When you search brave in the dictionary, trying a new sushi restaurant should be included in the definition. It’s a risky decision, even when you are trying the restaurant based on rave reviews by family and friends. Brave is exactly how I felt after trying Kazu Japanese restaurant in the San Jose area. 

Kazu re-opens for dinner at 4:30 PM, with a new menu and a chill vibe. When you walk in, you are greeted by a friendly face who guides you to your seat. 

To start my dinner, I ordered the coconut curry soup (pictured). This soup includes shrimp, cilantro, red onion and rice noodles. The initial flavor provides a subtle sweetness, along with spice. As you keep eating, you will begin to find the sunken ingredients inside like the large and tasty shrimp and the skinny and surprisingly flavorful noodles. This soup was quite tasty, but I wouldn’t order it again. I am a sucker for the traditional miso soup!

For the main and final course, sushi, I ordered the phoenix roll and the whitefish tempura roll. The menu describes the phoenix roll as having shrimp tempura, eel, avocado and cream cheese with crunchy spicy tuna on top. I personally prefer my sushi to be a little more fresh and to have an accurate description. The “crunchy” spicy tuna on top of the roll was not at all crunchy and was in fact, squishy, similar to the texture of an avocado. That element of the roll ruined it for me. I tried to scrape some of it off to minimize the damage to my taste buds, but it was irreversible. 

The whitefish tempura was simple and predictable and again, the freshness just wasn’t up to par. However, eel sauce on top definitely gave the roll some much needed flair. 

While the soup was unique, I do not envision myself returning to Kazu. There are a handful of other restaurants in Jacksonville that have perfected the art of sushi that they haven’t. Overall I’d rate the restaurant a 4.5/10 because of the kind wait staff and the soup. They lost points for: closing in the middle of the day, lack of freshness and poor menu descriptions.

Image courtesy of Maya McCall ’20.