Miyako House — Restaurant in Asheville

I am changing my five star rating after our experience Friday. My spouse and I went to celebrate a big life event at our favorite sushi restaurant. We loved this place for its attentive staff, quick service, beautiful display, and fresh sushi. We always had the same waiter who was actually working on Friday and serving a gigantic table. He didn't say hello to us, so he didn't recognize us. That was fine. I'm sure they see a lot of folks.

The waiter we did get failed to let us know that our dinner order (sushi and appetizer) was going to be placed behind a huge, loud party at the center of the restaurant. A solid restaurant lets you know those things, so you can understand the wait ahead of time and maybe alter your order accordingly. Apparently the appetizer we chose was also made by the sushi chefs, for instance. We probably would love to know that there would be a significant wait for the appetizer.

After some time went by, I tracked my waiter down and asked him when our appetizer (and meal) was arriving. I told him that if the appetizer came out too close to our sushi, we wanted to cancel it. He said he would check.

The thing is, he never came back to tell us. He just hung out by the sushi bar and continued conversing with the sushi staff and other staff who walked past him. My husband then had to get up and ask him a second time. Meanwhile, we watched sushi plate after sushi plate arrive at the other larger table. They didn't come out at once, so the chef definitely could have made our appetizer in between those many meals.

We watched as every single other person around us got served food. Some of the people that arrived after us actually were finishing their meals as we finally got ours. The waiter didn't really check in on us after we got our meal. It's sort of like after we canceled our appetizer, he really didn't want to do much with us. It felt really awful to us both.

The whole experience really stunk. A good restaurant, especially one downtown that receives a lot of foot traffic, should absolutely teach their staff how to communicate with customers when there is a large party ahead of them. To accommodate both small and large parties, staff need to think about how to pace customers meals and communicate better about that process. I'm not going to speak at length on the quality of the sushi, but it also isn't what we expected or grew to know and love.

We were long-time fans of this place and recommended them to many folks. Not sure will...

I have loved this place for quite awhile and I've reviewed them in several places online, but I can't help but give another. This is a great restaurant with extremely kind and efficient service. My daughter loves pad thai, and she has tried it from many local restaurants. Miyako House remains her absolute favorite, to the point that we don't go anywhere else to get it. The sushi is delicious with many options that you won't find elsewhere. Ive never had a single thing that hasn't been really great. The ingredients are quality, presentation is always impressive, and, once again, you won't find nicer folks anywhere else.

We always order to go, and we don't come as often as we'd like due to distance and our varying schedules, but they always remember me. Sometimes I forget to add the things like extra pad thai sauce that my daughter likes, but they always remember!! I just got home and found the sauce in the bag. THE SAUCE I FORGOT TO ORDER!!! and they didnt even charge me for it.

These are the restaurants putting in the extra work, with the absolute best customer service. This is a restaurant I want to be in my town forever. The place I can make an order at the end of an exhausting week, and get home with the quality I have come to expect, and the sauce I forgot to even order, because they value me enough to remember how I like it.

I couldn't be more pleased or recommend them any higher.

Thank...

On Thursday, May 1st, my son and I visited your restaurant for a late lunch during our Asheville trip. The menu listed “white tuna,” and when I asked the server what kind of fish it was, she vaguely replied, “white tune fish.” Trusting this, we assumed it was a type of tuna. However, once the dish arrived, we grew concerned about its translucent appearance and looked it up during the meal. We learned that “white tuna” often refers to escolar—a fish we had never heard of. When we asked again, the server said that it was escolar.

Shortly after the meal, we both began experiencing severe abdominal pain, vomiting, and diarrhea. We had to cancel our plans, lost two full days of our trip, and remain unwell even as we travel home. This required frequent stops due to ongoing symptoms.

We have since learned that escolar is known to cause such issues and that restaurants have faced criticism for mislabeling it as “white tuna.” It is extremely disappointing that your restaurant serves this fish without proper identification or warning. This experience has caused significant physical and emotional distress during what was supposed to be a...