Mikuni | Folsom — Restaurant in Folsom

My visit to Mikunis Folsom was a disaster. My family and I went there to celebrate my oldest daughter's birthday. I arrived first and ordered a drink from the bar. That should have been a warning sign. The drink was missing the ring of salt, was watery, and did not taste anything like any drink, no alcohol, no taste. I paid for my drink and joined my family, and we were ready to order after a few minutes. The table in front of us was seated after we ordered. We ordered simple dishes, which included sushi, and my husband decided to order an alcoholic drink even though I told him mine was terrible. His drink came back and did not include the bitters, and he had to ask for them. My husband’s food came first, and the birthday girls and I took forever, so I asked the waiter. He came back, saying it will be a few minutes. The table in front of us had received their meals even though they arrived later than we did, and it was the same waiter. Our food eventually arrived, but by then, my husband and a younger kid had finished their meal. We complained to the waiter and mentioned that we were there to celebrate a birthday and they “apologized “ about the food taking hours. Eventually, the manager came, and we shared our complaints and said that this was supposed to be a birthday celebration, but the birthday girl couldn’t even get her food, and the service and drinks weren’t good. He returned with another apology, the bill, and a 25 gift card, trying to improve this. They didn’t bother to ask my daughter if she wanted a special treat for her birthday. I am unsure if they give a special treat or sing for you, but now I know they don’t since they didn’t do it for her. This experience has been one of the worst experiences while dining out, and the fact that we went there to celebrate a child’s birthday makes it worse. I hate to bring my ethnicity into this, but I know this wouldn’t have happened to others. My husband naively thought they wanted to make this better and took the 25 gift card, but I wanted to leave it since it was an insult to me and my family. All I have to say is that Mikuni can do better so other minorities that decide to patronize your business can get the same respect as others. There is a vibe I felt with my treatment, and I know it well, so as for me and my family, we will not be...

I would call this the Cheesecake Factory of sushi restaurants. Everyone seems to think it's so good, but there's really nothing unique about it. The wait was 30 minutes, so I thought we were in for a treat. We were seated on a booth strip with a bunch of tables facing the the chefs. Loud groups of people kept coming over to this wheel that you get to spin when it's your birthday. It was cute the first time, but after the third rowdy group it became pretty disruptive and tacky. I was thinking how nice it would be if there were a bar right where the chefs were, so we can see the work they do. I mean there's a perfect stretch of area for a bar, but it's completely underutilized. We had the Puff Daddy appetizer, which was okay. The house sauce it comes with was overly mayonnaise-y and could've used some acidity to go better with the fatty flavor of the stuffed shrimp. Our rolls came on foot long plates and the rolls were lumped into a cube in the center. It was...very weird. You'd think a sushi chef would want to display a roll more spread out, but these were bunched together with nothing going on with the remaining 8 inches of plate. But when we picked up pieces of the rolls, we realized why. There wasn't much going on with the insides. The rolls weren't artfully put together and the amount of fish was sparse. The ingredients were mushed together and rolled up. They tasted good and I don't doubt that the ingredients are probably of higher quality, but the display was very uninspired. One nice thing I can say is that the service was friendly. We spent a pretty large chunk of money here for a rather...

What a bizarre experience. Our first impression walking through the door was the staff seemed to outnumber the patrons 4 to 1. We sat at the sushi bar. The staff, on the whole, seemed way more interested in just hanging out and talking to each other than doing their jobs. Most of the meal we felt invisible, or rather like we were extras on set in a restaurant scene between takes. If you looked one way a waitresses was twirling her hair, elbows on the sushi bar, flirting with one of the sushi chefs. Look the other way and a small clique of servers were having an open, loud, prolonged personal conversation right in the open. Clusters of wait staff were just hanging out chit chatting all around the dining room, and when they got tired of that, some would migrate into the open kitchen in the back and continue there for a while, for a change of environment.

With so much staff you'd think we would have been checked in on all the time, but we couldn't get someone to even take our kitchen order until we were about finished with the meal. The sushi chef who was working with us took our sushi order, but also seemed out of it, a bit aloof.

Food was great, but the environment and "The Show" that was happening all around us was so distracting we found it hard to focus on anything else. I hate to be one of those guys who yells at clouds, but it was disheartening to see how devalued the customer service...