Maru Izakaya — Restaurant in City of Rochester

I recently visited this location on a Saturday Night with a group of 5. The restaurant was fairly quiet, there were only 4 other tables sat when we walked in. It took some time for the waitress to get to us, which is fine, we placed our orders for drinks, and food. We only ordered one bottle of sake but this took about 15 minutes to get to us. We placed orders for an appetizer and each of us ordered anywhere from 1-3 rolls per person. I genuinely believe the waitress forgot to put our order in.

We had been sitting for well over 40 minutes and had not even received our appetizers. I spoke with the waitress and let her know we had been waiting a very long time, and she said she would start bringing our rolls out as they were ready. Somehow, two rolls were done before our appetizer even came out.

The waitress made a comment after we ate our food that we "ate it faster than it came out". We had plans that evening so we had to rush to eat our food to make it on time. Overall, the food was ok, there is better sushi in Rochester, but the service was very poor, and there were no apologies made for the long wait time. I will not be returning, nor will I be recommending this place to anybody in the future. I can see why this place was so quiet...

I was blown away by the quality of the fish here. You are going to get good quality raw fish meat that tastes fresh, have nice tender texture, and be very flavorful. Probably similar quality of meat to a lower end omakase place. To say it is a good bang for your buck is an understatement (given that you are prioritizing meat quality).

We ate the first 3 plates of their starter section of their menu. Those were $14-$15, for 6 pieces of sashimi. Jalapeno Yellowtail, Torched Salmon, Black Sea Salt Scallop. The sauce is nicely made and works very well with the meats. They add some acidity, spice, or umami to the cuts, complimenting them very well. The sauces taste like they have been customized by the chef. Of course, the meat is great, as mentioned earlier.

We also ate the nigiri ($6-$7 for 2 pieces per order) of Tuna, White Tuna, Red Snapper, and Surf Clam. The slices of fish on top of the rice are quite large. The sushi rice is a great balance of sweet and sour and is also a good texture. The meat is great, as per above.

The staff are polite and come out quickly with the food. The atmosphere is quaint, quiet, cute. Would probably be a great place to go on a date. Definitely come here if you want some...

Excellent food and service at a good price. It’s a little bit hard to find if you’ve never been to the building before, but you can just park anywhere near the place and then once you walk into the main building the sushi place itself Is pretty easy to find- it’s right near the big face statue. Within the building there’s lovely art and ambiance and within the restaurant itself there are as well. The waitress we had (Andy I think) was very nice. The food was super good and good priced. The sushi was amazing, we had the Maru Maru roll and the Mix Up roll, both were great but I did prefer the Mix Up. The soy sauce tastes homemade and has a great flavor balance. The miso was was very good and fresh, so was the pork belly ramen. We also got the fried shumai which was very good and had a very nice presentation- so did everything really. In general, it was very good food and a nice experience. We would definitely go...