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In an age where Door Dash, Uber Eats and other meal delivery services reign supreme, Perrysburg’s Kibo House Sushi and Hibachi is ready, willing and able to adapt to this strange new world. The small eatery’s whole aesthetic is built upon the “to go” concept. While they do have a clean and pleasant place for dining in, decorated with cute anime window clings, there’s nary a piece of solid dinnerware, flatware or glassware to be found in Kibo House.
A request for drinking water is answered with a chilled plastic bottle of H20. Order the miso soup and it’s served in a plastic bowl, not unlike the containers used for cold salads at the supermarket deli counter. Plates? Nope. Instead, disposable plastic trays, convenient if you later need a “to go” box, because, heck, your food is already in one. A request for a plastic top to cover your leftover sushi is all that is needed. And despite the experience of a lack of come-stay-a-while dining accouterments, the food itself is damn good.
About the food
And ultimately that’s why we’re here. There’s no liquor license at Kibo House, so our hopes for a bottle of hot sake or a Sapporo beer were dashed and our friendly young server, who’s family owns Kibo House as well as another sushi restaurant in Fremont, apologized profusely. As we placed our order, contemporary Christian music was being piped through the dining room — another entry on the list of unusual features about this restaurant. Nothing against Christian music, but when was the last time you heard it being played overhead at an Asian eatery?
Since strange-and-unusual was the name of the game at Kibo House, I opted for the most unusual sushi roll on the menu, the King Kong Roll, which consisted of tempura banana, shrimp tempura and avocado all wrapped up together with lobster salad, eel sauce, spicy mayo and wasabi. I had never tasted sushi made with bananas, so I had to try it, and it instantly became one of the most oddly delicious sushi dishes I’d ever experienced. The banana taste was subtle but distinct and it paired perfectly with the creamy lobster salad. Dip the roll in wasabi laced soy sauce and you have a perfect bite. The King Kong Roll, indeed. Eat your heart out, Fay Wray. Then there’s the Kibo Roll, which we ordered because how can you not order the namesake of the restaurant? Made with tempura shrimp, crab and topped with seared pepper tuna and avocado with a drizzle of eel wasabi sauce all topped with green tobiko, which is flying fish roe that looks like confectioner’s sugar.
We also ordered a sashimi bento box, a full meal in itself, featuring a fried vegetable spring roll, a fried dumpling, a heap of sticky white rice, a California roll and eight pieces of colorful sashimi, including tuna and salmon. We opted against ordering from the hibachi menu on this visit as we had already placed on order for more than enough food for me and my two dining companions, but we did order a delightful serving of stir-fried wheat noodles (Yaki Udon) and a bowl of mushroom soup, which featured freshly sliced ‘shrooms all swimming in a brown, not-too-salty broth.
Function without flair
The dining experience took a little getting used to, but once one gets around the fact that the meal is served in disposable containers, there’s a lot to enjoy about Kibo House. Our advice: Just place an order to go and get it Door Dashed. It’s what the place was built for.
In a post COVID age where Door Dashing is both a career hustle and a lifestyle dining game changer, Kibo House is simply ahead of the culinary curve.
Kibo House
1121 Louisiana Ave, Perrysburg
Hours: T-Th 11am-9pm
Fri/Sat 11am -9:30pm
Sunday 11:30 am-9pm
Closed Monday
419-779-3747
kibohouse.com
