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    201 Kitchen SLO

    3.5 (113 reviews)
    ModerateSushi Bars, Poke, Ramen
    Open 11:00 am - 9:00 pm

    Order 201 Kitchen SLO Takeout or Delivery

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    Rachelle M.

    Walk-up ordering was easy and the staff was very helpful. Our food came out quickly and the portions were a great size. We ordered the make-your-own poke and ramen, and everything was fresh and satisfying. Would definitely come back. Lots of great options for seating inside and out.

    Bbq pork buns
    Cindy P.

    Great little Asian fusion eatery with a mix of poke, ramen, and rice/noodle bowls! Since I came after the usual lunch hour, before dinner, it was very quiet. Although there's plenty of indoor & outdoor seating, it's still an order-at-the-counter place. Food was plenty and tasty. The only odd thing was tthat he server apparently was not familiar with the menu prices. She miscalculated one of the dish price and had to ask me at the table for $2 extra dollars to cover the plate. If it was their mistake, I would think they should've let it go. Too bad I already tipped them, otherwise it would've come out of that. Overall, I would still come back for the food, despite the mediocre service.

    Baby sushi roll with hardly anything in it
    Polyphemus S.

    The most ridiculous smallest sushi rolls I've ever had in my life. These avocado rolls have hardly any avocado at all and most of them are smaller than a quarter. Will never go again.

    Blue Moon Roll 7/10
    Marlisa S.

    This place was good, wasn't fantastic. The sushi was a bit mediocre due to it not being very fresh, they did have unique options, the blue moon roll was okay, it was an interesting choice cause the sushi on top seemed to be slightly cooked but wasn't fully raw, which I never have had before especially with that type of fish. But again it wasn't my favorite, the other roll I got was pretty good, your classic baked salmon roll basically. The California poke bowl looked so pretty haha, and it actually was a lot of food and pretty tasty especially with all that avocado! Service wise they were nice but this is a do everything yourself kind of place. You sit yourself down, you grab your own menus, order for yourself, get your own water, go containers etc, and you pay for the food before you get it, which would be okay if the prices weren't so high. I personally just didn't like this aspect especially since I spent so much money. The location is nice in downtown SLO next to plenty of shops, and other restaurants if you want to get a sweet treat haha, there is public parking but you do have to walk a little bit. Metered parking as well but it seems to always be full especially on the weekends. Overall it satisfied the sushi craving but it's not a place I'm craving to go to again.

    bento box

    Very chill ambiance, self seating but food was so meh. My chicken teriyaki came out cold and the food was an overall "OK" for $20. Filling but probably won't come again

    Rainbow Roll and Dragon Roll

    Pathetic "rolls" for $17.95 + tax. Rainbow roll fish were thin as paper. Two pieces of unagi that we can find on the dragon roll. Skip this place. Plenty of other "sushi" restaurants to choose from in SLO.

    Phoenix roll, left. Blue moon roll, right.
    Dia- V.

    They had a spacious restaurant, but the vibe was not inviting says my partner. We ordered take out, the service was standard, so no bad experiences. Regarding the food, we are torn. Blue moon roll - For some reason it's both bland and the spicy tuna overpowered the other flavors we expected from this roll. We loved seared albacore, but couldn't really taste it in this roll! Phoenix roll - To each their own, because this roll's flavor profile was weird for both me and my partner. We expected a little spicy, but it was more sweet and for some reason gave Mexican flavors in a bad way. I'm not sure it's due to the sauce or due to how smoked salmon usually tasted like, but not for us. Both rolls however, was generous with the amount of stuff in it, but it didn't give that satisfying bite. They're bigger rolls, but the taste wasn't there for us today.

    Spicy Tuna Roll
    Till W.

    Dined here yesterday for lunch and I was the only one there around 11:15AM. I ordered the spicy ramen soup and a spicy tuna roll. They were great portions and delicious. This is probably gonna shock you but I think their ramen that I had yesterday was even better than Raku Ramen! The pork belly was tender and the spicy broth was so comforting.

    Terry C.

    The relaxed ambiance invites diners to enjoy the limited offerings at 201 Kitchen in the heart of downtown SLO. Besides a small selection of poke bowls and ramens, many of their sushi rolls and offerings are a variation of each other. Upon entering the restaurant, one is loudly welcomed from the rear of the restaurant and advised to grab a menu and sit anywhere one wishes. A waitress informs the diner to go to the rear of the restaurant to place and pay for an order. A tip is requested prior to having any idea of the service or food freshness and quality (Welcome to the new "norm" ??). The restaurant is nicely furnished with comfortable seating, and there are a few tables on a small patio on Higuera Street for enjoying the sunshine or people-watching. There are no umbrellas to shade from the usual sunny weather. We ordered the Butterfly and Spicy Salmon Tempura rolls. The Butterfly Roll had a pleasant surprise - in that it contained smoked salmon (lox) rather than the usual fresh salmon, cream cheese, avocado, and cucumber. It was an excellent choice. The Spicy Salmon Tempura Roll consists of salmon, cream cheese, and avocado wrapped in rice and deep-fried in tempura. The ingredients nicely complimented each other, but the roll was small. After our food was delivered, we never encountered the waitress again. We saw a similar scenario repeatedly with many other customers during our visit. The Website menu on 201 Kitchen's page is extremely outdated. The Menu link currently featured on Yelp is provided by Grubhub and seems to differ.

    Chicken ramen. 0/10 recommend.
    Monica B.

    Sushi is 3.5/5 stars and the spicy mayo is probably responsible for one of those stars. The ramen is terrible, 1/5. The egg is just a hard boiled egg. The chicken is just teriyaki chicken and it's super fatty and gooey (old?). I think the noodles are from a maruchan packet. Worst of all the broth tastes like chicken broth with maybe tapatio or some other acidic vinegar thing in it? Also worth noting I was so hungry when I ordered this so it wouldn't have taken much for it to satisfy me. Good luck! Update: they refunded me for the ramen which is worth something. But don't get the ramen.

    Spicy Tonkatsu Ramen New Classic Soup
    Regina C.

    Have been here multiple times but never wrote a review so here I am! We love, love the ambiance of the restaurant. They have neon lights and flowers as decorations. It's very hip and in if I might add. We ordered using the sloeats app and got bogo sushi rolls! We ended up getting the Blue Moon roll and the Lion King roll. We prefer the Lion King but still enjoyed both very much. Our friend got the Spicy Tonkatau ramen and thoroughly enjoyed it as well. Will go back soon!

    Spicy Garlic Edamame
    Michelle H.

    This place is my absolute favorite place to eat in SLO, it reminds me of my dad's own sushi restaurant. The food here is delicious and made with love. My go to is the Ramen and the spicy garlic edamame. These two pair together go so well together. The owner is so sweet and gave us free tempura ice cream once and since then we have been addicted to it ever since. This place is always super accommodating as my friend is vegan and got vegan broth. Will forever cherish this place as it is just a gem for Asian food in SLO. The service is always top tier and the restaurant itself is very homey like.

    Spicy tonkatsu ramen

    Visited SLO for the day and this spot was the perfect place to end my excursion! We ordered the spicy tonkatsu ramen which had delicious savory broth, and the classic tuna poke bowl which was surprisingly fresh for the price. The server was kind, welcoming, and able to cater to my bilingual family. The ambiance of the restaurant was home-y and overall I recommend stopping by if you're in town!

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    3 months ago

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    6 days ago

    Food was not good. Hand rolls were decent, but everything else was not good, especially for the price. However, service was pretty good

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    5 months ago

    Great service , ate here with a couple friends environment and food was great and cheap !

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    7 months ago

    The food is super delicious! I've come here many times and am never disappointed! It is a very nice environment and really cute inside!

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    Kuma Sushi

    Kuma Sushi

    3.8
    (695 reviews)
    9.9 mi
    $$

    My daughter and her fiancé invited me to Kuma while they were attending Cal Poly SLO. They had been…read moreraving about this restaurant and said it was their favorite sushi & ramen place & a favorite with the locals. It's a cute hidden gem in Los Oso's with indoor & outdoor seating. The outdoor seating is under a beautiful tree with a fire pit and space heaters which feels very cozy, laidback, & can also be a great place to take someone for a date night. We had the salted edamame & vegetable tempura for appetizers, & shared the itchy dragon & firecracker rolls. I had the shoyu ramen with pork and shrimp tempura which was wonderful since it was a cool evening. Everything was amazing and the ramen was absolutely delicious! During dinner we were discussing booking a restaurant venue to celebrate their graduation & our server overheard us & told us they had a small banquet room. It was a no brainer, he gave us (Niko) the restaurant managers number & after speaking to him I booked their banquet room. We were a small party of twenty and I wanted to surprise my daughter & fiancé by decorating the place with some flowers, simple decor, & a cake. I was worried since I was arranging everything from 3 hours away, but Niko and the entire staff at Kuma made it easy. I would highly recommend booking them for any occasion the food, service, and staff are amazing!

    Chose ramen with shoyu broth and pork. Ramen broth was very dark and bit salty. I have been to…read moremany ramen houses and this was the first time seeing dark broth. The broth had oil pools as the three slices of pork were fried. I have never seen fried pork in ramen. Other contents of the bowl were 1 tiny slice of the fish cake, 2 slices of the hard boiled eggs, overcooked noodles, several strips of the colored ginger and a flood of chopped green onions. Maybe green onions were on clearance that day. I have had their ramen a few years back and liked it. What happened? To top it all, the lady cashier/order taker wasn't in a good mood that day. The dining experience starts at the greeting station and if the front service folks do not seem to want to be at work, everything starts going downhill. Will not risk a return visit.

    Photos
    Inside seating
    Inside seating
    Beef chorizo gyoza and salmon and albacore sushi
    Beef chorizo gyoza and salmon and albacore sushi
    Seared salmon belly sushi

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    Seared salmon belly sushi
    Sushi Table

    Sushi Table

    4.3
    (142 reviews)
    1.8 mi

    On a first casual visit to Sushi Table I knew it was a standout spot in SLO. But the Omakase…read moreexperience I had on my second visit cemented this place as one of my standout sushi experiences anywhere. They've done an incredible job making the space special. It makes a busy open space intimate. If you want to sit at the sushi bar make reservations or roll the dice. There is nothing quite like watching a chef dedicate their entire service to you. That's the Omakase experience we had. The restaurant was busy, but the team running the show outside our service was a well-oiled machine, and I could tell other diners were enjoying their meals. But what we experienced was on another level. Course after course was assembled in front of us. I love to cook, so watching and engaging was really special. Learned about every fish, salt, oil, cut. Just spectacular. They were also very kind. A few folks celebrating birthdays, including myself, and they doted on us in a major way. Truly memorable.

    What's the old saying... First time, shame on you, second time, shame on me?…read more I've tried this spot twice now and both times have been a major disappointment . First time, build your own sushi rolls... Kinda weird and I spent $30 to have to buy dinner somewhere else shortly after... Second time, ordered the chicken yakisoba and a blue crab roll (California roll with real crab).. Yakisoba was $20 and literally looked like a kids sized meal.. good thing I bought the blue crab roll for $15 that I had to squeeze out of a weird plastic roll... Both tasted good, but definitely not worth $35. Again, had to buy dinner somewhere else .. Let's try serving meals that are appropriately sized with less weird gimmicks...

    Photos
    Dim Sum is well worth the wait! The ONLY read DIM SUM in within hundreds of miles.
    Dim Sum is well worth the wait! The ONLY read DIM SUM in within hundreds of miles.
    Black pepper tonkatsu ramen
    Black pepper tonkatsu ramen
    Outside seating area.

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    Outside seating area.
    Papa’s Thai Cafe

    Papa’s Thai Cafe

    4.4
    (374 reviews)
    0.4 mi
    $$

    I don't know why this place is not a 5 star, but yall have to try this place out no matter what…read more Ran by their family, this great couple knows what they're doing! They have a lot of space inside and some out. Its very casual and fast type of restaurant. A place you can come with anybody! Always have to stop by here whenever I'm at SLO. My favorite is pad thai no matter where I go, but nowhere is like this place where EVERYTHING IS GOOD. I always compare their pad thai to everywhere else I go too. Can't forget their pad see ew, vegetables have a nice chew and beef easy to eat. The flavors are just right. You can also adjust spiciness! Just let them know how you like em! Not going to lie, their thai teas differ sometimes, but still good nevertheless. If you like it strong, this is it! I highly recommend the green thai tea, a bit sweet than the coffee and regular ones xP.

    So the fact is the staff at the counter is less than friendly - I mean how dare I step up to the…read morecounter and say "hello I've never been here before and I'd like to see a menu, please?" She pointed to the menu on top of her head, which is right there above the cashier, but I was standing so far at the back of the line which was at least 50 feet away, that I could not read the stuff on the menu that was over her head. But the point is that she wasn't even nice about it and said OK fine I'll give you a menu. When I finally made my decision, I asked her if I needed it to be on the other line or the line that she was standing at and she retorted - please give me a minute. There was no kindness. There was no common courtesy, just a matter of fact approach to really, an out of towner, tourist, who's just trying to give her restaurant's food a shot. I'm just really shocked at the rudeness. I proceeded to order the flat Thai noodles with mung beans and chicken. It came. It was fresh. But honestly, it lacks any flavor. Sorry. It was a disappointment. I'm from South East Asia. I know what I'm talking about. I would be generous to give them a 3/5. Sorry. It's not very good food at all. Which means there's nothing to say about this place other than - step up your Thai food game. Or be nice at least.

    Photos
    5/19/14 FYI
    5/19/14 FYI
    Pad Thai Chicken.
    Pad Thai Chicken.
    Chow Mein noodles

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    Chow Mein noodles
    Shin’s Sushi

    Shin’s Sushi

    3.7
    (408 reviews)
    0.1 mi
    $$

    Food was fantastic. Nothing but recommended food wise. Everything tasted so good…read more Service was... sporadic for lack of a better word. It wasn't the same person, or they would switch off so I wasn't too sure who to ask for what. The food was GREAT, however. And when it came down to pay I was just sitting there and had been ignored a couple of times so I wasn't sure if I had to take the check to the front? I wanted to leave and did just that. I received a very mild thanks. So.. uh maybe next time.

    The kids were craving sushi, so we decided to give Shin's Sushi a try. They offer an…read moreall-you-can-eat menu with three different pricing tiers, which sounded like a great idea. Unfortunately, the experience didn't live up to the hype. The biggest issue was the service. Everything took forever. Our first order took forever to arrive, it took forever before anyone came back to take our second order, and then it took forever for that second round of sushi to make it to the table. For an all-you-can-eat restaurant, that's a pretty big problem because you're spending more time waiting than eating. To make matters worse, if you're a party of six, they automatically add gratuity. Normally I don't mind tipping for good service, but in this case, the service definitely didn't earn it. I also ordered a beer. Funny enough, they had no problem adding it to the bill, but somehow never managed to bring me the actual beer. We had to point it out before paying. As for the sushi...it was just mid. Nothing really stood out, and even my kids who are usually pretty easy to impress when it comes to sushi, weren't impressed. If your goal is simply to stuff your gills with unlimited, average sushi and you don't mind spending a lot of time waiting, this may be your place. Unfortunately, between the slow service, automatic gratuity, forgotten drink, and mediocre food, this wasn't a restaurant we'll be rushing back to.

    Photos
    Sushi bar
    Sushi bar
    Nigiri combo
    Nigiri combo
    Washington Oysters

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    Washington Oysters
    Novo

    Novo

    4.2
    (2.3k reviews)
    0.1 mi
    $$$
    Locally sourced ingredients
    Outdoor seating

    We came here in April -- but I wrote all the notes on the food below while eating -- on our way…read morehome from NorCal. Service here was excellent, we were checked up on enough and our server gave great recommendations. Thanks to our server Talia D! We sat in a cute garden area with vines, plants, and fairy lights, very cozy like you're in a friend's well-decorated patio. They also gave us complementary bread before we received our meal, and a lot of the dishes were unique and plated well. I would come back if I'm ever in the area and would recommend this place to all my friends! All ratings below are averaged (from me and my bf): salmon bisque // 9.25 // very yummy and unique. my bf didn't think he'd like it -- he usually dislikes seafood -- but it was great!! creamy, clear salmon taste but no unpleasant fishy/ocean taste that a lot of seafood has. i've never had this anywhere else, props to the chef! thai green curry // 8.5 // my bf says it's a 9. it's good but i feel like it was not my fave, it's lowkey your good, standard green curry that you can get at any thai place duck breast (curry) // 8.75 // very delicious and unique, i'd rate the curry, rice, and duck breast as 9/10, the duck breast itself was a 10/10. the curry was creamy, and they were all delicious and fragrant, pairing well together. however, the mushrooms, carrots, and other veggies it came with are too sweet. they seem like they're glazed with a sauce that has too much sugar. the black rice was surprisingly very filling strawberry matcha trifle // 8 // yummy, nothing majorly wrong with it. reminds me of a strawberry matcha latte. matcha whipped cream was a nice, unique touch i haven't really seen elsewhere despite it not sounding difficult to make. i'd order it again but i feel like it's on the sweeter side, so you can't eat too much of it.

    Say yes to the menu!!! That's the first thing that came to my mind when I visited Novo in SLO. Once…read moreupon a time, I saw this restaurant be featured on the iconic Check Please, so needless to say the award winning food speaks for itself and I was ready for this experience. I came into Novo with high expectations and my expectations were exceeded. Calamari: Who doesn't want Calamari on the Central Coast, for me it's a must. But can we take a moment to complement the sauces they pair with the calamari. Novo's calamari is paired with a tartar sauce and a sweet chili sauce. Definitely a first experience for me and I was beyond impressed. My taste buds danced because,whoever, is out here making many and flavor pairings for Novo has unlocked a new game mode for me. If you ever are wondering what appetizer to try, this right here is my first recommendation. Blackberry Ginger Cooler: The mocktail was beautiful and also a great pairing. I would love to try their other drinks soon. Matcha Strawberry Trifle: My mom, sisters, and I agreed on this dessert and let me tell you, I'm so glad we did. The matcha trifle had so much goodness to it we spent time trying to guess what flavors were in its profile. Think a berry chantilly from Whole Foods, but with matcha flavor and so fresh! Immediately after finishing my little sister said I had to learn to make this specific dessert and needless to say I don't disagree. It was balanced in sweetness, very light, and a great summer dessert. King Salmon: 2 please! The king salmon comes with Tabbouleh and green beans. This dish was my mom's and she was very pleased. One part of food I enjoy is not just the eating and experience, it's the aspect of reminisce in the flavors, analysis of the cooking, and trying to gauge cooking technique. For this dish, the salmon was perfectly cooked and it is not what we expected in the best way possible. This dish had so many different flavor profiles and wait until you taste the added kick of wasabi. Can I get another round? Korean Short Ribs: When I first saw this on the menu I was struck with asking myself how this dish might taste. It was one of those dishes where I thought, I have had plenty of short rib, I have had kimchi, but I have never seen them on one plate. More than that, I was hesitant as I like kimchi but not my to go to choice, nonetheless, I was drawn to this dish so of course I ordered it. Wow! Was I glad I did. My sister had the same order and we agreed the kimchi had such a nice kick to it. The spare rib was also thinly sliced making this dish easy and yummy. Now don't let that kick of heat scare you, I encourage everyone to try this dish. The rice sort of acts as a contrasting agent to help tone down the flavor and you just have to try it all together. All that said, I think service was awesome, then again SLO is a beautiful heart in California. But seriously we had an awesome waiter who shared with me the history of the restaurant. The story is also on their menu, but Nova's little sister restaurant is Red Luna and the big sister restaurant is Robin's Restaurant in Cambria. So good to know because I can now see how all this deliciousness connects! Big fan of these places and it's great to know they are one family. I don't think I have a favorite sibling of the three, but here's to another 5 stars for the middle child.

    Photos
    Novo
    Novo
    Novo

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    201 Kitchen SLO - sushi - Updated June 2026

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