March 10th, 2008 By Jenna Walker
East Side Review: Kanpai
After all the Kanpai talk in the Zuki comments this week, we decided to visit and bring a review to you ourselves.
The overall feel of Kanpai is “hole-in-the-wall.” You drive up to a little square building next to a “novelty store.” You walk in and see an Asian-style screen separating the door from the tables, but when you round the corner, the d’ecor goes to nothing. Not a bad thing, most delicious hole-in-the-walls are lacking in that aspect. Here, all you see is one room with a handful of plane tables and a sushi bar.
The menu is fairly large for the establishment and is mostly comprised of Japanese and Korean food. We all started out with an appetizer: miso soup, Kanpai salad, and seaweed salad. The Kanpai salad is quite reminiscent of the salad at Nagasaki. My friend and I opted to order sushi, while my father ordered an entr’ee. He and I ordered the Spicy Tuna Crunch, Salmon Skin Roll, Volcano Roll, and Philadelphia roll. There has been some debate over the size of the Kanpai rolls, and this time I found it mixed. The Volcano and Spicy Tuna were on the rather large size, while the Philadelphia and Salmon Skin were smaller. My favorites were the Volcano Roll, which is warmed and topped with crab, and the Philadelphia. Both were nicely made and tasted exactly how they should. However, I wasn’t big on the Spicy Tuna or the Salmon Skin, normally two of my favorites, these had a very strong scallion taste that overpowered the sushi. My father ordered chicken chop chae. It came out as a extremely large serving of vegetables and chicken over rice, but I found it more like a stir fry than what I think of as chop chae. He did enjoy it, and could not finish such a large portion.
That night, there were three people working: the owner and two sushi chefs. Despite the lack of people in the restaurant, the service wasn’t very good. Part of this I think was the constant focus they had on the tv and choosing a channel-the tv is very distracting for them, but also towards trying to have a nice meal. Even though there were two other tables in there, it took nearly 10 minutes to be greeted-thank you tv.
Overall, if you aren’t interested in service and d’ecor, but just food, then this is a good find. The sushi is above average, though they go a little heavy on the scallion and tobiko. The entrees also are good and rather large portions. The food can get out to you pretty quickly, but everything in between is extremely slow-get a bottle of sake to help ease that pain. The prices can get a little high for dinner ($10-20), but the food proves worthy.
Kanpai is located at 4593 Washington Ave, across from E. Schnucks. (812) 471-7076. 11 am-2 pm; 5-9 pm, Mon-Thurs; 11 am-10 pm Fri; 3 pm-10 pm Sat, closed Sun.
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mike
March 10, 2008 @ 11:18PM
that’s about the experience my wife and I had when we went to kanpai … sushi was average, but nothing spectacular. not worth the horrible service. when we went, we were two of three tables and it took about 20 minutes to even get a drink order in. even after we finally made our sushi order, the sushi chef, who was playing some sort of computer game prior to our order, continued to play the game instead of preparing our meal … needless to say, we have not been, nor will we ever eat at kanpai again
Tracy
March 11, 2008 @ 06:07AM
Kanpai was a restaurant I was wanting to try until reviews on here…glad to be saved from a bad experience. Still wanting to try Jaya’s and Iwataya though.
Robyn
March 11, 2008 @ 09:18AM
Nicely done, Jenna :) I think you captured the essence of Kanpai very well. My experience was very similar to yours. The food was really good when we finally got it, but service was horribly bad. It’s even worse service when there are many people in your party.
Matt
March 12, 2008 @ 01:53PM
I used to frequent Kanpi when they first opened a few years back and was quite impressed…This coming from a Sushi connoisseur. I know they have changed owners since and that may be the issue. Too bad
mindy
May 19, 2008 @ 02:07PM
I frequent Kanpai fairly often and have the same experiences mentioned above. Kanpai was wonderful several years ago. Great food and service. However they have switched ownership and it is reflected- especially in the degree of service. However, the food is still pretty good- not quite as good as a couple years ago- but good. I always eat sushi and have rarely been disappointed. My suggestion is order the food to go. I never dine in. However, just as the service is when you dine in it is slow going for take home as well. Make sure she tells you a time when your food will be ready- then give it another ten minutes. You aren’t missing anything as the environment is less than desirable, the staff often unbearable, but the food is great.