SHO | Japanese Restaurant — Restaurant in Portland

After living around LA for the past eight years I will say that sushi and Japanese cuisine around Portland can often be very lack-luster. Sho is certainly helping raise the bar.

The interior is modern and less traditional old world Japanese. Party of four, our service began on a Sunday night (it's amazing how many sushi restaurants are closed in this town) around 6 PM. Our server was a little slow to start but after things got going everything was expedient. Wild Sake salmon and Hamachi yellowtail nigiri were fresh and the assortment of rolls are nothing to complain about. The Seared Oregon roll was one of our favorites with the Sunset roll being a good runner up. Tried out the seafood ramen with shoyu flavoring, not bad, but nothing stellar. Ramen from around Los Angeles is just hard to beat.

PROS: Diverse menu boasting some local, free-range and wild fare. Wild salmon sushi. Interesting range of specialty rolls. Also serves ramen. Mixed greens for salads. Wide assortment of saké + regular teas, wine and beers. Dessert items. Fairly spacious interior in an L shaped layout with sushi bar seating. Mixture of booths and tables, not overly bright lighting, comfortable temperature. Padded seating, YAY! (the whole hard flat metal or wood seating trend is awful and uncomfortable) Clean. Easy private lot parking, also easy access for disabled. Large clean bathrooms toward back. Decent restaurant prices. Open on Sunday.

CONS: Not much in the noodle arena other than udon and ramen. Service can lag a little.

All in all Sho is a great spot and I look forward to going back to try more dishes. Plenty of flavors to...

We (myself, wife, and daughter) came during a busy time with the expectation we would have to wait. The food took an understandably long time (1 hour) given the busyness of the restaurant and the constant to-go orders flowing out the door. When we did get our food, we were missing two sushi rolls we ordered and were not even sure which ones we were missing because we were not told what was what [they were complex signature rolls]. The server didn't come back for about 10 min after we got our food and then informed us that the two of our rolls could not be made because they were out of certain ingredients. We figured out one of the missing rolls was scallop-based, but the other was a California roll for our daughter- not something a sushi restaurant would run out of, or so one would think. The server offered to put something else in for us- however the restaurant was still busy and the prospect of another long wait was not something we were up for. Ultimately we were given three freezer-burnt, dried out mochi of indeterminate age to make up for the service mistake of not telling us two of our rolls were 86ed when we put our order in. I left hungry and disappointed, especially as this restaurant is a neighborhood place that I ask my family and friends to get gift cards for my birthday and visit regularly. I worked in the industry for years, right up until COVID and I made mistakes like that, but I always went above and beyond to make amends. I worked at the Kennedy School for 4 years so I know what busy is like. Sometimes it's worth the cost of a gift card or a comp to make certain your guests don't carry a bad association with...

After a long day of shopping in Portland, we were hungry and looking forward to some sushi out of the downtown area. Unfortunately, we were not treated very well on our visit.

The restaurant was fairly empty when we arrived yet the hostess wanted to seat us right by the entrance at a two top that was sticky and drafty whenever the front door opened.

We politely asked if it was possible to move to another table over in the more diner friendly area of the restaurant and were told "no", that those tables were held incase someone wanted to reserve them through Google.

While waiting for menus we noticed the area we were seated in was very dirty. The floor was grungy with crumbs and bits of food. The table we were seated at was sticky, had a hair on the soy sauce bottle and when I leaned in to hear what my wife was saying, my clothes stuck to the chair. I figured if this area was this dirty, the food area was probably bad, as well. We cut our losses and headed out. The food we did see at the bar looked mediocre, so I'm sure we made the right choice.

It seems like this restaurant gets enough techy traffic to keep them happy and doesn't need our business. Oh well. We found some decent sushi a little further down I5 on our way south and we'll never bother these...