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

Kabuto Sushi and Teppanyaki

You know when that craving for sushi sets in and you just can't shake it until you get some good sushi?  Well luckily for Allie and I, Kabuto Sushi came to town a few months ago.  And when the craving hit the other night, we knew that's where we had to go.

When we pulled up in front of Kabuto on Pantops, I was rather surprised to see that they still had their "Now Open" banner hanging, considering that they have been for several months.  Anyway, we headed inside to the rather small restaurant.  Kabuto has about 10 tables total, though it has not been full either time we have been.  We ordered a couple bowls of miso soup right away.  Kabuto's miso soup is quite good - it is thicker than some of the miso soup you find at other places in town (which is often a thin, clear broth).  Kabuto seems to blend some tofu into the broth itself in addition to the tofu and seaweed pieces in the soup.

Kabuto

Miso Soup

We spent some time looking over the sushi menu, but Allie is kind of stuck in her ways and we ended up deciding to order the same sushi rolls we had ordered the first time we visited Kabuto.  First was the caterpillar roll.  The caterpillar roll is essentially a spicy tuna roll with tempura flakes inside and sliced avocado draped over the top.  The caterpillar roll was very good, but not great.  The tuna was not as spicy as I would prefer in a spicy tuna roll, though the tempura flakes inside the roll do add a very nice, subtle crunch to the roll.  Next came the Philadelphia roll.  A traditional roll with smoked salmon, cream cheese and avocado, it too was very fresh and well-made.  Finally, we had the butterfly roll.  My favorite roll of the night, the butterfly is a shrimp tempura roll with avocado inside and a spicy snow crab salad on top.  The tempura shrimp was crispy and the spicy snow crab was actually spicy and added a nice kick to the classic shrimp tempura.  The butterfly roll was also topped with a "special sauce" which was quite tasty, though I'm not sure exactly what it was.

Caterpillar Roll

Caterpillar Roll

Butterfly and Philadelphia Rolls

Overall, Kabuto is my new #1 choice for sushi that is fresher and more inventive than many of the other places in C-Ville.  While it is certainly not the best sushi I've ever had, it is the best sushi I've found in Charlottesville (unless you want to pay an arm and a leg to eat at Ten).  Kabuto also has hibachi dishes (which I haven't tried) and a number of lunch specials, making it the perfect place to grab sushi to eat-in, carry-out, or have delivered.  Allie and I will definitely be returning to Kabuto next time the sushi craving hits!

Overall Impression:  Fresh, reasonably-priced, made-to-order sushi that is as good as sushi gets in Charlottesville.  

Food Rating:  

Contact Information:
          Kabuto Sushi and Teppanyaki
          1836 Abbey Road, Charlottesville, VA 22911
                 (between Christian's and Sticks in the Giant shopping center)
          (434)973-1585
          http://kabuto-cville.com/