I was excited to try Kiku due to the Yelp reviews when we stopped in Pittsburgh for a night en route to New York. Being a half Japanese woman living in Kentucky, I jump at the opportunity to get traditional Japanese at any chance I can get since my hometown is littered with sushi bars that specialize more in mayonnaise, fried, or spicy sauce laden fusion sushi rather than real Japanese food. Kiku was definitely run by Japanese folk and the menu had the usual traditional fare. The food was pretty okay. We had the Agedashi Dofu which the broth was so mild it's taste didn't transfer well to the tofu. They garnished with green onion and daikon oroshi (grated radish) but didn't have the customary bonito flakes. They also charged a whopping $6 for probably a 2-1/2 ounce portion. I'd pay overblown prices for a good Agedashi Tofu, but this wasn't one. The Agedashi experience kind of defines the rest of our meal. Everything tasted okay but the prices were beyond ridiculous. We then realized we were in a touristy part of town and missed out on a lot of the amazing farm to folk fare in other areas. This place is meant to pull in hotel guests who aren't really looking for real culinary fare and are unaware they are getting raped by prices. The tuna in our tuna roll was on it's way out, the smelt we ordered were just grilled with no sprinkle of sea salt or any kind of sauce--and again, a whopping $8 for three small fish. All sushi was ordered by the piece and about 20% more expensive they any other sushi bar I've been to outside of the Pacific Northwest, Tokyo, and NYC. (Example: $6 for two pieces of salmon). The advertised \"mixed green salad\" was cut with iceberg lettuce. The chawanmushi was bland and a small tea cup size. If you are charging $8 for chawanmushi, use real crab. At least snow crab. And throw in a ginko nut. On the good side, the dressing was yummy, the salmon sushi was really fresh, and the service was decent. \n\nOverall, food is not awful but not exciting and the prices are beyond ridiculous for what you get.
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