MOIRA Sushi Bar & Kitchen — Restaurant in Phoenix

I was at the tail end of working 20 hours straight and could barely keep my eyes open, but I had committed to sushi on this night a week earlier or wouldn't have gone out.

I'm really glad I did, or I might have missed out on an excellent restaurant. I'll definitely be returning for a longer visit.

The restaurant is well decorated, and has large burning torches on the outside, which grabbed my attention when we first arrived. The interior has a nice ambiance. The interior is dimly lit, but not overly so and lit candles on each table add to the ambiance. It is clear that a lot of thought and effort was put in to the overall design and it works well.

The waiter showed us to our table and was very friendly and courteous. When we needed more time he gave us a few minutes, but his sense of timing was impeccable and he was extremely attentive. Whenever we needed him, he seemed to appear on his own . He was very informative, and described the items on the menu in detail to us.

We didn't have much time, so we elected to split the Blue Fin sashimi and the Dragon Rroll. The waiter recommend fresh chopped wasabi with the Blue Fin and it was excellent advice. Both the Blue Fin and the fresh wasabi were absolutely perfect.

I have had Dragon rolls at other restaurants, but this was the first time I had seen one presented on fire. The waiter brought out a large plate with a dragon made out of the roll and sauce, in a manner that really looked like a dragon, complete with a head and eyes. The waiter lit it on fire and it burned for a minute or two at our table and was a very nice touch. I liked it so much that I stopped and took a picture of it. The roll was excellent and I'll definitely be returning to order it again.

The visit was very brief, but memorable and I'd recommend this restaurant to anyone that likes Japanese food.

Slightly dark. but not overly so, with candles...

We like to eat like we live in NYC or Europe, 8p or later, so we often go to Moira after the nearby theatre because it is open later than most restaurants. When we arrived last night after a show, around 9:00p, it was filled with like-minded people and was still going strong, and people were still arriving when we left around 10p. And it’s not just because they’re open late. The place has a trendy, moody vibe, friendly and helpful service, and, best of all, the food is Japanese, and good, and it’s not sushi-centric (Japanese cuisine has SO much more to offer than raw fish). There is a long list of Happy Hour bar bites (cooked), maki, and temaki (handrolls), which begins at 9p on Saturday night (till 2a!). Happy Hour is 5p to 11p Mon-Thursday and 10:30 to 2a on Friday, which probably means tables or counter seats are harder to get late on Friday nights. Although they offer sushi and sashimi, we satisfied ourselves at two prime counter seats from the Happy Hour and Izakaya (which means Japanese pub) parts of the menu. The menu also has a Hot Kitchen section, which are things like noodles and Yakisoba. I really like the boneless tori (chicken) kara-age (deep fried) boneless bites (Happy Hour or Izakaya parts of the menu). We also enjoyed the Niku-Ishiyaki (grill — yaki— yourself meat — Niku, in this case very thinly sliced beef), which included some veggies. It makes a firey presentation. Suggestion: use some other fire source, like sterno. The oil flame burns out too quickly, which forces re-lights (2 for us) and pressured us to eat this dish faster than we wanted to. Another suggestion: more non-nigori sake. The Hakutsuru Junmai (made with only rice, koji, and water) Namachozo (partially unpasteurized) was very tasty, but it would have been nice to have other cold, non-nigori choices. The food was excellent, as always, and we’ll be back after...

I had a couple of quibbles with this place. I was really disappointed when I arrived to see the menu wasn't at all what was posted on their website. Turns out I had been handed only their happy hour menu and not the full menu. It was very confusing to order from because quite a few happy hour items didn't appear in the regular menu so I was flipping back and forth between a bound book for happy hour and a single sheet menu. The exact opposite of what I'd expect. Then to order, I found out I needed to fill out a checklist menu which I also wasn't handed.

My items came out one by one in rapid succession. I quickly had too many plates in front of me to the point where I'd eat all of one item just so I could clear a spot. My usual experience is that when a number of rolls are ordered at once, they are arranged on a platter. Most of the happy hour rolls had no presentation value to them, just cut and slapped on a plate. They could have easily been served on one plate. It was annoying, but so was the chef missing the 2 premium rolls I had marked. I kept thinking they tool longer to prepare (they did), but I had finished everything before anyone came back to ask me if I needed anything else. That's when the two rolls were made and it took a while.

All this aside, the food was excellent.

I sat at the bar, and the staff literally stood around and watched videos on their phones. Their volume was up so I could hear the videos. 3 staff had their phones out in the kitchen and it seems to be common as they all had their chargers plugged in too. I feel like this is unprofessional and unsanitary. We all look at our phones in the bathroom, and there's signs to wash our hands before returning to the kitchen, but how many times are those phones sanitized? It did take away from...