Updated review, the seventh stop on my "Eat the Distance!" tour! Daikanyama has become something of a local establishment for us and so far maintains the title of freshest sushi (and the uni e.g. really is exquisitely fresh) within the Lexington area. Of course this sentiment may be amended in future but for now remains. Service is predictably superb and quick which, paired with the clean modern interior, sets Daikanyama apart as a relaxing almost restful interval. Tastefully done, and I'm grateful to have you so nearby. Can't wait to sample your omakase! read more

Food was very good, but it was too pricey for what we got. Atmosphere was nice, service was fine, and food was very tasty. The menu is good, comprehensive. Best item we got was the blistered edamame. So good we found a recipe so we can make it at home. The other food, the udon soup, the shrimp dish, the sushi, it was all fine. Nothing really wrong with anything but for the prices it should have been fabulous and it just wasn't. The portions were really small. You can see in the pictures. read more

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Great sushi restaurant. The sake flights are fun. Great sushi, and lots of veggie rolls and appetizers/salads, if you're a veggie person.

Great service. Nice vibe - was quiet and serene. Cooked food is ok...not earth shattering. Gyoza were good. Beef kushiyaki was overdone and tough. The miso soup and salad that comes with cooked entree were good. The chicken teri entree came out piping hot and sizzling on the iron platter. The teriyaki sauce is served on the side so it doesnt over-caramelize too quickly. The veggies were broccolini, carrots and onion. Its a basic dish so there isnt much variation from restaurant to restaurant but nothing set this apart. Decision to come here again would depend on geography...if it was the nearest Japanese, I would come here. If another place was closer or more convenient, I would go elsewhere. read more

I've received dirty food (fish). Looked like it had fallen on the floor and picked up dust. Also molded salad which already had the white fluff growing on it... I live 5 minutes away and won't step foot in here. I've waited months to say something because I want to support local business but my neighbors encouraged me to speak out. Also the prices are just astronomical. I'm not sure why Lexington doesn't have a single go to sushi spot. read more

We were there for lunch today. They had added leftover salmon to their hand rolls and salmon rolls. The texture was gross! The salmon pieces did not look good. We are local, but we are not coming back here for sushi here anymore. read more

1. not authentic Japanese food. 2. if your teen age (age 16 quiet girls) go there without adults, the store will charge the kids tips directly without telling them (very sneaky, I guess they are really short of tips). 3. over priced with small portion 4. don't expect them to treat you warmly, even you are local customers. Absolutely not recommended! read more

Good food. Nice small back room. Pleasant staff. Will go again. Note, a little pricy. But isn't everything these days? I feel the value is there to justify it for a nice lunch. read more

I can't say enough good things about the Maki combo lunch special. It's a complete 4-course meal: a green salad, appetizer (2 small gyoza and 1 piece veggie tempura), miso soup, and the maki platter. And it's served that way, not just dumped on the table all at once: first the salad and gyoza, then the soup, finally the main course. Everything has always been above and beyond my expectations. And I've been here 6 times now in as many months, 4 times getting this same meal. That says a lot. The maki especially is noteworthy for its quantity (18 pieces, smaller than standard but still that's a lot!), use of premium ingredients (12 of the 18 are tuna and spicy tuna, with 6 avocado), and quality (fresh, expertly rolled, attractively presented). Gyoza: no complaints. Salad: not just a bunch of iceberg dumped on a plate: 2 or 3 kinds of leafy greens, tomatoes, cucumber, more - a complete garden salad - I did not expect that! And an excellent sesame-ginger dressing, thick and clingy in the Japanese style. Miso soup? Not much to say as I'm far from a connoisseur, but it seems ok and is a nice break between courses. Cloth tablecloths, real (not disposable) chopsticks, and cloth napkins add a nice touch of elegance. Servers have always been pleasant but reserved, unobtrusive but there when you need them. The service is fast but as I said they bring the food out in courses and I think this helps it feel not rushed. So why the 4 stars instead of 5? Well, on 2 out of my 6 visits I ordered something other than the maki. Once I got the broiled salmon over rice and I thought it was a bit overcooked and dry-ish. Another time I got the barbecue eel over rice, and while it was delicious I felt the eel portion was far too small. So should I try something else next time? Or go back to the maki? To be determined; I will be going back. read more

Five stars because I love that it's very tasty for a local restaurant. We live in town and have dinner here a couple times a month. Everything we've ordered is wonderful. read more

An elegant sushi restaurant with very interesting choices for maki on the menu, which I appreciate. It's fun to find a place that has some unique options for sushi and not the same stuff I always see. The food tastes high quality, fresh, and authentic. My favorite is probably Autumn maki. The atmosphere is calming and very nice, with these sleek, thin fountains around. Not sure how else to describe them, but they're almost futuristic looking. The service is also very good. Highly recommended for sushi lovers in the area! read more

Really overpriced for the small portions! Friends and I were craving sushi and we lived around the area so we thought we'd pop in and try this place out. However, when we ordered we though a platter worth $25 would fill us up, that was not the case. The platter, though was very pretty, came with 16 pieces, coming down to almost $2 a piece! (the pieces were also very small!) We ended up ordering some more sushi but we were all still just as hungry as we were when we walked in AND we had paid much more than we anticipated. Definitely a place to try if you're into fancy cuisine but if you're trying to find a sushi place that's affordable and wont leave you hungry this is NOT the place. read more

Daikanyama - Nigiri Dinner Platter! (Total of 16 pieces) - Japanese Near Me - Lexington, Massachusetts

Out standing service and food. Nice atmosphere. We love dining here. The sushi is delicious and the noodles are memorable.

We just made our final order tonight. No more laughing at how small the portions are and how prices have soared. Salmon was terrible, rolls were loose. We're done, too bad. read more

We stopped in on a Sunday evening and were seated right away. Place was clean and nice atmosphere. Tasty sushi. The ingredients were fresh and delicious. Service was great. read more

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We came on a Thursday night and made a reservation ahead of time for 8 people and they sat us in a little secluded area which was nice for ambiance and noise level. The lady was super nice and pretty quick with service compared to how busy it was. She gave us plenty of time to order drinks, look at the menu and converse before rushing us to order. Our food came out timely. We ordered a bunch of the specialty rolls and my favorite were the sunset and daikanyama rolls. We stayed till closing and they didn't really rush us out of the restaurant which I thought was pretty nice of them. Overall, a great experience with a great server. read more

This is a tough review since I do not eat seafood. I can only relay the reviews of my family. The in-laws and my wife all LOVE seafood. They order a ton of sushi from here and there is not a piece left afterwards. The snapper seems to be the overwhelming favorite. They go nuts over this stuff. I have had the pork katsu and the spicy ramen with chicken. These dishes were very disappointing. The meats were not seasoned and very boring. The ramen was not at all spicy (even my mother in law said it). In truth this is not that surprising since I have been to Japan and the food there is pretty middling if you do not eat fish. Besides fried chicken (average at best) their cuisine does not focus on land proteins IMO. I will say that the gyoza are excellent, the other dumplings very good, and the crab appetizer is a huge favorite of the family, but it has to been eaten immediately or it gets soggy. read more

Ordered takeout last Friday, so granted a busy night. But the pan fried gyoza was burnt beyond recognition and was absolutely inedible. The sushi was fine, but wouldn't trust this kitchen again. read more

Daikanyama - Japanese Near Me - Lexington, Massachusetts

Highly variable -- a good meal one day, a bad one another day. We have eaten there perhaps five times over the past year, because it is convenient. On some previous occasions, we have had good sushi and so-so sushi, and some cooked appetizers that were fine. A respectable suburban approximation of Japanese food. But my most recent meal was close to terrible: nigiri with ok though not outstanding tasty fish on top of the driest rice imaginable, including a disgraceful piece of cold, dry and tasteless eel nigiri. All this at prices that are far from cheap. If the food were more reliable, this could be a nice local restaurant, but it is so inconsistent. The decor is very pleasant and the service has always been friendly and efficient, no complaints there. But there is a very weird menu structure: a regular printed menu supplemented by a small ipad-like tablet that shows more than 50 "specials" with photos (some in portrait mode, some in landscape), with no prices listed for any of them. No idea why they do that, very odd. read more

Not the best service unfortunately. But good food some unique options on the menu. Great ginger salad with the cream white dressing. Very good veggie tempura. Little bit pricey. read more

This place was not what I expected.... The name is authentic but good was not. If you are looking for real sushi experience and taste, I don't recommend this place. read more

The sushi did not taste good. Two out of three rolls we ordered were less the mediocre. On the spicy tuna, I could only taste the crunch. The eel avocado was very cold. It maybe because they had so little eel that it was that it cooled down fast or it was precooked and cold. The dragon roll was ok. They made it with spicy yellow tail. It was ok. It was the only thing that my 6 year old submitted to eat. The sushi has very little fish, sad for a sushi place and the rolls were abnormally small. In addition to it all, they had very poor choice in wine and were far, far, to expensive for the dinner quality. Hate to give a bad review, but I have very little that is positive to say about this place. Oliger read more

I don't want to hurt their business, but we got takeout here for the first time and it was pretty disappointing. The sushi was VERY small. Even on the bigger rolls there was not much fish. The "spicy seafood" was not raw fish, it was cheap crabmeat. We were given zero wasabi and zero ginger after buying 5 rolls. read more

Like many Japanese restaurants, they close in the afternoon and open up for dinner. This place advertises as a 4pm reopening, so we went in through the back door at 4pm. Everyone was so confused why we were there, and we were not seated until 4:15 because they were still prepping. Food was way too expensive for the the price. Their menu was too extensive, and they gave us an iPad with other menu items, so confusing. Their rolls weren't that great. A bun was 10.95. One bun. It was ridiculous. Not one person came in during the time we were there. Will not be coming back. read more

Delicious. Absolutely one of the best sushi in the Greater Boston area. Definitely don't go in expecting a cheap sushi joint - this place is legit and places emphasis in the art of sushi, referencing how Japanese sushi chefs would put care into their creations. And although their maki rolls are impressive and looks gorgeous, my review will be tailored more on sashimi and nigri, a more common staple in Japanese culture. Let me break it down into the points that matter, based on the Daikanyama Platter we ordered (33+ assorted pieces): 1) Rice. Room temperature, with a perfect blend of stickiness and form. Lightly seasoned with vinegar, they do sushi rice justice. In addition, their nigiri (raw fish on pieces of rice) are not overly heavy and is a perfect portion. 2) Fish. For the nigiri, they are thinly cut, which is a good thing as nigiri should be eaten with one bite anyways and complements the modest portion of rice underneath. For sashimi, they are generous portions, professional cut. All of the fish were extremely fresh, and depending on what type of fish, was prepared in near perfection. The salmon sashimi for example was creamy (in a good way), sweet and tender. The fish, which was slightly chilled, could have been more fresh by being lowered a few more degrees into room temperature. The more common cold sashimi you find in most other places, on the contrary, is NOT good - that means the fish has been frozen and was just recently defrosted, and can ruin the experience for diners more inclined to true Japanese preparation. 3) Condiments. The wasabi was good - I don't have a particular taste to differentiate quality wasabi against store-bought, but I believe they use real wasabi vs horseradish of the more generic sushi stores. However, what was real impressive was the fact they put a dab of wasabi in between the fish and the rice on the nigiri. Genius - this is the way they're supposed to be prepared and is a staple step in Japan. However, this was one of the first places in America that I've noticed that this was done - trust me, it makes a pleasant difference. The soy sauce was also very delicious - not a standard run-of-the-mill soy sauce you can buy in bulk but that of the more expensive variety. Overall, the experience was great. The restaurant is also very beautiful, decked out in traditional Japanese themes like a tranquil waterfall window by the inside entrance, wooden soup bowls, and an overall peaceful ambiance. Plus, they give you complimentary edamame - bold move! read more

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I have never left a negative review before, and with COVID, I am trying to be even more sympathetic and understanding. However, what happened tonight to my wife and me was inexcusable. We arrived at 7pm on a Wednesday for dinner and were seated immediately. There were 4-5 other occupied tables. Hardly a full house. We quickly placed our sushi order and were promptly served soup and salad. Then we waited. And waited. And waited. Nobody ever came to check on us as we watched other tables be served. Finally at 7:45, I flagged down the host and politely asked if there was a problem. He said "it was coming..." When we pointed out other tables that arrived after us had already been served, he shrugged and said "they ordered from the kitchen." As if that should matter. Finally at 8pm, an hour after ordering and still no food and zero acknowledgement of a problem, we got up and left. On the way out, we expressed our total disappointment to the host, who again refused to even acknowledge that we were talking to him. Zero apologies. Zero attempts to make things right. We've been coming to the restaurant for years, and this was the first time anything like this has ever happened. Unless we hear back with a remedy, it will unfortunately be the last time we visit. Very disappointed and still hungry! read more

Overpriced, middling Japanese food. Saturday lunch service was presented quickly and efficiently. Three bento boxes, an order of citrus ribs and gyoza arrived nicely arranged but with nothing notably special. A beautiful space that would work well for private gatherings, otherwise get your roll on elsewhere. read more

The place is nice and cozy. Located in a strip type building, metered. Price high but expected for this location. We had order making combo lunch special that came with three maki , spicy tuna -shrimp tempura- California maki also include miso soup and salad. Maki was good, salad was tiny, and miso is just plain... We also got the wagyu beef sushi, melts in your mouth goodness but for 20 bucks for one order (2 pieces). Also order the mushroom soup, had wild and enoki in it. Sake sampler was three cold sake for 25. Not meant for the amount of want to share for two people but we managed. I also ask if I can add sake to the orange passion fruit juice... Waitress said no. I was bummed but added part of my sake in it anyways. Was just as good. read more

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We were visiting our family in the area & my dd was looking for udon. We found this place on yelp and decided to give it a try. The ambience is nice & upscale. Food is on pricier side, but I guess it's because there weren't any Japanese restaurants around. I asked for a high chair when we got seated. However the seater gave me a weird eye contact & said she didn't think my dd needed a high chair. I guess they didn't have high chairs but only boosters. My hubby asked for a booster and my dd sat on it on a booth table chair... she's almost falling the whole time ... Anyway, our server was friendly and helpful. Food was decent .. we only ordered tempura udon & chirachi. Just a note that all servers and chefs are Chinese I think, as I only heard them talking in Chinese, which I had no problem with. read more

Daikanyama - Shrimp & veggie tempura udon - Japanese Near Me - Lexington, Massachusetts

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I've been to this place multiple times. I enjoyed this, at least until last night, my co-worker and I came here and ordered soups. I had the vegetable and tofu ($17.50) and my co-worker had the seafood ($23.50) Daikanyama Noodle special. When we got our food, my soup had 3 pcs of spinach and tofu and not a lot of broth. I asked if I can just get a little bit of vegetables and broth. When the server went to the kitchen, I hear the chef yelling and I was told that it is how it's supposed to be. If I want more broth and spinach I have to pay extra as my co-worker food is more expensive. Stunned by what happened I just let it go. The soup is nothing special. Instant ramen will probably taste better. Not going back to pay $17.50 for this (see picture). That is how it was served by the way. read more

Daikanyama - Noodle Special with tofu and vegetables (how it was served). - Japanese Near Me - Lexington, Massachusetts

My first time in Lexington area. I love the charming historical town. I wanted to have a lite dinner. I eat sushi about once a week. The service was good and Jennifer was very sweet. It took a while to get my order of assorted sushi. I asked for iced tea and got the ITO EN green tea. I have never eaten at a Japanese restaurant before that did not serve restaurant "made green tea" as an option. The sushi was fresh and of a good quality overall. Too much rice with my each piece of sushi for me. The place AC did not seem to be working tonight. read more

Daikanyama - Assorted Sushi for you. - Japanese Near Me - Lexington, Massachusetts

Great deals for lunch specials. Sushi Sashimi lunch includes miso, salad, pot sticker, shumai, delicious!

Very rude older woman runs reservations. Went to the restaurant on multiple occasions and we found racially discriminatory behavior towards us from seating to table side service. Noticed other white customers didn't get the same treatment. Never returning. Note to the restaurant: Lexington is a diverse community. If you can't treat it's citizens/customers well, you'll loose thousands of dollars from each such family that stays away. We can afford to choose other places. read more

I was here for a quick dinner date on Saturday night, kind of late. Not too busy. Parking is easy - there's a big lot you can turn into just down from the actual restaurant. Service was professional. The inside is clean and modern. We ordered the shrimp shumai for our appetizer, which tasted good (made in house?). I've also had the hotate (half clam with crab, cheese, etc.) before, which was really tasty. The ochazuke (soup in a pot) is also a good option for appetizers. This time, they kindly gave us complimentary edamame! I had the nabeyaki udon with seafood. Everything tasted fresh and the shrimp and scallops were sweet. Very comforting for my stomach. My boyfriend also had an udon soup with grilled meat (can't remember), and the broth was pretty good and unique tasting with the grilled meat flavor. I've had the sushi here before and the quality is great - the fish is quite fresh. For dessert, since it was towards the end of the night, they were out of what I think are their more popular options. We opted for the green tea crepe cake, and luckily they still had red bean ice cream so we had that on the side! Both were delicious and the presentation was pretty. You may notice it is on the pricier side, but in my opinion you get what you pay for - good food and presentation, professional service, and a clean and modern setting. read more

Daikanyama - Nabeyaki udon - Japanese Near Me - Lexington, Massachusetts

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The food is overpriced for what it is, but options are limited in Lexington. However we went today because it was a hot day and the menu had cold noodles which sounded good for our kids, including a 1.5 yo who loves noodles. At first bite he spit it out, started screaming and asking for water. When we tasted it we were surprised that it was spicy - like they mixed chili oil or wasabi in the sauce. The menu did not say the noodles were spicy or had any spicy ingredients. When we flagged the waitress she looked at us like we were crazy when we told her the noodles were spicy, she said no the noodles are not spicy but would check. she came back from the kitchen apologetic and said yes the noodles are spicy, they were sorry and could they do anything? I said just bring some plain noodles so the baby could at least get some food, the damage was already done. It would have been fine. But then they actually charged me $11 for a tiny dish of plain instant ramen noodles!!!! WTF?? What decent restaurant does that to a baby? By the way, they all speak Chinese, not Japanese. read more

We had a wonderful lunch here! Food was excellent, service was great. Nice atmosphere. 10/10 recommend!

Big fan of this place. I love how they season the sushi rice. The staff are friendly and they are high tech with their mobile pads to show food items in pictures. Sushi quality is pretty good. And the place looks modern and clean. Toraya is still my fave in the area, but this is a close 2nd. read more

Poor poor poor attitude and customer service. Their food is grossly overpriced but add that in with a AWFUL attitude and ya...never going here again! There are plenty of places to give your business to, in my opinion, find someplace else! I will spend double the price for good customer service. It's so very important. So...I'll make triple sure the person who gave me this gift certificate knows...never ever again. Not only that but when you come in with a gift certificate, you are most likely trying the place for the first time...terrible first impression. read more

Quite disappointed with this place. From the surface, it looks like a very nice Japanese restaurant. When we walked in, the server even gave us an iPard with a list of special entrees. So instead of selecting all the usual sushi, we decided to try something new. It was a BIG disappointment! The real dishes do not look like anything close to the pictures on the iPad, and the taste was so-so. We had grilled squid, spicy seafood salad, duck wrapped with scallion pancake, some sort of taco, and tekka don. Maybe our expectation was too high. read more

This place is ok. Overpriced in my opinion. Nice ambiance but staff could be more friendly and attentive. I had an issue with this place because I asked if they had garlic edamame and the waiter said yes and brought out something that was 2.5x the price with a few edamame pieces and no garlic. So odd I didn't notice it until after I had paid the bill. Didn't raise an issue but it stuck with me. Wouldn't come back here. read more