussel appetizer bar and a salad/fruit bar. There is even an area for edamame(soybeans), tofu, and a wasabi and ginger area. In the evenings, the dinner menu includes a hibachi option as well as skewered duck, squid and shrimp offerings on the side hibachi area. We also love the steamed mussels and peel and eat shrimp available,and we have never seen a raw calamari nigiri offered anywhere else. Other items of interest include raw calamari rolls, and the dinner treats of flying fish roe, raw scallop rolls and seared ahi tuna sashimi.
Kyojin is truly a dream for the seafood and sushi lover, and the prices are not bad either. For lunch the price is $9.95 and dinner is $16.95. But here is a tip, on their website kyojinohio.com you can show them the online coupon on your phone and get $1 off each lunch and $2 off each dinner purchased. We think it is a good value. Is it the best sushi we have ever had? No, but it is pretty decent. It is actual sushi chefs preparing good food. It is not comparable to the Chinese buffets that offer the side sushi. This place is much better than that.
Kyojin offers the normal soft drinks, and they offer $5 specialty cocktails. Kyojin is one of our guilty pleasures, especially for the Big Ragu, as some like the traditional sushi bars and their offerings. We challenge the “sushi snobs” to try this place and let us know what you think. But Kyojin is a great place for a sushi novice to finally try a lot of different types of sushi, cooked, or raw and see what they like, without having to order an entire roll. They even have some vegetarian rolls and seaweed salad with pasta for you non meat eaters. We even saw a sushi roll with chicken!
Our most recent trip to Kyojin was a challenge, while Ragu was challenged by Shawn to a sushi eating contest. Shawn stopped in his 40 something piece to go get some Chinese food, while Big Ragu matched his football number by eating 71 pieces of sushi. It was our comic relief for the day watching the “sushi eat off.”
There is something for everyone at this place. The Big Ragu’s favorite items on the buffet are raw salmon on rice, the kani (crab nigiri) and the raw tuna roll. We enjoyed the shrimp tempura roll, the Cincinnati roll, and coconut shrimp on the Chinese food bar.
Big Ragu called his plate “Mount Va-sushi-us”
Do you love sushi? Have you ever tried it? Sushi pro or sushi rookie, Kyojin is worth the trip. Take a drive south on I-71 and the Fields Ertel exit, and Kyojin is just a minute away. It is an incredible deal to get all the good sushi you can eat. Check it out, you will be glad you gave it a chance. All you can eat sushi, that’s how we “roll.”
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Have you been to Kyojin? What did you think? Please comment below.
[album: http://www.daytonmostmetro.com/wp-content/plugins/dm-albums/dm-albums.php?currdir=/wp-content/uploads/dm-albums/Kyojin/]
Kyojin Japanese Buffet
12140 Royal Point Drive
Cincinnati, OH 45249
P: 513-683-2628
kyojinohio.com
