“ I absolutely love this place. Traditional Japanese cooking & wood interior feels very homey inside. So many vegetarian & vegan options I'm overwhelmed. I can keep coming back to try new things. And the dessert menu is the best! Few are the times I get dessert, but I always get dessert here. ”

“ Friendly and helpful service, really great menu and awesome food. I had salmon nigiri and a salmon and crab roll, both of which were very good. I had an appointment a couple blocks away and they were able to accommodate me in and out within 20 minutes. The interior is super cozy and feels straight out of Tokyo! Steaming pots from the kitchen included Highly recommend overall! ”

“ I love the ambiance of this restaurant. The service was great and my server was very attentive. I ordered the kimchi beef brisket udon and daigakuimo (candied sweet potatoes). The udon was perfectly warm on a rainy day, not too spicy, and came with an onsen egg, yum! The daigakuimo was deliciously sweet without being overpowering and I also had it alongside the house green tea. The house green tea is smooth with a nutty aftertaste and helped to cut the sweetness of the sweet potatoes. Definitely order it to accompany your meal! I will be back for more. ”

“ I stopped into Wa Kitchen Kuu briefly for a small bite (tofu and poké salad). Their menu is actually quite extensive, from noodles to rice to sushi to curry to tempura, not to mention sake and cocktails. So I did not get the full picture of what they offer and would be happy to come back to try more. But I enjoyed the little bit that I saw and tasted! They're located off MLK Jr Blvd so parking may be tricky, but they are a good option post-event at the Convention Center. The decor is traditional Japanese. They have counter seats, high tops, and low tops. Service was polite. ”

“ Lovely place for dinner. Once you step foot inside it feels like you're in Japan - they even have bathroom bidets! Street parking might be a little tricky because if you miss your chance to park, you might end up driving across the bridge before you can U-turn back to the area lol. The Mentaiko Kama-tama Udon is a fan favorite and must-get. The different flavors and textures of the seaweed, seasoning, and tempura puffs combined blended so well together and it was definitely the better dish of the two we ordered. The Curry Noodle Udon was good, though I will probably try curry without noodles next time and order Katsu curry instead since that seemed like another popular item. The staff is very nice. There was a sign up front stating that the restaurant was unexpectedly understaffed that day, but I felt like we were still taken care of! ”

“ I ordered the firecracker roll, a seasonal special, and it was delicious! Fresh and tasty! The portion and price felt good. We came after lunch time on a Saturday and pretty much had the back area all to ourselves. Staff greeted us and took our order promptly. The area was cute with Japanese style decorations and wood. ”

“ Brief Summary: - Busy during lunch - Felt quieter during dinner time - Rotating lunch has good portions This review contains two visits: one during dinner time, when the restaurant just opened, and the other time during peak lunch hours. The first visit was in the early evening after some hours of shopping and burning under the sun for the most part. The restaurant is spacious with tables, chairs, bar area, and also the Japanese styled room. We chose one of the tables near the Japanese styled room. We ordered a couple of dishes for dinner: kama-age udon, mentaiko udon, a roll of spicy tuna sushi, and the kama meshi (vegetable). The sushi arrived first and then the other dishes arrived at once. The udon was a soft chew and thinner in the kama-age udon. For the cold mentaiko udon, these noodles are flat. I liked how I got to mix the contents inside. The taste reminds me of home cooked meals, so it was a pleasant meal experience. The second part of the meal was during lunch time. We arrived probably exactly at 12pm. There were a few guests waiting at the entrance. There also appeared to be a convention event nearby, so guests with lanyards were lining up with us too. However, some of them trickled away due to the wait time, so we were closer to getting a table. All of the tables were filled that day, so we managed to get seats by the bar table. We viewed the menu ahead of time, so we chose the rotating lunch. I've grown to acknowledge that waiting times in Portland restaurants are long, so I didn't take most of the places into consideration. However, there was a significantly longer wait time during lunch than dinner. It could be that there was only one to two staff members spread wide and thin to accommodate for the guests, but the pacing of the food influx felt slower as well. After some waiting, the lunch arrived at the same time for us. Upon skimming over the servings, it is a mystery to me on what would have caused the food to take a while to arrive. The light assumption I could think of was the rice. Maybe a new back needed to be cooked. This lunch dish was delicious too. The portions were just right, and the rice to meal ratio was balanced too, so nothing was left over near the end of the meal. The only negative I had was the miso soup; the miso content was strong. Based on the two experiences, I liked the dinnertime food experience mostly because of the timing and the food choices we chose. Possible additional bias that we chose udon noodles for dinner, which is my favorite dish. ”

“ This place is a great find! We went out of our way to visit this place and it was absolutely worth the thirty min of traffic we were stuck in to get there! First off, cute place - well designed and has a good vibe. Really friendly staff too. At first, we got the veggie gyoza, veggie roll and rotating lunch special which had the salmon. Everything was perfectly prepared and there's not a bad thing to say about any of it. The veggie gyoza was crispy and not greasy and just little bites of deliciousness. The veggie roll was fresh and I loved the addition of herbs on top of the avocado and cucumber. We were still a little peckish after that, so we got the spicy salmon roll and the yodare tofu. The husband pronounced the spicy salmon roll as perfection but the real winner of the entire meal was the tofu eggplant dish. Beautifully seared and yet soft alternating slices of eggplant and tofu immersed in the best sauce on the planet and topped with fresh herbs and green onions. This is a dish that I will continue to dream about and hopelessly try to recreate. Every bite of that dish was worth sitting in thirty min of traffic for and that's the highest praise I can think of! I love that this place has so many vegetarian options (there is a veggie option almost in each category) and those options include something as epic as the yodare tofu. A lot of places do not put effort into their vegetarian options, so hats off to the insanely talented chef who created this! 11/10 would visit again and order two plates of that eggplant tofu. ”