Miyako — Restaurant in Houston

TL;DR - New location, terrible service (they did try to remedy, not good enough), good food, expensive

I went to lunch at Miyako's new location on Washington Ave on December 21. I hope the quality of the service was due to their being a new location, and that it will improve quickly. When they opened at 11:30, we were the first and only table in there. A couple of people in my group ordered iced tea to drink and when the server came back with the other drinks he said that they were brewing it, but that it would be out shortly (they ended up waiting almost 30 minutes and had to remind the server about the tea). At first they were attentive, but by 11:45 there were about 8 other tables seated. I only ever saw two servers, one manager, one sushi chef, and one restaurant attendant, and it was immediately obvious that two servers were not enough. After finally getting our server's attention again around 12:00, we ordered. About 15-20 minutes later all the food came out, except for mine. I was expecting that mine would be out in just a minute, so I waited. 10 minutes had gone by when we were able to get the manager's attention and inquired about my dish. The order has been lost in the shuffle. The order was placed again, and at about 12:40 (more than 1 hour after getting there), my food arrived at the table. The order was incorrect, but I wasn't going to wait any longer, so I ate it. The food was good. Other than a few items on the menu, it was over-priced. They comped my chicken rice bowl, so they did try to rectify the situation, but it just wasn't enough. Nice staff, good food, but I will not be returning due to the service, especially considering the prices you pay to receive that...

Never have I experienced a service at a restaurant worst than this before. It was a Monday and the place was practically empty. I took a friend there for their birthday with a few people and it was very embarrassing. Even tho we made a reservation, not until we got there did the make a table enough for the group. Every time we needed something I had to get up, walk up to someone and ask for it. They had multiple servers to our table and they kept getting things confused. The menus were printed poorly with faint ink. Seems they didn’t bother to check printouts. The food was just ok. After dinner we asked multiple times to clear the table before bringing out the cake. 20 minutes later they still didn’t. The server walked up with the cake while the table was still full of empty dishes. With no place to put the cake it was very awkward. They had to walk back with it & send someone to clean. That didn’t happen and WE ENDED UP CLEANING OUR OWN TABLE moving plates to the side so we don’t have that showing in pictures. The worst part is someone was cleaning the empty table literally next to us (and it was late in the day so it wasn’t being prepared for someone). Eventually they brought out the cake without plates and forks. You think they’d run right back and get it right? No. That took another 10 minutes. And to top it all off they had all tabs mixed up even though i made sure to properly explain it at least three times, and walked over to the pay station to offer to double check it (because with everything else I figured they’ll mess that up as well). I’m definitely not going back...

I went Miyako on a Washington Avenue on a Friday evening with my girlfriend. They have a private parking garage out back with free parking which is a huge plus for this area of Houston. The restaurant looks pretty new and has a nice atmosphere. Their lobby is extra special because they have a live turtle pond!

We ordered two Miso Soups ($2.50 each) and the Spicy Chipotle Edamame ($5.50) to start. The soup was good, but the edamame was honestly pretty terrible. The spicy chipotle sauce was awful; they should change this sauce immediately. We looked over their main menu with the sushi rolls, but they forgot to give us a nigiri sushi menu. I asked for it, but our waitress didn't give us one. We still ordered two pieces of Unagi nigiri ($2.65 each) anyway.

They have an mindblasting number of sushi rolls on their menu... it's overwhelming. We ordered two; the Mango Go Maki for $10 and the Spicy Tuna on Crispy Rice for $11. These were both meh. I wouldn't recommend either of them. They have other items on their menu like udon noodles. I want to try more from them.

Overall, I like the atmosphere of this place; it's good for a date night. I like the fact they have a private parking garage. I LOVE that they have a turtle pond in the front! The food items I tried were okay, and I feel like I need to try more from their menu to give an overall review. It's just a typical sushi place, but I gave them bonus stars for the atmosphere, parking situation, and the...