3 /5 Salman Zindani: It feels wrong rating this place so low when my original rating is a 3.75. Unfortunately, yelp doesn’t allow decimal point rating.
Kinzo undeniably serves good fish. Unfortunately, the preparation of the sushi leaves somewhat more to be desired. I feel particularly bad for the place because the quality of the fish definitely was in line with other great sushi places we’ve been to. The environment for top tier sushi in the DFW area is just very difficult. Simply having good fish doesn’t cut it anymore. Preparation does.
Here’s what we got:
Mini omakase:
- [ ] Toro tartare: fresh and very balanced. Served in a beautiful bowl on a plate of ice
- [ ] Santemori: yellow tail with gooseberry and raisin , oyster - absolutely delicious. So flavorful with the ponzu sauce, salmon - was alright. Felt it was too sweet for my liking. (left to right)
- [ ] Sea bream madai nigiri: had a mint leaf in the nigiri that took away from the madai, ruining the balance.
- [ ] Shimaaji (striped jack): slightly citrusy. Liked more than madai
- [ ] Blue fine tuna: classic tuna that was the definition of good fish.
- [ ] Chinmedai: house special: not the biggest fan. Primary flavors: wasabi and slight miso glaze
- [ ] Ocean trout: best out of all the nigiri, but still nothing compared to other sushi restaurants
- [ ] Snow crab temaki
- [ ] Kamasu: barracuda - we ordered this separately, because we saw chef Jin making it with chilli oil. Unfortunately, when we had the nigiri, we couldn’t taste the chilli oil at all.
An astute observation my wife had: most of the toppings or enhancements were under the fish and above the bed of rice. Unlike other places where the enhancements are on top of the fish.
All-in-all, we wouldn’t come back here for sashimi or nigiri, but would visit to try their hot plates which they seem very adept at making.