Aji Contemporary Japanese

Sushi was okay, it didn’t seem as fresh as other places. A bit heavy on the rice and the fish wasn’t cut as thin as I had hoped for. Huge pieces of bland sushi.
Biggest opportunity is the service. The table next to us sat for about ten minutes before someone even came by. They probably could get by with 3 servers but you don’t know if they are hosts as well. The host needs to stay upfront and not disappear for ten minutes and the servers need to make their rounds.
Much better sushi in Minneapolis and would pay a few extra dollars for the quality and service. I had high hopes but it was a let down.

Great place in Hopkins for ramen and located right on Mainstreet. The love of my life and I occasionally come here for ramen when we’re craving something to warm our bellies in the winter time.

Always excellent sushi! The buffet offers smashing hits every time and their «Happening Hour» is allot of food to share for $ 33 and they gave us a delicious free battered fried bananas and pumpkin pie. I am a frequent guest here and for good reason! Highly recommended.

We LOVE Aji! It is now under new ownership, and they are excellent, attentive and generous! We go for the Sushi and Hibachi. We are big Sea Bass lovers and their Sea Bass is wonderful. Sometimes, if it’s not too busy, they will even bring you some samples of deliciousness to taste. He has brought us some Jalapeño Poppers and a Fried Banana Desert. I’m not an alternatively cooked banana or jalapeño lover, but both were absolutely delicious!
The happy hour has good prices. Most often we have the Crunchy Roll with some Yellowtail or Red Snapper Sashimi. Yuki (sp) will add some crazy amazing toppings that I never knew I’d love so much! Tell him to surprise you and he will!
Give this place a try! It’s a smaller restaurant that has a nice quiet intimate tone.
There’s a little construction around there, but it’s still easy to find close on-​street parking.
Main Street Hopkins

I don’t give out 5 Stars easily, but Aji’s new chefs and owners deserve every single star.
We live in Hopkins and have been going to Aji for years and have always enjoyed their menu and service… But since the new owners have taken over, the quality and presentation of their dishes has SKYROCKETED!
The things these chefs are doing now are simply amazing and rather than ramble on, I will just say this: If you are bored with slices of raw fish dipped in soy sauce, go to Aji and just ask the chefs to «be creative» with whatever fish you prefer (mine is Yellow Tail) and you will be presented with a delicious work of art that, for me, redefined the sushi and sashimi experience.
Outstanding!

Summary:
— rude service from one guy
— hair in food and spoiled grape
— made me fresh sushi before it closed
— low quality fish
—
My mom and I walked in at around 20 minutes before the sushi buffet closed. The Asian male host quickly seated us and interrupted my mom’s question as if he were in a hurry. It was like he was playing a high level of live action Diner Dash which would have surprised me though because the restaurant only had 2 other occupied tables. He sat down afterwards and proceeded to fold napkins.
My mom ordered a beef noodle soup which tasted all right but took a good 15 minutes to come out. I hit up the sushi bar which was sparse with sushi. On one of the first few rolls I grabbed, I found a strand of hair. Gross.
I went up for a second trip because I was starving and the guy offered to make me specific rolls. I thought that was a nice gesture. Unfortunately the fish wasn’t too fresh but the avocado was good. The sushi was your average Minnesotan Chinese buffet quality, and this buffet had much less variety than its peers.
The guy folding napkins never came back, leaving the service up to his partner. He was nice at least.
The kicker is that the grape that I ate at the end was spoiled. Gross again. Not worth 15 bucks.

Love it! Best sushi west of the cities! We love the black pearl! Great local spot! Great service! Cheese puffs are great as well. Sunday night unlimited sushi is our fave! There almost every week!

Horrible. Service was awkward and slow. We got hibachi shrimp. Shrimp was overcooked. Fried rice was 3 dollars extra without any indication, and was undercooked and used frozen crappy veggies. My friends croquettes were undercooked, which is bad when they are held together with egg. We made a complaint to server but did not get any kind of comp. Very expensive and very bad overall.

This is a great place to stop for some sushi rolls if you’re in the area! They offer a sunday all you can eat sushi buffet which is pretty decent. Word of caution, they are slow with the food preparation so prepare to wait awhile for your food! For some reason, every time I go, I have to ask for ginger and wasabi after they bring me sushi… do they not realize that they go hand in hand?! How can you have sushi without wasabi or ginger??? Overall, it’s a decent spot for sushi.

My family and I love Aji! We have been here many times and love it every time. They are on Groupon frequently, so I would use a Groupon if you can since it may get pricey. I prefer to go on the Sunday all you can eat sushi days because they have a great selection — even apps and options other than sushi! At full price it is $ 27 for the endless Sunday sushi menu, but its seriously worth it since its all fresh and everything is delicious! Sushi rolls can be up to $ 20 a piece anyway, so why not have endless for $ 27?!
All of the rolls are really good, but some of my favorites are #9, Crunchy, The Black Pearl and Winter. Their Miso soup and cream cheese wontons are great too! The place seems to be not too crowded every time we go — maybe this is because of the location and it’s more of a dark atmosphere. The staff is nice and food comes out fairly quick! Overall, I love the sushi at Aji and I will definitely be going back!

Ok, this is more like 3.5 stars but I’m generous and when a place has friendly service, that makes me want to rate it higher. The staff here are sweet. My waiter was memorably –very– Minnesotan and after being gone from MN for a long time I kinda love it when that happens. He was also very on-​point, better with water refills than some of the more upscale places I’ve been to lately.
The food was ok! I mean, nothing was wrong with it per se. Well, I should confess that because I was here during restaurant week, apparently, they had a dinner buffet and THAT is what I had. I know, I know: a sushi buffet! But I had to as I thought it was very charmingly MN. I’ve never seen that outside of MN or inside of it before for that matter so I kinda had to. It was actually pretty good considering that sushi is always best freshly prepared. Also, the chefs were standing there churning out new pices so it wasn’t sitting around for too long. They were also super friendly and happy to answer questions and have a chat. However, there was one piece, the Ika that was memorably NOT ok, (it was rubbery and fishy and my dining companion laughed at the horrified face I made) but that happens sometimes (especially with squid) and I made it through. Everything else was fine. The ambiance is fine. Street parking was a cinch on the street that runs n/​s by it, otherwise Main St. is a bit of a nightmare.

Gotta love Groupon. I don’t buy them anymore because I end up always letting them expired; however, when a friend’s Groupon is about to expire, I would get the invite anyway to dine so it won’t go to waste. See? It’s a win win. No need to buy.
My friend’s Groupon brought me and Aji together. If not, chances for me to eat here would probably be zilch. The sign didn’t even look like it says «Aji» but after several double takes, it had to be It.
The inside was nice and comfy. They have booths! I love booths. We ordered the calamari over the Hamachi Kama, and a couple of their special rolls. I also had a miso soup. Miso soup was huge! Big bowl! It was hot and it tasted like miso soup. I had no complaint. In fact, I was happy about the portion that was easily doubled the regular miso soup bowl.
We thought about the hamachi kama/​collar, but we both love eating it with rice. We didn’t want to fill up on rice so decided to try the calamari. I wasn’t sure if I was in love with it. They sliced the squids so thin that it got real crispy but all I could taste was the slightly greasy batter. It was alright. Not my favorite. Skip it.
The sushi rolls were decent and okay. We got the red dragon and the spider. We ate them all. They were substantial in size and they were quite filling. However we need one more thing to take it over the Groupon value. We ordered the fried oysters. That was my fave. It was good and tasted great with tempura sauce. It came with a remoulade of some sort but the tempura sauce was a good call on my part. I had to ask for it.
Our server was super nice, friendly, and honest. He was a gem and he had nice biceps. He must have sell sushi and then pump iron for fun. Good for him and thank God for nice biceps. We asked him if he liked the fried oysters and he smiled shyly and said never tried them. Lol! Glad he didn’t say oh it’s the best fried oysters in the world so good that you would shit pearl after you ate it. Thank you for your honesty.
It was middle of the road for me. It wasn’t bad but I won’t be driving to Hopkins to ogle some biceps. If my friend has another Groupon though and need rescuing, I’d be her knight Sushi Brienne of Tarth in shining armor.

This is my favorite place to stop for lunch when I’m working. Why? Their lunch buffet special: available Monday-​Fridays 11am-​2pm. The lunch special features a great variety of all-​you-​can-​eat sushi rolls and a variety of fresh salads. It also includes your choice of Miso or Japanese Onion Soup to start the meal. It’s only $ 15…yah seriously. That’s what I send on 2 sushi rolls anyway. And you bet your ass I can eat more than 2 sushi rolls at an all-​you-​can-​eat lunch buffet!
Décor & ambiance are spot on. Service is always fast and friendly. The price is SO SO right & it’s outstanding sushi. Don’t pass this place up!

I’ve been here twice and my experiences were fairly good. I tried the sushi buffet and I would have to say that is just okay. The rolls are really rice heavy and not a lot of fish so that was a little disappointing. I do really enjoy their bento box selections, those are quite good and flavorful!

This place has pretty good food. We had the Japanese Fried Rice, Crunchy Chicken, Miso Soup and Samauri Roll. The rating reflects the service. The waitress got our original drink order wrong and while we were there, they turned away 3 couples because their Groupon was for dinner. and it was 30 minutes away.

On recommendation from a family member, I made the trip here from the hotel. I would say it’s a run of the mill 3, or maybe slightly weak 3, based potentially on me just ordering not quite the right stuff.
I got two rolls from their enormous selection of items. Huge menu of specialty stuff — this place definitely seems to focus on maki as opposed to sushi, but they do have a smaller cooked entrée menu, some of which looked good. I went with the Red Dragon and the Black Pearl. The Red Dragon was good — I like the mix of tuna and spicy tuna, plus the crispy veggies inside, and the tobiko (so fun to crunch between your teeth) on top. But I have to say I missed the «crunchy flakes» they mentioned on the menu. The Black Pearl was… more than I wanted. It was flash fried, which I understood, but was supposed to have a lemon pepper sauce. What I think it had was totally different, as it was almost sweet, certainly not lemony or peppery. It did have a nice mix of fish in it, but that was a little covered up by the frying. I should learn to avoid these, as good as they sound, the warm/​cooked sushi items, especially those where the whole roll is cooked… are never really what I want. So, I blame me for ordering a roll like this, but I have to say that I might have gotten the wrong sauce on it to begin with.
Service was quick, and the place was about half full. According to family in the area, they always have a Groupon going, which would be a good way to try things out. And there’s an all-​you-​can-​eat offering, but only specific nights (and not the night I was there). They even serve escolar in a few rolls. I’ve not seen this many places, and I personally have never had it. The Snow White roll sounded really good, but I didn’t know if I needed to see if I was sensitive to escolar. So, that aside, or perhaps when I’m feeling more adventurous, it might be worth coming back, just to try and get some different items.

Decent for Downtown Hopkins, but nothing I’d go out of my way for.
We were in Downtown Hopkins and decided to stop by Aji. I’ve noticed them on groupon for a few months now and after reading reviews bought one. I’m usually hesitant about places that have deals on groupon so often, but the reviews sold me on trying it.
The rolls are good but nothing spectacular. We got an appetizer of cream cheese wontons (we had originally wanted a different app but they were sold out), a few specialty rolls and a bottle of wine. All of the food was good but nothing oh-​my-​God-​amazing. The place is a little small so you’re sitting really close to the people next to you — this was fine when we went since it wasn’t super crowded, but I’m not sure I’d like it on a busy night. I’d be willing to go back to Aji if I’m in the area, but it’s not at the top of my list

Excellent sushi without all the hipsters! I mean, no offense, hipsters. I’m just not one of you. I’m 43 years old, and I feel uncomfortable sitting amongst you and your fabulous boots at the sushi joints in Uptown. Aji is more of a «Cities 97» crowd. Which suits me much better. And I love how pretty and ambient the place is without being pretentious. Great date night place — even if you are a hipster.
Lots of fun sushi choices. My favorites are the tropical (a spicy tuna-​mango concoction), the black pearl (a lightly fried tuna/​salmon/​cream cheese combo), and the standard caterpillar. If you like sushi, you’ll find something you like here. My husband loves eel and thinks theirs is great. The veggie and shrimp tempura is amazing too, as are the addictive cheese puffs, which come with plum sauce and are $ 6 worth of joy. And if you’re still hungry, those big round chocolate blob things in the case that look like HoHos on steroids are irresistable.
Oh, and the service is nice. We went there on NYE a few years ago and they gave us a Japanese bobtail cat mug as a gift. A cute little girl who belongs to someone there is sometimes hanging around, which I think is lovely and would never fly in a more pretentious kind of place. And their Happy Hour has some outstanding deals.

I absolutely love this place. It’s my fav spot for sushi. I will base this review on most of my visits combined.
For starters, they have some sort of tofu appetizer on the menu. I have ordered this two or three times, always forgetting that they don’t really have this item on the menu. Please take it off the menu if you can’t order it. I’m not always gonna remember it’s not really on the menu when it’s still on the menu.
For rolls, my two favorites are the black pearl and the #9 roll. Yummy! However, they’re not always consistent with taste. Some days I feel like the #9 tasted better the last time I had it. You MUST try the chocolate mousse dessert. It is too die for! And it has GOLD flakes on it. On Saturday when I was here, I checked in on Unilocal and got a free app or dessert. Yay! Chocolate mousse all the way! I ate one here and lol, even got one to go! That’s how serious this stuff is.
The service here is usually good. Sometimes, they have the chef’s kids running around the whole place. It’s distracting and unprofessional. I have gotten take out here once. I prefer not to do that again. It just didn’t taste that fresh.
This is my all time favorite place for sushi. If you haven’t tried it out yet, you’re really missing out.

We come about once a month for the lunch buffet but last night went for the Sunday evening dinner buffet. My wife, three teenage kids, and I had a really good time. We all really enjoyed the food — including our new-​to-​sushi 13 year old — and the service.
Some restaurants really excel at food but you wonder from what penal colony they recruited their servers. Others seem to spend all of their time and energy recruiting the best workforce and forget that they need to serve food too. Aji gets both right.
We’re always happy going. We’re always happy when we’re there. And we’re always happy to have been.