Momiji Sushi Restaurant - North Bend — Restaurant in North Bend

My girlfriend and I were visiting family in Roseburg for the holidays and decided to take a trip to the coast for the day to do some hiking after having lunch somewhere in or near Coos Bay.

After arriving, we decided to give the AYCE a try, and started with all nigiri for the first round consisting of 1 order blackened tuna, 1 salmon, 1 saba, 2 hamachi, and 1 deep water crab.

The order came pretty quickly (maybe 5 minutes). I first tried the blackened tuna which was not bad, but was nearly ice cold and on rice that tasted like day old sushi rice, right out of the refrigerator. It was super cold, stale tasting, and almost crunchy in the middle. As it turned out, every nigiri I ate had terrible rice, but the one piece of salmon my girlfriend was about to eat had a bonus hair in it along with black specks under the fish and on the rice.

As she inspected more closely underneath both pieces of salmon nigiri, she pointed out that there were a bunch of black specks under both pieces of the salmon, and on the rice. I told her that maybe it was furikake or seaweed they use to season the rice but after looking at the remaining nigiri, aside from the crab which was harder to check, I noticed that none of the other fish or rice had those specks in it except for the other piece of blackened tuna nigiri. This led me to think that maybe the chef didn't clean his knife, hands, or the cutting board after slicing the blackened tuna and then cut the salmon nigiri afterwards.

Even after this, I was still willing to give the restaurant a chance, because I know things happen sometimes, and wanted to give the restaurant the benefit of the doubt.

My girlfriend on the other hand was kind of turned off after the hair and mystery blackish specks, but I went ahead and finished all the other nigiri, even though the rice was really bad. I just decided I would ask for the rice on the next order to maybe be heated a little to take away that stale refrigeration taste/texture, and mention the hair my girlfriend found on the salmon.

When our server came back to the table to check on our food and next order, I kindly let her know that we had a hair in one of the pieces of salmon nigiri and that we didn't want to eat it and I also mentioned that the rice tasted kind of stale and was really cold. I then asked if she could maybe heat up the rice a little on our next order, and she said she would talk with the chef about the rice and the hair we found.

(I think for the second round we ordered 1 rainbow roll, 1 wolfbite roll, 1 steamed gyoza, 1 masago nigiri, 1 unagi nigiri and 1 creamy scallop nigiri)

Shortly after the server left the table, she came back with two orders of salmon Nigiri and said we didn't have to eat if we didn't want to but the chef wanted us to try it.

We gave the new salmon nigiri a try and the rice was much better and had no specs in it at all. My first salmon nigiri did have about a 1/3 of an inch pin bone that I crunched in to, and had to pull out of my mouth while chewing. I didn't choke on it or anything, so it wasn't a big deal, but I feel it's still worth mentioning.

After initially placing the order for our second round, it was about 10 minutes or so until the steamed potstickers arrived. These thankfully tasted good and we had no issues.

We then sat and waited for a very long time, probably 30 minutes , or more, from when we initially placed the order for our second round, and still hadn't received anything else. At that point, I think it was about 1:48 pm (we walked in around 12:35 pm), I decided to just call this experience a bust and asked our server for the check. She brought me the check up front and I mentioned that it we had been waiting about 30 minutes and still hadn't gotten our food. She told me it was because they had a large party walk in. I chose not to press the issue, and said, I get it. She then asked if I wanted to cancel our order at this point, and I said yes. I was then charged $74 for the 1.17 rounds of AYCE sushi and left a $14 tip to boot.

Such a poor...

🤬🤬 Scam up the WAZZU!!!!

DO NOT CHOOSE THE ALL YOU CAN EAT!!!!🤬

Flyer on the wall States $37 Adults $15 Kids

Now the 'S' may be plural here, as that is their secret way to get you!!!!!

When receiving our ticket it came out to $74 just for the sushi!!! 🤯🤬😤

Which btw, (After adding up our selections separately) Was nowhere Near the cost it would have been for each separate item that we got to choose!!!!!! 🤯🤬🤬 (6 options btw)

Which only their first tray of their all you can eat... My boyfriend could eat just for himself!!! 😤😒 ((What a rip-off!🤬))

Brought this conundrum to the waitress, Who then proceeded to tell me,,,

"Well, Everyone else in the restaurant understood this about the menu"

As apparently three or four other tables were also chowing down on the, (All you can eat,) Special. 😑😑😑

Which was NOT so special at all.

((( Ms. Alex W Had the worst attitude. Was inappropriately dressed, & Facial expression clearly said "I don't want to be here.")))

& Quite honestly made me feel like I was an idiot who didn't know how to read.😤

I felt so played and so lied to and so embarrassed as she was speaking clearly and loudly enough for the next patron to here. HOW RUDE!!!! 🤬

This WAS one of my favorite restaurants in town. Was seriously good food for decent prices until they did this little trick here...

I am ashamed to even say that their food is still good. ((Bravo to the Chefs))

I'm simply going for ONE Roll and 1 Tea from now on!!!! They're Lucky they Didn't just loose me as a customer. (Yet)

Also! If you have read this far. ... After this happened to me today, I kind of vented about it a little bit within my grocery shopping, & other stops.

I come to find out, that at least Four (4) other people fell for this little trick...😤😑

Now Momiji's.... ((Plural))

Listen or read very carefully....

Continue with this sly game/scam you got going on here and lose so much service to where you're the next restaurant shutting down in town.

Or.

Change your advertisement to state $37 PER Adult!!!!

Then, retrain your waitress's, ((& Alex.W)) So that she/they can rephrase....

(("Oh yes It's $37 for the all-you-can-eat. Two person minimum"))

Over too......

(("Yes it's $37 Per Adult. However we have a two-person minimum."))

(("So our deal is technically...

Like Coos Bay, there are so many quaint little places where you can get a good meal. Momiji is another one. From first glance, you may be deceived. It's not the most appealing to the eyes. It could use a little makeover, keeping things clean, carpets swept, bussing tray out of sight. And this is why it's important: The one thing that people care about when eating sushi is "is the fish fresh and clean?"

And some people will be hesitant to eat in a place where there are crumbs on the floor, and it's in a little disarray. I get hunches and trust my gut whether to overlook the these things or make a dash for the door. We stayed and ate today, and it was a good choice. This is one of the first places that the sushi chef wasn't Japanese. he appeared to be more of a surfer guy with features of a Polynesian or Hawaiian. He was very well trained, an absolute artist, and we loved it. he was meticulous of when and where to layer ingredient, and the flavors were fantastic.

The only other thing was that they had on each table a tub of wasabi and a tub of ginger. I heard a client behind us complain to the wait staff about possible germs from previous clients. Looking at the chemistry (horseradish and vinegar as main ingredients in each, respectively), I would assume that germs can't survive in either environment (alkaline). Technically, I would have to double check on health implications of germ life from people who would double dip. But the point is, I understand what people could gripe about. I merely asked for a fresh dollop of both without making such a stink like the previous client did.

The rolls were large and affordable. definitely a good value So I highly recommend it. I would only just recommend that the management look into sprucing up the decor, partitions, and ways to generally give a cleaner vibe to the dining area. The Chef does a great job. Don't undermine his talents by distracting people from the food...