Miso Asian Grill & Sushi Bar

My recent visit to Miso Asian Grill & Sushi Bar with my dad and sister was a tale of two stories: very good sushi and very bad service.

First, the food:  We decided to start with the fried chicken dumplings.  The dumplings were  pretty average - nicely fried but very similar to the frozen dumplings Allie and I often buy at the grocery store.  After finishing the dumplings, we ended up waiting a really long time for our sushi to arrive.  When it finally did, though, it was worth the wait!  We ordered the Angry Lobster roll off of the regular sushi menu as well as 3 rolls off of the daily specials menu (Batman roll and 2 others whose names escape me right now).  The three special rolls were the first to arrive.  The presentation was excellent (as you can see below), and each of the rolls was very good.  The Batman roll - with snapper inside, then topped with tuna, avocado, and roe - was fresh and quite tasty.  The Superman roll had tempura shrimp wrapped in rice paper and topped with a honey wasabi sauce.  The third roll was filled with spicy tuna and then covered with a slightly spicy seaweed salad.  And then the Angry Lobster roll arrived.  The presentation was fantastic - with the roll presented as a lobster's body and capped off by a real lobster head and tail!  The roll itself was our favorite of the night.  It had crispy shrimp tempura, spicy crabmeat salad, and cucumber inside and then the roll was topped with sizeable chunks of sweet lobster meat.  Delicious! 

Now, the service:  The first problem with the service was that Miso apparently had only 2 servers working on what turned out to be a pretty busy Friday night.  Our server was inattentive and uninformed about the food.  Our drinks and dumplings were served relatively promptly (though the server did bring us 2 waters and a Sprite in lieu of the 3 waters we had requested...).  We ended up having to wait almost an hour between finishing our dumplings and receiving our first sushi rolls.  During this long wait, we saw our server only once, at which time he stated that there was a party of 12 that ordered ahead of us and the sushi chef was really behind (and he did not offer to refill our by-then empty water glasses).  We then watched as the sushi chef finished our dishes and placed them on the sushi bar.  He then apparently took a break, as he disappeared for about 20 minutes.  Meanwhile, our server spent a full 5-10 minutes studying the sushi rolls and a menu, trying to determine which roll was which.  He even called the other server over for help.  Finally, he presented the sushi to us.  Unfortunately, he still got the rolls completely mixed-up.  Overall, very very poor service. 

Daily Special Rolls

Angry Lobster Roll

Angry Lobster Roll again

Overall Impression:  Innovative, tasty sushi presented with a flair, though our experience was degraded by the terrible service. 

Food Rating:  

Contact Information:
          Miso Asian Grill & Sushi Bar
          3601A Cox Road, Henrico, VA 23233
          (804)747-6888
          http://www.misoasiangrill.com/Henrico/index.html