Heiwa Shokudo — Restaurant in Asheville

Heiwa has been a staple of ours for years. The large menu makes it possible to satisfy a wide variety of palates. Even when the kids were little, we could find something that they would like while also satisfying my sushi cravings.

Until recently, this was our favorite ramen in town, but a few new places have knocked it down a spot. Still solid ramen though. And again, the menu also has rice dishes and sushi, and bento boxes and noodles, and really it’s quite a large offering.

Heiwa crafts my favorite sushi roll. I am usually a bit of a purist, and even with their Hamachi freak roll, I have them remove the avocado. And I have to tell them, “Yes, I just want Hamachi with seaweed and rice around it, and then more Hamachi on top.” So I usually dispense with the crunch and the sauce, and all of the other elements that make some sushi a bit more western. All that said, they create a roll called ‘salmon mayo’, not something I would normally order, but my daughter ordered it once, and I’m hooked! The salmon is just seared on top, and inside the roll you will find tomato and spinach, with a little bit of spicy mayo on top. It sounds weird, but the combination is sublime!

Their bento boxes are generous as well. And come with sprouts and a lot of different sides.

Atmosphere Is interesting. I’m a bit torn here. I love their outdoor porch, and it’s just shaded enough in certain spots to have a wonderful summer meal outside. It was wonderful to eat outside during the height of Covid as well, when we did not feel comfortable eating indoors. They also have a wonderful private room that my Book Club would often reserve. Just enough for eight of us. But, and this is a small complaint, the bathroom always feels a little dirty, and has a funny smell. Updating the bathrooms would be amazing!

Location: I love the fact that it is a few doors down from the bookstore where I used to host a quarterly reading series. So we would go to Heiwa, and I would bring my big box of wine and the author bios, and take the curators of the reading series out to a nice meal before we descended upon the bookstore for the quarterly reading. The servers knew us, and it was nice to be recognized, and to be wished good luck for the reading. The downside is that it really is in the middle of downtown, and so finding a park can be a bit stressful!

So overall, definitely a favorite place for so many reasons. Don’t neglect to check out their specials board! I’ve seen everything from special mushroom dishes to special trout rolls, to...

I REALLY wanted my and my husbands first experience here to be better.

Positives first: The food I rate very highly, green tea was great. We had sushi and ramen, it was all fresh and albeit a bit blah, still very good.

Negatives: The waitress we had, Mecaria, was beyond awful. I've had better service at fast food. We waited a long time to be seated, then waited five minutes to be given a menu while the waitress took her time running someone else's card. She had a constant bad attitude and smelled like she hadn't showered in several weeks, it turned my stomach and greatly affected the quality of the food. At one point she screamed behind us (I guess someone scared her?) and made everyone in the restaurant jump (its a small, intimate place) and turn their head which she didn't seem to think was a big deal, we clearly weren't the only ones in the place with issues with her service (she was the only waitress on staff and no host) one man that came in after us waited to be seated for almost ten minutes before finally going into the back of the place to hunt someone down to seat him. Had to ask for more tea when I had been out for ages and she was condescending when I asked for more. She handed us plates with her fingers all over them unnecessarily which makes sense because their sanitation score is 93.0. I had asked to keep one menu to order more which she later took away without asking. Gave us our check without asking before we were done eating and didn't ask if we wanted to order more or wanted desert. The worst of all and why we will not be coming back here: we gave her a tip that was on par with her service and we left the restaurant only to have her run outside after us and yell at us "can I ask you a question?" we didn't respond because we were so taken aback. "Was there something wrong with my service? Because I never get tips this low." We mentioned the bad service and a few of the things above. I also say her attitude was bad to which she glares at me and then laughs and walks back inside. Gee, demanding to know why you haven't earned a better tip by running someone down on the sidewalk and yelling at them doesn't indicate an attitude problem does it... We wish we could take back our small tip now. She clearly is earning more than she's worth.

Overall, the food was great and I'm very sad I won't be risking being treated that horribly again to enjoy it. PLEASE get better servers and we will be back happily. In the meantime, I can't...

Great food, awkward service.

My friends and I came here for a friend's birthday dinner on a Wednesday. I got there early (luckily) and asked if anyone else had arrived. I was told no and if our party was 5 or more we needed a reservation. I said the girlfriend of the birthday boy probably made reservations. The female server replied "No, we have no reservations for tonight at all." After some convincing they set up a table for 5 in the back of the 1/2 empty restaurant.

(Already seated at our table at this point) I told the male server the name of the birthday boy so they could welcome him and direct the rest of our party to the back room. They took the opportunity to be sure to mention again there is no reservation for that person or anyone else. It got akward in the back room as I was waiting for everyone else to show up. I was cornered by the female server again. "Are you sure you're in the right place ? We have no reservations tonight." Enough with the f*ing reservations already, you have a half empty restaurant and a pending party of 5 for a birthday celebration. And you've already set up the table and started to seat us! Do you want our money or not?

They made sure to scold my friend who's birthday it was immediately upon arrival minutes later for no reservations either. Not a peep about Happy Birthday, just going on and on about no reservations to a party that's already been seated at an empty table in a half empty restaurant. Im surprised they didn't mention "no reservations" again in the middle of dinner. The food was great , and the dishwasher who collected our plates was extra nice which is the only reason I'm not giving a 1 star rating. I tipped %30 despite the terrible service,...