Japanese eatery offers daily happy hour

At Kohnami Japanese Restaurant, patrons can listen to live music while dining, choose from a variety of sushi and sashimi boats or enjoy happy hour seven days a week.

Owner Jong Mi Park is well-versed in restaurant ownership in Texas. She has about 16 years of experience that includes owning other restaurants also named Kohnami in cities such as Brownsville, Harlingen and South Padre Island.

Kohnami is located in the Galleria Oaks shopping center on US 183 and is Park's first in Austin. She said she has become fond of the location since it opened last year.

"I have good regular customers," she said. "The first year was really hard, but we have a lot of regulars now. [On] Feb. 1 we had our one-year anniversary, and a lot of customers [came in for that]."

Park said she originally considered opening another restaurant in San Antonio but could not find the right location for her business. Although Park's other Kohnami restaurant menus have been mostly uniform, she said she wanted to tailor the food to suit Austin customers by adding yakitori, which is a skewered meat dish with options for chicken, pork, steak or bacon-wrapped scallops.

"There is more opportunity here ...," she said. "After I set up here, I like it."

The menu includes sushi rolls and sashimi as well as boats, which are platters with a sampling of each. Park offers customers 50 percent off of all sushi rolls, which include options with tuna, crab, salmon, yellowtail and red snapper.

While Kohnami's adult crowd can partake in happy hour daily, Park also takes care of her younger patrons by offering a children's menu. She said she wants Kohnami to be a family-friendly eatery.

Park offers entertainment on Friday, Saturday and Sunday nights to suit Austin's reputation as the Live Music Capital of the World.

Nosh glossary

• Konami: Spelled differently than Kohnami Japanese Restaurant's name, means a small wave
• Sushi: Cold rice dressed with vinegar, formed into any of various shapes and garnished with raw seafood or vegetables
• Sashimi: Thinly sliced raw fish
• Soba: A Japanese noodle made from buckwheat flour
• Udon: A thick Japanese noodle made from wheat flour and usually served in a soup
• Uni: Sea urchin
• Yakitori (noun): Bite-size marinated pieces of beef, seafood or chicken and served on skewers

Lunch specials

• Kohnami offers daily specials from 11 a.m.–3 p.m. Patrons may choose from bento boxes, rice and noodle dishes, and sushi roll combinations.
• A bento box ($8.45–$10.45) includes soup, salad, four pieces of California roll sushi, vegetable tempura and white rice
• Sushi roll combinations ($8.85–$15.95) come with customers's choice of sushi rolls such as spicy tuna or Philadelphia, which includes salmon, cream cheese and cucumber
• Rice and noodle dishes ($8.45–$9.45) include a variety of choices such as shrimp tempura soba or udon
• This list is not comprehensive.

Kohnami cocktails

Kohnami Japanese Restaurant has a full bar and serves beer, wine, sake and cocktails. Happy hour is Mon.–Sat. from 3–7 p.m. and all day on Sunday. Well cocktails are $3 during happy hour, including:

• Cucumber martini
• Mexican martini
• Watermelon martini

Kohnami Japanese Restaurant 13376 US 183, Ste. 400 512-506-9811 Hours: Mon.–Fri. 11 a.m.–10 p.m., Sat. noon–11 p.m., Sun. noon.–10 p.m.