Review Kobo Japanese Restaurant - Pickering

Great sushi and service. Cozy ambiance. Fresh fish and perfect cuts and insane fried chicken.

Excellent service. Very friendly staff. The food was really good and fresh, felt very homemade. Great little restaurant!

Kobo is on my list for top 5 favourite restaurants. The beef sukiyaki udon, garden salad and tempura is my go to order at least once a week. If you are looking for traditional delicious Japanese food I would definitely recommend this place…one of the best!

Impressed... amazing food quality. Proper sake. Decent service. Come into this place out of random. Food is prepared "right" down to detail. Not some "poser" Japanese restaurant. Did not expect. This is possibly one of the best for this price point.

Good quality food. Small portions, but not overpriced. Will return as my wife is a fan. Interior is basic. It's about fresh, authentic ( I believe, my wife is Korean and we are pretty sure chef was Japanese) food. It's not fancy. You don't leave overly full. That's good sometimes. You leave feeling good.

Worst sushi place in Pickering!!! Paid 25 dollars for yam roll and AC roll edamame... DON'T GO EAT AT A PLACE WHERE THEY DON'T TAKE PRIDE IN THEIR FOOD!! I would give no stars if I could

Service excellent. The seafood and avocado salad was fresh and delicious. The miso soup is sold separately but it’s worth it.

Little hidden place in Pickering. Always quality fish and such nice people. Support local!

Grabbed some take out. Picked up a salmon bento box and some tuna avocado sushi rolls. Bento box was ok. The dumplings and dressing for the salad were both pretty awesome, but that was by far the best part. I literally could have done without the rest. My tuna was grey and mushy and I threw out 4 of the 6 rolls. I'm disappointed enough to be writing a review.. Nuff said.

The best quality sushi you can find in Durham. Everyone nowadays loves the ACYE cause of the variety and selection. Most people have never had the pleasure of a la Carte Sushi to understand the difference. The Chef takes his time with each roll and ensures the ratio, quality and ascetic are of all high quality. So if you're looking for better quality as opposed to mass quantity this is the place.    <br/><br/>I usually order the Sushi Rolls and my wife has the Sashimi. We've has the Teriyaki lunch specials before but prefer the sushi.

Sundry, Unusual, Sufficient, Highway, Imaginative (SUSHI). E: The obvious choice for a first-time visitor is the chef’s Omakase menu. This was my first time at Kobo, but I also opted for a couple of extras to supplement the ‘chef’s choice’ plate. The Omakase was inexpensive by Toronto standards. The waitress replied that it comprises of ten pieces of sushi. It arrived with eleven pieces. At $22 it was a good deal with ten or eleven pieces. The waitress agreed that it is one piece more than promised and that the chef occasionally does this. The extra piece was a rather western Gunkan Maki. The featured fish were maguro, ebi, ika, hotate, unagi, saba, kani battleship with avocado tobiko (the eleventh piece actually) and aburi tuna. I had specifically requested no salmon and they were happy to comply. The Tai had no taste and was garnished despite tradition. The Ika was good, but its rice was a little hard. Shockingly and inauthentically (which is not a good idea), the aburi pieces lay on a bed of miso. Later I would question the chef about this. The Unagi was cool – and no not temperature-wise.<br/>The Tatsutaage – meant to be more crispy than chicken karaage – was a disappointment. It likely was not made with rice flour and more likely emanated from a bag in the freezer. Worse, it was accompanied not by mayonnaise, but what seemed like salad dressing. It all started with an Ushio Soup. What is an Ushio Soup? Narumi didn’t know either. It was shoyu (or soya sauce) flavoured. It featured bonito dashi stock, shrimp and scallop. It was clear yet rich and tasty. It turns out Ushio is a whirlpool in the sea, according to the chef. On the other hand, Ushio Jiru is a clear soup in Japanese cuisine. The Enoki Maki was tasty, but nowhere near Miyabi’s. It was hard, full of meat a la kabob with less enoki mushrooms and was garnished with some sesame.<br/>Other items on the menu were the “famous” house spring roll with “crispy pastry,” which neither is famous nor pastry nor Japanese nor... anyway I give up. There is also hotpot. There are several udons on the menu including the uncommon Nabe Yaki with chili and yuzu, Tempura, Beef and Seafood. Yuzu is also in a vegetable hotpot and in a salad. <br/>They offer a la carte sushi. There is a section for kushi or skewered meats. The menu identified amaebi tataki (raw and pounded shrimp) and yaki sakana (grilled fish), which was left unidentified. There is also a Kobo Mini Steak and, to keep up the rhyme, a Kobe Beef, which is a lie of course. When confronted with this the waitress appealed ignorance, trotted to the kitchen, came back and admitted inaccuracy. For the record, there is no such thing as kobe beef in Canada. It is not exported from japan. It is not imported into Canada.<br/>The menu’s “Original Rolls” did not seem terribly so. There is the Kobo Roll with smoked salmon, the Crispy Salmon Skin, Shrimp Vegetable, Salmon Tempura Roll, Lobster And Avocado Roll, as well as a Kobo Kaisen Salad. <br/>-<br/>A: On Kobo’s walls hang several Japanese illustrations, but otherwise the restaurant is rather Spartan and ordinary. One would be forgiven for believing the restaurant doesn’t have a sushi bar, but one finds one tucked in the back en route to the washrooms. It is hardly ideal, but rather fun in that it is concealed. The setup is similar to Toshi in Toronto or Le Café Michi, minus the washroom (or regular dining in the same area) part. It seems to be almost standard practice by now; lounge and jazz music was quietly streaming out of the PA system. Speaking of standard practice, like Zen, Michi, Aoyama, etc. Kobo is in a non-descript suburban strip plaza that is as attractive as a conservative voting girlfriend. The washroom was clean and tidy. The ceiling was missing a tile here and a vent cover there, but was overall well maintained.<br/>The woman half of the couple next to me nagged for thirty minutes to a forlorn man. she complained and whined to the man who sat there impassively and courageously with narya word uttered in response. Apparently, she is in HR or wants to go to HR and the world has conspired against her so on and so forth. Given how long she talked I hope she loses her case – and I don’t say that just because she was busy mixing her wasabi into her murasaki. Although that would be grounds enough.<br/>-<br/>T: The plaza holds many parking spots likely enough for any peak hour. The waitress is quick to show one to a table, come for the order, deliver the food and make herself available when requested. She will not come back for a refill or a quality check. The restaurant holds enough seating for around thirty patrons and a couple of seats at its mini bar. It is served by two waitresses.<br/>-<br/>S: The waitress Namuri hails from Aichi, Japan and does a fine job, but she is not particularly informed regarding the menu. She is happy to go and ask the kitchen however. As mentioned earlier, they are happy to substitute fish or take special orders as well. The poor waitress either committed a mistake or was victimized by four aggressive customers and on the night had to deal with it all alone. She was visibly unhappy, but handling it. I have to take a moment to laugh at customers who threaten a waitress with calling the cops. There weren’t any donut shops in the plaza so the cops wouldn't be in a rush to show up. On the other hand, a waitress at a sushiya is easy low hanging fruit. It sure is easier than crime prevention, apprehending robbers or charging white collar criminals. <br/>A Japanese customer and her dining companion were warmly greeted by the chef and owner Noboru Yamada with whom he was acquainted. Speaking of the Japanese owner he hails from Saga and has been here for fifteen years. He has several awards on his wall including one from Quebec. He has been in business in the area for twenty years and until recently had a job running the sushi counter at the downtown Richtree. He has apparently ceased that now and additionally recommends against dining there. Earlier he was also a fish monger and distributor. This portends well for his knowledge of fish.<br/>When the restaurant slowed down the chef came out to meet and greet with his customers – including the aforementioned Japanese woman – and later came over to offer a business card. I asked him about the miso in the sushi. According to the owner, some people do not like raw fish – yes this was Pickering – and miso mitigates the taste for these customers. Whatever the case, the chef stated that he buys organic produce from Windsor and St. Jacobs. He also uses organic miso. He was curious regarding where one has heard about his restaurant and noted that many of his old customers drive up from downtown Toronto. Similarly, I was curious how he and his Japanese staff had arrived there.<br/>Kobo is a ‘small workshop with handmade goods’ and is open every day except Mondays. Lunch hour begins at 11:30 except for Sundays when only dinner is served, but exceptionally beginning early from four o’clock.

My family and I eat at Kobo often and its probably one of the best Japanese restaurants around here! Their sushi is always really high quality and their other dishes are delicious. The staff are kind and the service is fast. Definitely recommend it to anyone.

Return visit. The restaurant is in an unassuming location but when you find a nice spot you just go. My staple order is the Daily Seafood Tempura and KOBO Omakase Sushi. The tempura badder is thick and the dipping sauce has a wonderful hint of ginger. The sushi omakase is at a great price and excellently executed. I enjoyed hamachi, sake, maguro, ika, ebi and was surprised with the contents of the lobster roll. My wife ordered the seafood udon and the broth was spot on with fresh noodles. This is a great Japanese run restaurant that draws me out to Pickering often. 90%

Great Food. Kobo Gourmet can look unusual for a Japanese restaurant because when you enter, you would not see the usual sushi bar. Instead, there is a general counter.<br/><br/>But you know it is a great Japanese restaurant when you taste their food.<br/>The fish is very fresh and sushi is perfectly sized. And the rolls are too, without being jumbo-sized. The rice also does not have that extra sourness one finds in some Japanese restaurants.<br/><br/>We had ordered Sushi and Sashimi Omakase and they were served in separate plates, but in one serving, unlike in some other places, such as OMI, where the chef sends course after course, some of which are unusual and creative.<br/><br/>It is more on the expensive side, but then all 'real' Japanese are. <br/>On the whole, it is a great Japanese restaurant in the Durham region.

Wow what a hidden gem in pickering! Delicious food, the chef is Japanese which is great since not a lot of sushi is made by Japanese chefs nowadays. Would definitely go back!

I can not even express to how much I love place. There is something magical in their unagi handrolls that make me want to crawl inside them and live forever within the living confines of it's deliciousness. The lunch special bento box is amazing. Amazing food and amazing price (especially since there's so much and its so delicious!). Go there! Get the unagi handroll! I promise you wont be disappointed - unless your allergic to seafood...

It's a hidden gem in an understated plaza. Very unassuming. Menu is unique and creative, unlike the masses of Japanese restaurants downtown that cannot be distinguished from one another. Went on a Friday for dinner and it was a full house, partly due to the limited seating; patience is necessary as they seem to put a lot of care in their food. The chef is Japanese.

Best Sushi in the burbs. There are so many sushi places, most of the "all-you-can-eat" places have really gone downhill like Makimono, but Kobo is different.<br/><br/>Surprised by the fact that we can get such good quality sushi so close to home in Pickering.<br/><br/>They use top quality fish, which is expertly presented and so beautiful you almost don't want to eat it! The sashimi, my fave, is so good, even the garnishes like the minced onions, real pickled ginger (not the standard pink stuff....why is that anyway?) and even the way they cut the fish is incredible. They also have amazing gyoza dumplings, hand-made from scratch - not frozen. Their special rolls, like spider or dragon rolls, are also excellent, lots of filling and not too much rice. My other fave is their house special avocado and lobster hand-rolls.....I can eat a plateful of them they are so delicious!<br/><br/>Their prices are also higher than average, so we don't get to eat here often.<br/><br/>The service is always great, they play really nice music, and the decor is very plain. Don't let the decor scare you off.......the food is top quality.<br/><br/>This is my favourite sushi place in the GTA and I am so lucky I live only 5 minutes away!

Best Japanese Food Around. I've lived in the area for several years and didn't even know this place existed! I'm glad I know now...<br/><br/>Absolutely amazing. The food, service and presentation of the food reminds me of Japan. Highly recommended if you are into fresh and delicious quality foods!

Kobo Gourmet is a decent Japanese owned Japanese restaurant if you are far out in the East... but definitely not comparable to some of the Japanese sushi place in Toronto. <br/><br/>Most of the dishes ordered for the night is passable... not bad.. but will I order those again.. not really... and Would I ask my friends to come and try... oh not really... <br/><br/>The only thing I enjoy is Kobo Omakase Sushi as I am always a sushi fan. Those sushi they serves here at Kobo are bite size which is smallish...the fish are fresh and tasty. <br/><br/>I am not too crazy about the deco...as I do believe that where you eat does enhances the totally experience... and if I pay Kobo prices, I do expect some ambiance!<br/><br/>The services though really sweet and attentive.