Kichi Jyu Japanese Restaurant     吉壽日本料理  

last night i went to KICHI JYU JAPANESE RESTAURANT again
this was the second times
i booked a table for 2 at 6PM
when we reached we got the table instantly
the place as just as before it was not spacious
this time i saw some new staffs but the service hadn't changed
although the staffs very busy but they still very polite and friendly

in my memories i knew they had many kinds of foods already
but this time i discovered they had added 2more foods
one was the GRILLED SALMON SUSHI
the other one was the CRAB ROE HAND ROLL WITH CHEESE
we both liked these

finally of course we got the mochi
we so greedy to ask for 2more mochi and the staff gave us with pleasure
we was very pleased about this dinner .....

An all-you-can-eat 90-minute buffet at just below $200, Kichi Jyu is good value for the money. I normally wouldn't have thought twice about this place as buffets at this price must mean something's not right, but alas, after hearing how "awesome" this place was from several co-workers who've been (and reading other openrice reviews!) I decided to check it out. And indeeeed, the stuff here was pretty good!

The down side: there's a couple. Firstly, the restaurant is NOT spacious, and they had to literally pull the table apart for me to get to my seat! (I hope they weren't trying to tell me something...lol) This means... you also HAVE to book in advance! They'll pester you (ie. call) a few times after you make a reservation just to make sure you're really coming, and they only hold a table for 5 minutes apparently, so be there on time. Finally, keep an eye on the time as they will kick you out after 1.5 hours (there's two sessions for the buffet - one starts at 6pm and the other starts at 8:45pm). They will not be shy about asking you to leave, either, but you'll understand why after you see the line going out the door.

The up side: I liked how most of the items came in bite-sized portions, which leaves room for you to try a bunch of other things. I'm not a huge fan of sashimi and especially not the "fishy" taste, so I don't eat much more than tuna when it comes to raw fish. The chunks of tuna here aren't too different from average. Same goes for the tamago egg.Personally, I like everything flavorful and saucy... and the mushrooms lacked that. They were also a bit on the dry side. The baked salmon with butter was yummy, though the salmon used for it was a bit fatty. Compound that with the butter and it feels like you're eating a load of fat... but it was still delicious haha. HUGE YES to the scallops!!! Not sure what the sauce was, but it tasted like oyster sauce. Not too salty and the scallops were fresh and chewy - wish they sold this stuff in street stalls! A semi-sweet milky soup in a relatively generous portionIt was alright... couldn't taste much crab in it, but I like even plain congee so this will pass in my bookIt's not that it was really that bad, but I'd recommend saving your stomach for the bite-sized snacks, tempura and sushi! The sauce used for this udon dish tasted the same as the tempura sauce. The good thing is that it's not as oily as I expected. Again, it's served in a generous portion

I didn't take a picture of the pork cutlet rice, or 滑蛋吉烈豬叭飯... but my two cents on it... the pork cutlet was soggy and too heavily batteredNevertheless, for the price, the quantity and the overall quality of the food (mainly referring to the snacks), I'll definitely be back!

Honestly, the price is really cheap, less than $200 all-you-can eat in Central district. Very convvinient location, especially if you want to have after dinner drinks around LKF area.
Sushi, Sashimi are fresh, many selection of ordinary items, no expectation of some expensive stuff but good enough for a casual dinner with friends. The hot dishes taste not bad, clams in soup, beef cubes, etc. many selections as well. The servng time is short, basically it only takes less than 10 minutes for everything you order to be put on the table.


It's very popular, maybe because of this, the booking process is very stressful .
I booked a table 5 days in advance, got the booking number. On that day, they called to re-confirm at around 12:30pm, I was in yoga class that I could not answered the phone. They left a message, very RUDE one, saying "You booked a table for tonight, now we call you and you don't answer, if you don't call us back in 10 minutes, we will CANCEL your table". I got the voice mail at 2:30pm, that is later than thei "DEADLINE" they set. I called to re-confirmed and told them that this kind of manner is really bad to customers.
In HK, most people are working and even some people are not, they might have other activities that not allowing them to answer phone calls, such as in class, in movie, in washroom, etc.....how can they set a 10 minutes Deadline to cancel their customers' booking? To anyone, this is unacceptable.


I understand that somepeople do not call to cancel if they cannot make it, which is indeed an impolite manner. However, doing business shall take risk, they can use more approriate wordings "Please call us back to confirm for better arrangement", which sounds much better and call again in an hour.
I hope they have made improvement after getting my feedback.

As it was me and my husband's wedding anniversary yesterday. We were thinking where would be a good place to celebrate such an important day. Then one of my friends recommended me to try this japanese restaurant. Even though the location is quite far away from us, there is always no harm to try, isn't it? (especially with this resonable price only $178 per person!) Before we went there. i called up the restaurant and made a reservation for two. Eventually realized there were two different time periods for the buffet dinner. We managed to book the one start at 6pm til 8:30pm.

We arrived there at about 6:10pm, the restaurant was already about half full (wonder what time did these people got there?) Sat down, served us a cup of hot green tea which i appreciated so much in this weather. I looked at the menu, i didn't know where to start from coz there were a large variety. Fortunately, my husband has a such clear mind. He marked some sashimi, vegetable Tempura and grilled and fried items. Frankly speaking, the food quality was not bad. Personally i enjoyed the most was the atmosphere and the courtesy of the staff. Definitely most important is the companion!!!!!!

Overall, i will give 86% to this restaurant. The other 14% this restaurant do not get widely becoz of the size of the tables and the size of the HAPPY ROOM! (washroom ) At the same time, i would like to give thanks to my friend : (Jacqueline who recommended this restaurant to me.) Also to this restaurant, making my wedding anniverary became so memorable!! Thank You~~~~

i have read the advertisement of this restaurant on the magazine for few times........ was thinking only $178@ for a japanese dinner in Central?....(all you can eat?) last week,me and my colleagues had a chance to try at this restaurant!!!

There were 9 of us, the restaurant offered us a private room. Of course, we were very pleased then we looked at the menu, tried to order what we would like to have, there were plenty <too many> choices. Surprisingly, the quality of the food were excellent, the atmosphere were great as well. The staffs were helpful and very knowledgeable. At least they could answer all our stupid questions.( like: ingredients, origin,etc...)

Overall, i am glad that we went there for a meal, also recommend to all of you should try this at least once during life time< instead of paying thousands to the low quality japanese restaurants!>

There are buffets, and then there are the ones where you tick on your order forms and they have your food made to order. Before you declare the latter is better because you won't be wasting food you don't eat, be sure to acknowledge the fact that one is no better than the other. For buffet you can actually take a look at what you're getting. If it looks good you take, if it doesn't you pass. It's choice at the simplest. The latter option usually does NOT have pictures in their order forms. Instead you get piles of small notepad-sized order forms with boxes to check, not unlike endless questionnaires you wish would never exist. Not only do you not know the quality of the food you'll be getting, you may not even know what it looks like in the first place. You think you know, but you really don't, and you don't even get the best looking piece out of the bunch. A visit to KICHI JYU further explains how this is true.

The joint occupies a narrow L-shape space with maxed out numbers of tables. I have always despised places where the owners try to squeeze everything in not to mention serving mediocre food. Our table was so small it didn't have much room to manoeuvre, not to mention putting food between us. We decided this limited space could be a test for speed-binging. I did not have my hopes high, but for a "try it because I've passed through the sign every other day" mentality we decided to try it out. There are order forms from A to I. Each systematically categorized different types of food offered in the entire meal.

We started with an order of EDAMAME, which was fresh and green on the looks, rather soggy on the pods, plain in the inside. Have they forgotten the salt? Sashimi was no better. The SQUID was a little mushy, and the CONCH looked fake and tasted plasticky not unlike pencil erasers. KANPACHI is pale in colour and was by far the only choice that could go hand in hand with "fresh' and "tasted alright". By the time we got through the sashimi, we have lost faith in the sushi. GRILLED BEEF managed to stay rare in the inside but mealy and tough as an entirety. DEEP FRIED OYSTER CHEESE ROLL was a horrid roll with no particular oyster flavour on oyster part, and the cheese...let's just it's not our favorite here.

Off to a bad start, we were hoping the hot-dishes will save the day, and it did. The FRIED FOODS section came out piping hot every time. The SHRIMP and KISU FISH came out nice and crunchy -- as the coating was also light enough. MUSHROOM tempura can benefit with smaller more tender mushrooms, but the EGGPLANT, SWEET POTATO and PUMPKIN were simple enought to be executed right, and beyond passing grade. Skip the OYSTERS if you will, it is very fried and not very oyster-like...if you know what that means.

Nibbling on the crunchy "fried chicken soft bone"....we moved on to a well-made MIXED MUSHROOM WITH BUTTER. There is so much yellow stuff floating atop the mushrooms (it really is butter) that all you can taste is butter with textures. Anything with this much butter should taste like what I have tasted here. The JAPANESE DICED TENDERLOIN was good enough -- a fine crust on the outside and moist quiveringly rare on the inside. I would have preferred it in bigger generous chunks (even if it's fewer chunks) than this pile of little bits served. FRIED SPICY SHRIMPS were not as good as we anticipated. The spicy sauce was more than just chili sauce, but the shrimps were no good canvas for the sauce to shine through. CONGEE WITH CRABS vary by quality. The table next to us was offered one slightly custardy yellow colour with the coral melted into the congee, while ours was plain with a faint crab flavour. The HOKKAIDO SEAFOOD HOTPOT WITH MILK has a rich milky soup base, but the seafood didn't give me the hint that it's fresh from the sea. The mussels, in particular, was so tough and not bearded properly.

SALMON RICE IN SOUP was experimental choice for me -- in small bowl, the salmon flakes were dry and crumbly, but the broth poured into the rice was more than flavorful, and it didn't get me all thirsty afterwards. GRILLED ITEMS were among the best together with the FRIED FOODS. Shrimps were fresh and ox tongue was tender, despite it being rather salty on the second order. Grilled Mushrooms looked dry but when you bite into each you'll realize the juicy part unseen on the outside.

While realizing that it may be tough for a small kitchen to whip up such dynamic choices offered on the order list, I couldn't feel the sympathy for them -- they could've specialized in a few recommended dishes, and take away froufrou pretentious dishes they know they cannot excel at. Limit each section into a few really good quality choices instead of a whole list of mediocre ones. Maybe on a consumer's viewpoint having so many options to choose from satisfy the mind more so than the tummy, or the desire to make sound decisions on what should be ordered. Having so many to choose from may be a ludicrously magnificent idea, but that only applies when you can offer above average quality on all of them before you think varieties.

I doubt that I will come again in quite a while. The food wasn't all that bad, you just have to know how to choose the good ones. Looking over to the neighboring tables and see what they order may help, but like I said in the beginning, you don't get to choose what you'll be given. Chances are, if you do you would prefer to hop across the street to that other joint similar to this one, with better quality too.

Note: The OK rating (and 3 on 味道) were given to the GRILLED and FRIED items.

first of all, the place is not very comfortable. quite crowded, seating not spacious
secondly, the food is just ok, not worthy the price
we witnessed the Happy Birthday Song part which was quite funny
i think Salmon sashimi is just average
other 天府羅 quite OK
蟹粥 OK
Tuna sashimi OK
牛肉粒 the best dish among all
fixed time to leave

We went there during weekday lunch hour, I got a sashimi bowl set, my friend got a beef rice. The sashimi was very fresh except that the shrimp is super small in size!! haha i guess it's just my bad luck...the price is reasonable too compared to other jap rest in Central..will defo come back! one more thing, the rest is quite small and not a comfy one, but all I want is quality food during that one-hour lunch!