The lighting of the restaurant is quite dimmed, that's why it's quite easy to miss the restaurant when you are driving by. The restaurant itself is not very big. I would say probably around 8-10 tables plus the sushi bar. Sometimes they are quite packed, so reservations is recommended but you can catch them at odd times where you can just walk in without reservations.
We first noticed that the sushi chef is Japanese which is a good sign that this is an authentic Japanese restaurant. They do have daily specials that's usually different. After looking at the menu, we ordered a few things.
We decided to order the daily special which is hamachi carpaccio with ponzu sauce (dish on the right). We really enjoyed the dish because it's different than the normal carpaccio you would have. Hamachi itself is quite sweet and not fishy at all, adding the ponzu sauce made the dish very refreshing and light. It is definitely a good dish to start the meal and definitely different than just having hamachi sashimi.
We also ordered miso Saba from the appetizer menu. The fish was seasoned well and the miso wasn't too strong that would overpower the taste of the fish. The fish was grilled nicely and the fish was very flaky and soft as you break into the fish.
Of course, we had to order some sushi given this is a sushi bar. I had to order my favourite kinds of sushi which are salmon, chopped scallop and tamago. I always find that tamago and chopped scallop really allows you to see the quality and skills of the chef. The reason why I say that is because some sushi places would buy pre-made tamago while authentic sushi places would make their own. I can't guarantee 100% that their tamago is not pre-made, but it did taste quite fresh and wasn't too sweet. Chopped scallop is really about the balance between the sauce/mayo and the scallop. Some places would put way too much mayo to cover the fact that the scallop is not fresh. Kiriri's chopped scallop didn't have a lot of mayo so you were able to taste the scallop along with the fresh seaweed.
The salmon sushi had nice colour and it was a nice big piece. Lastly to note is the west coast sushi roll wrapped in soy paper. The fact that it was wrapped in soy paper made the sushi taste not as heavy and we were able to focus more on the taste of the ingredients inside of the roll which included salmon.
Lastly, we ordered a blacks sesame creme brûlée. We were quite surprised when we first saw the bowl. We thought the creme brûlée was actually the size of the bowl. That would have been a really good deal for $4.5. You can get an idea of the bowl size compared to the bowls beside it.
After we opened the lid, we were confused for a few seconds since all we saw was just a bowl of fruits. Then we saw the other side of the lid and noticed the creme brûlée. It was quite creative to present the creme brûlée this way. The fruits actually helped balanced the sweetness of the creme brûlée. The creme brûlée definitely had very strong black sesame flavour. Although I am not a big fan of black sesame, I did really enjoy this dessert, maybe because of the fruits that came with it.
The service at Kiriri was also very good. All the waitresses had a smile on their faces and they would assist you immediately after you asked for something. After we finished our main course, they changed our existing tea to new hot tea which was very thoughtful.
This place is definitely worth coming again but not a place that we would go often because the price is not that cheap. However, I do believe the prices do reflect the quality of the food and the services they provide.
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