Ku Sushi and Izakaya

I Order for pick up. I got the university roll and the grilled pork belly with Kim Chee. The person who took my order on the phone was really nice and helpful. It took about 20 min for my food to cook, wasn’t a bad wait for me because I live about a 7 min walk to the restaurant.
Picking up my food was really quick and easy, when I got home to share my food with friends, we killed it. The sushi was amazing, the salmon tasted really fresh to me and it was a good portion roll. The grill pork belly, omg it with the kimchee that it comes with, the flavor just explodes in your mouth. This is my snack that I would love to eat while chatting with friends and drinking beer or soju. I definitely am going back to try all the other dishes and sushi roll they have.
Oh and I believe certain time they have 50% off on sushi.

Really solid spot for sushi rolls and other Japanese foods! They also serve Korean food but I’ve never had it here so I’m just going to comment on the Japanese food. Their sushi rolls are strangely half off all the time… which makes them pretty affordable for some pretty kickass rolls! My favorites are the 52^nd, the U District, and the Snow White. Yeah, a lot of their names are references to local things. I am also a huge fan of their salmon don, which is basically a huge bowl of delicious sushi rice with an insane amount of delicious raw salmon on top. UGH so good. They give you so much salmon here.
Service is generally pretty fast and friendly. Don’t forget that it’s closed on Sunday! I’ve tried to go there once on a Sunday hoping for sushi goodness and then been sad.

Really great place to eat. Nice customer service!!! very polite and really care about you. Great prices. I would recommend this place to anyone any day.

I’m so confused about some of the reviews here because I love this place!
They have 50% of WHOLE sushi rolls all day (And nigiri, sashimi, hand rolls, etc)! Last call for sushi is at 10:30pm though.
I come here almost every week since April this year, and they have never disappointed me! The workers are always so nice to me, and try to get people seated as soon as they can. Sushi is seriously delicious! I’ve never gotten sick from it, and just keep coming back for more! — I LOVE unagi, so my go-​to are: Snow White roll, and the unagi avocado hand roll.
Please check this place out! Def worth!!!

REAL RATING: 3.5 Stars
I still find it completely bizarre that the sushi rolls are ALWAYS 50% off so basically that discounted price is the regular price but all in all it’s a pretty good business tactic cause most of my friends always go on about it. Haha.
I went here on a Tuesday night and we got seated pretty quickly and service was pretty good (though they did bring out an incorrect roll, but the problem was solved quickly and professionally). We ordered 4 rolls but I only remember the University Way roll in all honesty cause it was easily my favorite. I recommend it for sure!
The atmosphere is nothing really special but is lively with the sound of happy and satiated customers. It’s honestly not the best sushi I’ve ever had or even a top 5 but I had a good experience and it was well-​priced and pretty clean so that’s all you can ask for on the Ave. I’m surprised by all the poor reviews with this place, we ran into no problems.

This isn’t my first time coming here, but I decided to write a review because I took a picture
We ordered a beef tofu soup, salmon roll, Red Dragon roll and Seahawks roll. My boyfriend and I usually get the pork belly and kimchi (which is bomb by the way, you need to try it if you haven’t yet). But this time we wanted to get sushi because the rolls are 50% off! The beef tofu soup was pretty good. So was the Seahawks and salmon roll. The Red Dragon roll was okay… This is coming from someone who usually doesn’t like sushi, and has only recently come to terms with eating raw fish. My boyfriend felt the same way about the sushi selections. We probably will be back again, either for the pork belly or to try more of the rolls!
The space is pretty small, so it’s difficult to get seats if you come when it’s busy and with the weather cooling down, don’t sit by the door! The wind will blow in every time someone goes in or out of the restaurant. That’s all for now. I’ll probably update when I try more rolls!

I come here very often maybe 10 times a month? This place is really busy. Sometimes you have to wait 10 ~ 20 mins to get in but it’s WORTH it !! The service is very NICE all the waitress are cute and kindly specially the short one :)
Okay lets talk about the foods. I always get GRILLED PORK BELLY WITH KIMCHI (It comes with tons of garlic), Fried CHICKEN WITH SEASONING SAUCE, and OKONOMIYAKI Sooo good MUST to try and please don’t feel afraid to order, they are really good. Also try korean alcohol called SOJU. Turn up !!

The 50% off sushi rolls ALL DAY doesn’t make sense to me… Like why not just make that your regular price then? I guess to attract more customers with that «deal». When I got there, we got seated right away, but the waitress moved us to a smaller table that was meant for two people when we had three. Too small of a restaurant and only two people were running all the tables.
Service was all bad. Water didn’t come out in the beginning (we had to ask for it), I had to ask for some straws TWICE and the lady only gave me two straws when there were three cups… Makes sense. So I had to ask for another straw again. And lastly, the food came out slowly. The rolls were nothing special. It tastes like something you’d get on the conveyor belts.

50% off sushi?
No. Stop. Nooooooo
I pride myself upon having a strong stomach developed after years of sampling street food from all over Asia. But after eating here one night I proceeded to puke my heart out for the next 8 fucking days. Of course accompanied with cappuccino like excrement… it was a nice cheap eat for sushi but with the risk of going through what I went? Don’t.
There’s still some hot items left on the menu o choose from, but I’m never going back.

Cheap sushi, but comes at some other costs.
Sushi rolls are always 50% off (I wouldn’t pay the regular prices for the sushi, honestly) so definitely student budget friendly and it won’t break the bank if you like to eat sushi regularly like I do. There are plenty of other menu items (Korean cuisine too) but I’ve only ever had sushi here and I’ve been at least 10 times now. Seems like most people come here for the sushi anyway.
If you’re a sushi snob and you like your fancy sashimi cuts, this isn’t the place for you. If you like fried rolls or prefer cooked fish, there are tons of options here for you. Many of them sound the same to me (many made with a base of imitation crab) so I usually pick at random. The menu tells you the ingredients of each roll and you’ll notice that it is a bit overwhelming. I usually order 2 rolls but it’s incredibly filling and results in major food baby. Most food for best value would have to be the tempura california roll which is 10 pieces for ~$ 4 if I remember correctly. Very filling and pretty hard to screw up, frankly.
The reason why I say this comes at a cost…
–In the winter, it’s freezing in here and very dark, not super inviting.
–In the summer, it’s extremely hot. The table right in front of the door will leave one half of your party blinded by the sun which can’t be blocked because they don’t close the door.
–Pretty tight. there are only a few tables, very small restaurant.
–Service is quite slow and hit or miss. I’ve had very mediocre service here half the time but I still come back for the sushi because it’s more convenient than other sushi restaurants I like.
I will say, the music selection is very amusing. You can enjoy some major throwbacks from the early 2000s sometimes. Always a fun topic to converse about over sushi.

I absolutely LOVE this place! I come here all the time, and have introduced this place to several friends, who have also loved this place. They have half-​off all sushi rolls everyday, so the average sushi place comes out to be $ 3-​$ 6 for about 6 rolls! My favorites are the salmon and shrimp tempura rolls, so good! The gyoza and seaweed salad are also really delicious! The people that work here are always very very nice and accommodating. I’ve found that it starts to get really busy around 8−9pm. One time I went on a weekday around 7pm, and my friend and I were the only customers there! Overall great restaurant, I go at least a couple times a week (:

Nothing wrong with the sushi at Ku’s. It’ll give you your fill, plus the whole 50% off deal is pretty enticing. I don’t know if it was just this one time I went, but it was super hot inside. The place itself only sits up to 20 people in what looked like a 15×15 square room. Very small. When I went, there weren’t many people in there, but it was just so hot. Made it very uncomfortable for me when I started eating my spicy tuna roll…
I’ll be back, but next time I might get it to go.

Small but solid sushi spot on the ave.
So its 50% off rolls all day… errrday.
Personally, I normally don’t eat sushi rolls decked out with so much sauce and toppings to the point where you can’t appreciate the fish. Or fried rolls. The majority of the rolls happen to be what I don’t like. I decided to go with the U-​District roll: Crab, spicy tuna, cream cheese topped with seared hamachi, jalapeño, masago hot sauce and eel sauce… but I had the sauces on the side, which was a good move. I thought this roll was pretty good, although they could have lightened up on the cream cheese. The seared hamachi and jalapeño really made this roll though. Honestly, the sauces seem unnecessary since there’s a lot going on already. I also had a salmon roll, which was a decent and safe go-​to roll.
While Ku Sushi wouldn’t be a place I would go out of the way for, I’m glad that its close to where I work.

I went here just before midnight when no one else had food in the area. I had bits of spicy bulgogi and the udon with tempura and both were really cheap for the good portions. The udon was really good and fulfilling and soup was great. It actually tasted like Japanese and the tempura was nice. Tempura had big shrimp and lots of veggies including asian sweet potato. That was great. The bulgogi tastes good at first but you get overwhelmed by the amount of oil.
It was around midnight so there were really annoying drunk Korean guys and the server and everyone else were cool with it. I guess that’s normal for izakaya. I wanted to try their sushi but apparently sushi service ends much earlier during the night. We came a bit too late but was glad that they were opened to serve us some hot food.

Kyla H. and I ordered three rolls for takeout: the Lion King, the University Way and the Golden California. The Lion King roll was a California roll baked with salmon and topped with spicy sauces; a nice change of pace from your common roll. The Golden California was a deep-​fried Cali roll, solid even though the batter started to lose some crispiness by the time we got home. The University Way roll had imitation crab (ok yeah it’s another Cali roll, sue me) with tempura shrimp topped with seared salmon. This one was both of our favorites, the shrimp was plump and the tempura gave a nice crunch, with the salmon adding an extra layer of flavor and texture. We were both full afterwards, pretty good for $ 22 after tax.

Small but quality sushi place. It was a little dark for my taste, but the food was good. All rolls were half off and very affordable and tasty. I got the salmon roll and the sunrise roll and they were delicious.
Other than sushi, they also serve some Korean food, but I didn’t get a chance to try.

I’ve been to Ku twice. The food was great both times but I had quite different service experiences.
The first time I went, I was with a group of 6. We waited for 45 minutes outside the restaurant for a table while many other groups of 3 or 4 got seated before us. This was a little frustrating, but we were waiting for the last member of our party anyway so we didn’t complain too much. When we finally got seated, it took a long time for the waiter to come take our order. When our food arrived, I noticed that one of my items was wrong (ordered chicken corn cheese and I got corn cheese) and asked the waiter to correct it. She did, but not without a face and an attitude. Maybe it was a stressful day, whatever. But still, I did not appreciate it.
The second time I went, everything went rather smoothly and the place was not as busy. In the end, I will probably go back to Ku for the decently priced rolls, but will avoid the dinner rush for sure!

Ku Sushi will be coming in at 3.5 stars today.
Around the University District there aren’t very many high quality sushi places that people can go to. There is Village Sushi on 12^th Ave which is pretty good but slightly on the pricier side. Gaba Sushi just opened up with a small range of selections and Sushi Land is currently being built. Ku Sushi is located around 50^th/​52^nd street and offers 50% off sushi lunch and dinner. Now if you’re a college student like me then this is quite a bargain.
The place is pretty small. It holds about 18 people maximum (9 tables that seat 2 people). The place has a Korean and Japanese feel to it although they are blasting modern day pop music. We were seated right away and given our menus. Sushi is not their single specialty here. They also offer other Japanese and Korean cuisine as well. However, we came for sushi tonight and so we turned to the last page of the menu. They have their basic rolls as well as a menu for all their specialties. We decided to go with the Snow White, University Way, Sounders and I Love Crab. I also got a miso soup to start.
Miso Soup — Came out piping hot! It’s pretty hard to mess up miso soup and this tasted just as good as it is. I think my tongue got burned a bit on the tip due to the hotness though.
Snow White — This one was definitely one of those we didn’t enjoy as much. It has eel and avocado inside so it was nothing too spectacular. The thing that we didn’t like about it was the fact that there was way more avocado than eel. The avocado ended up overpowering the eel so you could taste a lot of avocado, and a small portion of eel.
University Way — If you love shrimp tempura then this will be fantastic for you. The pieces of shrimp inside are super plump and juicy. There is seared salmon and avocado on top of this one which tasted really good. However, this one didn’t strike an amazing note for me. Maybe it’s because the shrimp tempura didn’t feel like it connected with the seared salmon very well. Still a decent roll though.
Sounders — By far my favorite roll tonight. The roll is seared on top and it has salmon, avocado and imitation crab inside. The spicy mayo and eel sauce on top really made all the flavors combine. This roll was delicious and I felt that all the components really worked together.
I Love Crab — This one had soft shell crab and avocado inside. You can think of it as your spider roll. On the top however there is spicy tuna. The spicy tuna was a bit spicier than normal and I found the texture to be slightly more grainy/​rough. On the menu it states that it’s topped with both spicy tuna and deep fried soft shell crab. My impression was that the deep fried soft shell crab would be on top of each roll but in reality it’s just a giant piece of crab that is thrown on top of the group of rolls. That made it inconvenient to it since you would have to eat the roll and then take a bite of the extra crab. It was slightly strange and it seemed out of place.
If you like your sushi with spicy mayo you can ask for some on the side. They will bring you a small little dish with some in it.
Service — Our waiter did her job but I didn’t feel a very «friendly» vibe from her. Also, the owner of the place gave us our check midway while we were eating. I thought this was unusual since they usually ask if you want more food or even dessert. It felt like they wanted us to pay and get out as soon as possible.
Price wise this place is cheaper than normal for sushi since everything is 50%. Our 4 rolls which were normally priced around $ 13 – 15 each totaled to be a little less than $ 33 without tip. The 4 rolls left my partner and I feeling full and our sushi cravings satisfied. Although I wasn’t hugely blown away by this place, if I were to ever crave sushi and feel too lazy to go downtown, I would probably end up back here.

So I’m updating this review because I will definitely not be back here again!
Ku Sushi has a promotional for 50% off rolls to go (for pick up), so I ordered a California Roll and a Spider Roll. Based on the menus both on their Facebook page AND Unilocal My total should have been about $ 8.75+tax, but when I got there it was $ 11.50. I thought maybe I had misread the menu so I went home and checked again, and I hadn’t. So I called them and asked why my total was so much and they were SUPER rude about it. They said that the California roll is $ 7 and the Spider Roll is $ 13. So with tax (9.5% in seattle) that would come out to be about $ 10.95. I asked how they got $ 11.50 and they just said I was wrong.
It was only a couple dollars different, but the way they handled it and how rude they were was what really bugged me. The rolls are good, but with all the new sushi places in u district (and way better places in other parts of Seattle) I can definitely say I won’t be back.

It pains me when I think about all of the delicious meals I’ve missed out on at Ku over the years because I was scared off by the «50% off sushi» banner outside. Luckily, the BF convinced me one day to put my preliminary prejudice aside and give Ku a shot.
Ku is an interesting establishment – half the menu is that of a typical sushi place, but the other half is traditional Korean food and Korean bar/​street food. Our first visit was after 11 PM so we didn’t get sushi service (it ends at 11 PM), but I did order a tofu soup which was surprisingly flavorful. The other big hit for me was the ddukbokki (spicy rice cakes). It tastes exactly like the ddukbokki I used to eat as a kid from street vendors in Korea, with old-​fashioned thick and spicy sauce. SO GOOD.
From then on, we’ve tried about 4 different rolls now and seriously, they’re AMAZING. I honestly can’t tell the difference in quality between rolls from Ku and a mid-​tier sushi place. The presentation, flavor, and portion are all there, but at half the price. I’m talking about a roll with tons of fish for $ 6.5. Yes, you read that correctly. My favorites so far have been I Love Crab and the Tempura California rolls.
I’d love to give this place a 5-​star rating because I’ve loved just about everything I’ve tried here, but since you don’t really get a full sushi experience nor a full Korean experience (you only get 1 or 2 side dishes), I’m going with 4.