All-you-can-eat sushi? In Toledo?
For sushi lovers, that seems like a mere dream. It sounds like a restaurant that could be found in places like Las Vegas or maybe New York City.
But, as of Sept. 4, that concept is available in Toledo.
Koi Sushi, 4941 Dorr St., is in the former Red Crab seafood site. The restaurant’s interior has been totally renovated in a Japanese-style motif.
“We looked for three months for a restaurant in a city that did not have an all-you-can-eat sushi restaurant,” Jessy Chen said. “Then we had to find a place big enough. In all, it took nine months, including signing all the paperwork, to open this restaurant.”
Ms. Chen, her husband Yuhui Teng, and their business partner, Ben Zhu, made the move to the city from the Queens borough of New York.
“We really wanted to have our own restaurant and bring a new concept to Toledo,” Ms. Chen said. “So far, we are already seeing a few people who have stopped in two to three times. I had a customer say he no longer had to drive to Detroit to have all-you-can-eat sushi.”
Koi brings in sushi-grade seafood from JFC International, out of Illinois. They also use Sysco for steak, chicken, and vegetables.
“It was important to us to get the highest quality ingredients we could get,” Ms. Chen said. “The seafood is beautiful, and the chicken and steak are delicious as well.”
Koi Sushi is not a buffet-style restaurant. Customers are given a huge two-page menu describing the types of sushi, sashimi, appetizers, kitchen entrees, and a wide variety of sushi rolls to choose from.
The food is plated in small portions and brought to the table as ordered.
“The variety and the small portions allow people to try many different options at a time,” said Julia Zhu, a manager. “The price is very reasonable, so people can enjoy some things they may never have had before.”
Ms. Chen said the most popular offerings so far are the Christmas tree roll filled with cream cheese and shrimp tempura and topped with crab and avocado; the Twintower roll, which has fried oyster and shrimp tempura, topped with eel, spicy tuna, avocado, spicy crab, and eel sauce; and the Tokyo roll, shrimp tempura topped with crab and salmon, deep fried, and topped with eel sauce.
Kitchen offerings include General Tso’s chicken, chicken or steak teriyaki, pork or chicken katsu, and beef and broccoli.
Items like shumai, pork dumplings; gyoza, ground meat filled dumplings; and takoyaki, a traditional Japanese street food of fried octopus balls, are also popular.
Bento box meals, hibachi meals, and miso soup and edamame are all offered on the widely varied menu.
Koi Sushi offers the fixed-price menu Monday through Saturday from 11:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. for $17.95. The all-you-can-eat dinner feast is offered from 3 until 9:30 p.m. Monday through Thursday; 3 to 10:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday; and 12:30 to 9:30 p.m. Sunday. The dinner option is $23.95.
The all-you-can-eat option is for dine-in only. Koi also offers a regular menu for those who want regular-sized meals and rolls. The restaurant uses Grubhub and DoorDash for delivery.
The only caveat is that Koi will charge an extra 50 cents per piece of sushi that is left over from your meal.
“We charge that if there is four pieces or more of sushi left over,” Ms. Chen said. “Customers can take it home. We know that sometimes our eyes are bigger than our stomachs.”
For more information, go to koisushitoledo.com or the restaurant’s Facebook page.
First Published September 12, 2024, 2:37 p.m.
