Kiki Sushi - Hillcrest

This little sushi place is located right on the corner of University and 6th. It's the one that was clearly a Kinko's before and the proprietors were just too lazy to really change the title much and simply removed a single later for the name of the restaurant. Fine with me.

The inside of the restaurant is very small with only a couple of tables and a decently sized sushi bar. I was with a larger group (6 of us), so we opted for the patio, which isn't a whole lot bigger. Once seated, it was time to look at the food offerings. The menu is pretty decent, offering nigiri, sashimi, a good selection of both basic as well as creative, fancy rolls, cheap hot food and some drink specials.

The service was quick and pleasant, no complaints there. Nothing that's gonna rock your world or anything, but efficient and friendly. I ordered the 'Sushi Special', which is a Spicy Tuna roll and 2 pieces of albacore, salmon, shrimp and yellowtail. Not bad for $14.50. Aaron and Eddie were really excited about the 'Spicy Chicken Roll', which is just as ridiculous as it sounds. Tastes alright though. Brian ordered some deep fried abortion of a roll that tasted like tempura fried ocean. Meh. Sean ordered the "Golden Gate' roll which had salmon, mango and some other tasty items. That one was fresh and delicious. All in all though, I thought my dish was the best one. The fish was surprisingly good. The spicy tuna was actually stuffed into the roll and was actually spicy. Mmmm. The nigiri was fresh tasting and well textured and the rice was just fine. All in all, a good meal.

Despite all that though, Kiki Sushi is not a place that really stood out in any way. Perhaps it's due to the millions of other sushi places in San Diego. I haven't tried all of them or anything, but I've tried a fair share of places, and a lot of them are pretty incredible. And that's not to say that Kiki wasn't good, not at all, it's just not special. It's a totally decent sushi place in the area that I would absolutely go to on a suggestion, I just probably wouldn't actively choose it. I think for me, personally, a lot of reasoning behind that is because I'm rather polar when it comes to sushi. I either gravitate towards cheap, bargain sushi (think Sushi Deli), or high quality, ambiance driven sushi (think Harney Sushi or Ra). The middle of the road doesn't usually interest me to a great degree. For better or worse, since Kiki really is just fine.

Overall Score (out of 5): 3.8