BENTO Gainesville Midtown — Restaurant in Gainesville

As a big fan of the (formerly) spicy cream chicken, now known as Pao Pao, I was quite excited when this location opened near me. However upon getting my Pao Pao rice bowl with extra tofu, chicken, and veggies, I was saddened to hear that they don't allow for their to be extra rice in the bowl for 50¢. Instead, I was offered a side of rice for $3. Now I don't know if this is a system wide change, but this is indeed a disappointment for just going to the cashier. Nonetheless I was looking forward to the food. Who needs 330 calories anyway? Upon receiving my food, I noticed that the chicken breading was flaky and spotty implying excessive corn starch applied before frying. It also meant that the chicken was not crisp, rather a more spongy texture. The sauce tasted imbalanced although that might just be me not having had it in a while. However, I do know that the veggies were just sad. The snow peas which are already barely need time in the wok to cook were undercooked. The zucchini was blanched for too long leaving it limp and lacking texture. The mushrooms were barely passable. The tofu which is impossible to mess up passed muster. Overall, this one experience has been a...

Arrived at 11:30 am, and was informed that sushi rice was not going to be ready for an additional 20 minutes - interesting for a sushi restaurant. We then proceeded to wait for the sushi, and when our appetizers arrived ($7 for four crab Rangoon and $4 miso soup) the Rangoon were cold and the soup had no flavor.

The whole time, however the story about the rice not being ready, the sushi chefs were rolling sushi for to go orders.

Our rolls arrived after the extended wait (more than 35 minutes) and they were significantly smaller than what you get from the other locations. Not to mention the rice we waited all this time for was cold when it hit the table! Very disappointing.

All of this is unfortunate because Bento has been a favorite of ours for a long time, and we have never had these issues at the Newberry “Blue” location, but this downtown location is both more expensive and seemingly lower quality. It was $50 for two entrees, an appetizer and a soup. Not sure I will be visiting this...

I placed an order before the store opened through DoorDash to have my food ready (1 mini poke bowl) between 12:30 - 1:00PM. I would be busy until then. Turns out they had it prepared and ready at 11:19AM, so by the time I got there my food (with raw fish) had been sitting out for an hour.

The lovely employee offered to have it remade, which was great....only to find out when I got back to my office that my order was completely wrong. Instead of tuna, they gave me fried shrimp. Instead of carrots, cream cheese. Instead of pineapple, mango. Instead of cucumber, wakame. No scallions or sesame seeds. And I'm not even entirely sure the sauce was correct.

I wasn't even asked if I was okay with these substitutions. I could not go back because what was supposed to be a 10 min walk to pick up my food and return to work would have turned into a 45 minute argument to get a third correction. I had to throw out my food. Very disappointed. Never coming to this...