Brookside Sushi — Restaurant in Kansas City

I will rate this place from both food and experience. The experience: I enjoyed the dining experience, especially with friends. It's a small but lovely restaurant and I felt welcomed and service was fast and friendly. 5 stars. The food: I would say it's probably about 3.5 stars. We ordered quite a few dishes, some appetizers, a few rolls, some nigiris, and a hot dish. The appetizer (shrimp tempora) and the free salad were surprisingly good. But I am going to say that the nigiris (I had salmon toro and unagi) are the best of all these dishes. I wasn't expecting the salmon toro to be cooked but it's ok, they melt in your mouth and the fat was quite delicious. Also, I don't think the rice is supposed to be soaked in sauces but somehow they were. So that's room for improvement. The nigiris are a bit expensive for only 2 pieces per order but I would say it's still relatively reasonable. The rolls are a bit disappointing. We ordered 4 rolls but somehow they all started to taste very similar, and the dynamite "roll" was more for show than the actual taste. Very salty and greasy. I only really tasted the mushrooms in there. So if I were to recommend this place to someone, I would say maybe come with a small group to enjoy the fun experience, but level set your food expectations, unless you have never had sushi before. If you are looking for an authentic true Japanese sushi experience, this is...

Our waitress didn't understand the difference between sushi and sashimi, so we ended up not getting what we ordered.

This included an avocado rind full of salmon roe. Most sushi restaurants will not allow you to order roe as sashimi because, well, check the pics.

The head waitress tried to explain how confusing sushi and sashimi can be, and I tried to explain to her that I attempted to verify with our original waitress that some of our order would have rice and some of it would not, but we still did not get what we ordered.

They asked if we would rather have our items remade or get bowls of sushi rice to build our meal as we went and even after taking them up on their offer to remake the items that were improperly made, they pushed the sushi rice on us anyway.

They did provide a discount on the items that were improperly made.

We decided to stop for desert because we were still hungry due to our order being mishandled. It was a pretty disappointing experience and we will not be back.

Suggestion to the management - don't allow the kitchen to serve roe as sashimi unless the customer is very adamant that is what they want. Also don't make patrons build their own sushi after you get their order wrong. It's insulting.

I'm happy to pay for quality food, but if I don't get what I order and the staff tries to gaslight me it doesn't make for an...

An underrated gem. I will sing the praises of Chef Sal and Brookside Sushi until the day I die. A consistently great meal accompanied by kind and attentive service. One of my favorite dining experiences in Kansas City is to sit at the bar and order the sake toro nigiri (torched salmon belly with a jalapeno-ponzu glaze) while watching chef Sal prepare sushi. The salmon belly melts away like butter and the char + glaze give it a depth flavor unlike anything else I've found in the city. It can be challenging to find dishes that are not just tasty, but tasty in way that thrills you. The sake toro is that for me. I'll never forget the first time I tried it.

Other highlights: I'll occasionally treat myself to a piece of the blue fin toro nigiri. Hard for me to think of a better bite of raw fish. Just excellent, and worth the occasional splurge. The tonkotsu ramen also surprised me. It is among the best I've had in the metro, and I've yet to try one of their specialty rolls that was anything short of excellent.

Just a great spot that I wish more folks talked about. Everything is source really well, and the menu is broad enough that even the sushi averse will find something they like. Worth your...