Friends Sushi & Bento Place — Restaurant in Kansas City

While based on reviews, time, and distance, we were not going to go here, the wife and I certainly were. We are in town on a trip and wanted sushi. The only complaint we could have was parking which is not their fault.

The prices on food were more than reasonable 3 dollar soda 6 dollar basic sushi rolls 14 dollar dinner bento boxes 2 dollar soups.

To start, the miso and onion soup wasn't just broth and 1 leaf of seaweed or tofu. But what I felt was a fair mix, about 75% of broth and 25% of seaweed, tofu mushrooms, etc (depending on the soup choice), the sushi were larger than average. And the bento box was amazing. The fish all tasted fresh, felt like nothing was prepared ahead of time but made fresh. The staff could only be described as some of the best. Friendly and accommodating. My wife is used to a roll back home in Iowa and the server and chefs were willing to modify their existing basic rolls by adding cream cheese to make it like we were home. It definitely made our night. Our server. Jackson, was also very kind and patient with us as we as out of towners took longer than our usual to order as we discovered the menu. The soda did not taste watered down at all which was also refreshing to see they were using the right coke to soda water mix. I would recommend this to anyone who wanted a good amount of food to quality ratio. Just plan for extra time to walk here or to find parking. We ended up after 30 minutes parking about 3 blocks away which wasn't bad but definitely my...

Wonderful food. Crappy service. My first time eating here was Monday 6/5 with a friend and husband. Our friend asked for a slice of lemon in a bowl to mix with the sauce. When she gave him the lemon she slammed it down on the table. When she asked if we were ready to order we said yes. She then collected the menus from our table. When she asked us what to drink my husband was still undecided and asked to look over the drinks on the menu. She gave us a menu back, rolled her eyes and walked away. When we were finished eating we were still hungry. Instead of ordering more from the menu we left and went to a BBQ place a couple miles away rather than dealing with our waitress again.

My second time there was Monday 6/12 with my husband. We decided to give this place another shot. Maybe the waitress the first time was having a bad day. We were certain if we had a different waiter/waitress that we would have a better experience. But of course we were serviced by the same waitress that gave us the same type of experience. I would stop using "she" but she never introduced herself. She made us feel unwelcome there. Like it was a huge inconvenience that she had to service us. Never did she smile or asked "how is everything?" or "can I get you anything else?" It's disappointing to leave such a low star review because the sushi...

As always, the staff at Friends is warm and helpful, responsive to special requests, and super kind to our kiddos. Ariel gave them coloring sheets and stickers to pass the time while our bentos came out.

The dinner bentos come with soup, salad, a cheese rangoon, an egg roll, this amazing tasty cake, rice, oranges, and your choice of entree... All of this for around $12. There is a lunch sushi version with rolls, maki, rice or cheese rangoon, and soup (sadly, no cake) for $10 which makes it inexpensive for the KU crowd.

Although there is no kids menu, our girls split a teriyaki chicken bento box between the two of them and it's plenty of food. They also have appetizer plates of teriyaki chicken on a stick (I forget the name) that the under 10-set will find tasty. The servers work with you to find something that your kiddos will eat.

My husband got the teriyaki chicken bento, I got the teriyaki steak bento, and we got an order of Philly rolls to share with everyone. As always, delicious! We have yet to have poor service or mediocre food, so whatever the owners are doing, they're doing it right.

We'll be back to see Ethan, Ariel, and the rest of our...