Peering out from an intimate, tall-backed booth table, there’s a bustling bar that barely obscures working chefs as they roll and prepare the Boston, Sexy Girl and Dynamite; only a few of the Maki rolls served up at the nearby Japanese cuisine chain, located on Snelling Avenue in the HarMar mall, best known for its all-you-can-eat deal.

Whether in search of traditional sushi atop a bed of rice, maki rolls, tempura battered pieces, deep fried appetizers, teppanyaki or donburi, the unlimited buffet menu offers a wide range of options for those who are into raw fish or not.

“I [wasn’t] that big of a fan [of sushi], so it changed my perspective,” said customer Brad Cochrane.

Dinner features a slightly more expansive menu, but lunch still has plenty of options. With 20 roll choices, there’s plenty to sample and share. When serving, everyone’s orders are placed together, making it easy to sneak chopsticks to the center and select from a shared array of colorful rolls drizzled in dark eel sauce or brilliant green wasabi and sample the wide selection. Yet, some reviewers noted that the communal plating made it difficult when people wanted their own portions depending on whether the waiter explains which is which.

The all-you-can-eat style is done to order, ensuring that even the buffet items are fresh. For dinner and weekends, the unlimited sushi costs $24.99; but for lunch from 11 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. it’s $15.99.

“The all-you-can-eat menu is actually the only thing I eat when I go there,” Cochrane said.

Ordering off the traditional, à la carte menu, individual sushi pieces are priced around $1.99 and Maki rolls, with six to ten pieces each, are on average $12.99 per order. The price for lunch typically turns out to be a better deal. However, dinner depends largely on how much one’s going to eat.

“Overall, I think you definitely get your money’s worth. Even if you were only to order two rolls and an appetizer, you would get your money’s worth,” sophomore Noelle Awada said.

The value is often a point of agreement.

“I feel the price for the amount of food you get is actually really good,” Cochrane said.

Online reviews range slightly in both directions of positive and negative, but the overarching scores are on the higher end: 3.5 stars on Yelp, 4.4 stars on Facebook, and 4 stars on TripAdvisor on a scale out of five. Some customers cited complaints about poor service, but others applauded attentive waiters.

“Our waitress was really friendly and everything was really fast,” Awada said.

Similarly, there’s contradiction on quality, but a consensus finds that Kyoto serves decent sushi with much more affordable pricing than many of the other options in the area.

Find more information about Kyoto Sushi on their website: http://www.kyotomn.com/.