Blue Sushi Sake Grill — Restaurant in Des Moines

Ive been here a couple times and also the location in Omaha and everything was top notch when we have gone before so my wife, son abd I decided to try it again. This time things were much much different. We arrived to the restaurant and were imediately seated . It was nearly empty on a Saturday at 6:30. We sat down, our waitress came by in a few minutes and took our drink and appetizer order. We got the crab rangoons and some hot tea. They were good. We then placed our orders for rolls (aprox 7-7:15pm). My wife ordered a raw roll and a cooked roll. My son and i ordered raw rolls. About 15 minutes later my wife got her cooked roll. So my son and I were like good ours should be out soon. My wife finished her cooked roll and nothing... no other rolls .. no waitress.. no refills of drinks..she was a ghost. We waited and waited and waited. The waitress zoomed by our table a few times ignoring our dissatisfaction. We almost went to the host stand at one point to ask for our bill for what we got and leave but we were hungry so decided to wait. Finally a different person brought out our raw rolls 45 minutes after my wife had already eaten her cooked roll. We asked this person why it took so long and she said the kitchen was backed up, no really apology or anything and she ran off. We ate our rolls and during this time the waitress passed us many many many times basiclly ignored us. She was b lining it to a large table in the back over and over. Didn't refill drinks at all during this time. Really just basiclly sprinted past our table to get to the big table. Finally about 15 minutes after we finished eating the waitress finally showed back up at our table. When we complained about the wait for the food and lack of service she simply said "the kitchen was really backed up" we had a large party, and shrugged like it was no big deal and asked if we were ready for our check. What? The restaurant was 80% empty! How does one large party back up an 80% empty restaurant? No apology just a shrug like it was no big deal. I have never ever had such horrible service! We finally left the restaurant a little before 9pm after paying our $130 bill (without the tip, which was small for the lack of service. I never tip $0). We will never ever ever step foot in that place again. Total waste of 3 hours and $130. Go to Izumi. The Sushi is better, they make it faster, and the service is awesome. You can drop $130 (with a really good tip) on 3 people and get all you can eat, drinks and have...

I went to Blue Sushi this past Sunday evening on Labor Day weekend. My husband and I were the first couple to arrive of our party of 6. There was a 40 minute wait which was fine, so we went to the bar to have a drink and wait for our table and party. The bartender, never once acknowledged us or said that she would be right with us. So we sat and waited while we looked at her for 15 min before she even asked what we would like to drink. My husband and I both order a glass of red wine. 10 min later was when our glasses of wine arrived - 10 minutes!! To pour two glasses of wine?! Our party arrived and our table was ready, so we were seated on time. The waitor came around and asked for our drinks and apps. We ordered. Drinks were all brought out separately by different wait staff, two-by-two at a time. Our appetizers arrived. The waitor came over and took our sushi roll orders. My sushi roll arrived within a couple of minutes, but no one else's had arrived yet, so with manners, I waited to eat mine until everyone received their rolls. 20 minutes go by...mind you, the waitor has not yet come over to update us on our rolls, or even came over to see if we needed more water or drinks. Finally my party just said to eat my meal without waiting for them, so I did. From the time we sat down at the table, a whole hour and a half has passed without everyone (besides myself) receiving their main course rolls. So my husband finally flags down our waitor again to hear an update on our meals. She said that there was a party in the back and that there has been a hold up because of that. We look around as it isn't busy at all and inform her that it has been an hour and a half since we put in our orders, plus we would like another round of drinks and for you to take away our stack of app dishes. Finally the rolls arrive and we eat. Rolls were really good. Time for the check. The waiter brings our checks out and hovers over us as we take out our cards. I told my husband that she nor the bartender deserve a tip. However, the waitor continues to hover over all of us as we run our credit cards on her portable credit card devise to see what percentage amount of tips we add. It was just ridiculous!! The service was terrible and the staff were completely in professional. I will never give this place a recommendation to anyone. I hope that this place gets a new manager who hires better customer...

TL;DR at the bottom.

This was some of the most underwhelming yet overpriced food that I've had in Des Moines. Starting out, the miso soup was extremely salty, and yes, miso is supposed to be salty, but this was unenjoyably so. It had what looked like nice ingredients in it—sliced shiitake, fresh green onion, miyeok, and one tiny, lonely cube of tofu, but all of those flavors were masked by the salt. I will say that the charred edamame was surprisingly good, and an interesting twist on the traditional steamed appetizer; it too, could have used less salt though, and we kept having to tap most of it off as we ate them.

I ordered a standard spicy tuna maki roll (called the spicy tekka on menu), which for $8 is on the pricy side for a tiny, 2-ingredient, 5-piece roll, even for Des Moines. It was not only utterly not spicy at all, but also tasteless in general; the meager amount of tuna was blended into a paste for some reason, and overall I may as well have ordered the cucumber roll for $5 since that's what I felt like I ate.

Most disappointingly though, my fiance ordered the Madai Chimichurri, which was 5 pieces of sea bream sashimi with some fresh vegetables and a chimichurri sauce (which is a favorite of his). The taste was fine, but the fish itself had gristly silver skin running through every single piece. This is a very big sign of incompetent preparation, and was the most off-putting part of the entire dinner.

Worth noting, our server came off a bit rude towards us, and given that she was pushy with the drinks menu for happy hour, we assumed it was because we chose not to order any drinks to pad out her tip. The restaurant wasn't busy at all, so maybe she was just disappointed in a slow evening. We still tipped 20% because she deserves a proper wage, but in reality she offered below average service.

TL;DR- overpriced, too much salt, tiny bland maki rolls with very little fish, poorly prepared gristly sashimi, mediocre service.

Go to Miyabi 9 or Akebono instead. Better prices and...