Shinbashi — Restaurant in Ellsworth

This place has always been amazing in all aspects of what would expect from a dining experience. The food is of exceptional quality. Very fresh ingredients. Although there is space for a large number of diners, seating is arranged in such a way that you feel like it's a more spacious and intimate setting to share with friends or a date. They offer private dining (behind doors) for larger parties. Many small companies take advantage of this for holiday parties. Servers are extremely attentive and accommodating. You will never get the hand on the hip, eye rolling server that treats you as if you're an inconvenience. They won't start vacuuming under your table if you linger over drinks. There is a full bar staffed by professionals. They have a large array of specialty drinks, and I have never had a server come back to tell me the bartender doesn't know how to make an unfamiliar drink. If they aren't familiar with it, they must use Google to figure it out. If you are a sushi or sashimi aficionado you will love this place! They have an extensive offering of rolls. It's not my thing, but i have seen large, elaborately displayed arrangements. I was a bit disappointed in changes they've made to the menu. While the sushi/sashimi menu has been expanded, the rest of the menu shrunk considerably. Many of the "house specialty" items like Phoenix Shrimp and Volcano Shrimp, Moon under the Stars are gone, just thinking of a few of my faves. There were many more of the specialty dishes, as well as dishes previously listed under separate sections for beef, chicken, pork and seafood have been eliminated, but there were still enough items that we didn't have any problem finding...

A really great Asian Fusion restaurant. The portions here are really quite large. Everything was delicious. I had a light green tea to start. For apps, My table had crab Rangoons (very large, nor greasy, and filled with a creamy crab rich filling...I did not have any, but my table ate them all), miso soup and Wong tong noodles. The miso soup is pictured. The soup was warm, lots of spinach. I next tried a single won ton strip. My parents really enjoyed the won ton soup. I ordered the dinner bento box. It came with the miso soup, an order of sushi (I selected the sweet potato sushi w. avocado), I selected chicken katsu (lighted breaded), the bento box came with greens, eggplant/green beans that were pickled, white rice, dumplings, and fruit (lychee and pineapple). It was such a lot of food! It was really great. There were chopsticks on the table. A little pouring ceramic of soy sauce. The sushi roll came with 6 pieces. The plate was very green Wasabi and ginger. The sweet potato sushi was really interesting. It had a great texture. The chicken katsu was not greasy and a lot of chicken. The fruit was palate cleaning. The people next to us got a hot pot that looked really fun. I went to the bathroom. Really clean with unique colorful fixtures. Our server was very attentive, but left us able to converse. The night ended with a fortune cookie. My fortune is that I will visit here next time I breeze...

Ordered a margarita and it was undrinkable; tasted horrible, was really fizzy and made me gag with one sip. While waiting for the waitress to come back to the table, I noticed the drink had scoby-like long white slimy particles all through it, apparently the bar mix had fermented.

Since the waitress didn't speak English my friend and I scooped out the glutinous particles with a straw and draped them over the glass so it would be clear what was wrong. But neither the waitress nor her boss could understand why I didn't want the drink and what was wrong with it, they just kept asking me if I wanted another.

For the food, my friend had food poisoning the next day. she had a seafood dish with lobster. When she got home from the restaurant that night, she already knew she didn't want to eat the leftovers and gave them to her chickens, who avoided it completely. I had gotten the kung pao tofu, it wasn't hot when served and it wasn't spicy, it was also soaked in soy sauce and not leftover worthy.

I will say the won ton soup was very good.

We have a long tradition of eating here with family and friends but it's now on my do-not-go list.

We always treat waitstaff well and tip well and I have never left a bad review, but feel it's negligent not to...