With its zigzagging sake bar, hundred-dollar 8-ounce “Kobe” steaks, and attractive staff and clientele, this downtown Japanese fusion joint might well be Austin’s pinnacle of pomposity. Kenichi certainly feels like the place to be, with its industrial-chic, high ceiling of exposed insulation and bare beams. The sushi bar is a lively scene and a fun place to flirt over 15-dollar glasses of sake, especially if you can handle the trendier-than-thouness, and especially if your company has just gone public.

It’s not even close to worth the money, but still, we’ve had truly formidable pieces of raw fish here—but also fishy tuna and even more fishy, oily toro that was a waste of a staggering $18. Sea urchin has repeatedly come skunky, verging on inedible. It’s baffling that a place so popular should have a sushi bar with this glaring a quality-control problem. Our best advice, if you must come here, is to avoid the expensive or obscure fish and stick with the higher-turnover standards. We enjoy tender strips of Kobe beef that you cook yourself on a rock, but at $32? And if you pay this much for wild boar in your gyoza, ought it taste somehow different from a gingery pork potsticker? Mains are generally well executed, and one distinguishing feature of Kenichi is its willingness to serve dinner later than most places around, but at normal hours, there are other places we’d choose before Kenichi.