Kumo Sushi — Restaurant in Rochester

My wife and I looked forward to dining at Kumo Sushi for a long while. We LOVE trying new restaurants when we travel for work.

The only good things I can say about this place is are : the All-You-Can-Eat price is unbeatable and well worth 31.99 per person. I’ve had shabbier sushi for much more. They will fill you up and it’s absolutely delicious.

Unfortunately, as much as I love tipping staff at restaurants (from waiters/waitresses to cooks), I couldn’t bring myself to tip them at all. I would’ve tipped the cooks if I brought cash, but that’s about it.

The waiter and I struggled with some language barrier issues, but that’s not his fault and I wish someone would’ve stepped in to help, especially since it wasn’t very busy.

My issue is that I have a cucumber allergy and I had questions on how they would accommodate that as I’ve been to MANY sushi restaurants and none have ever had a problem throwing in extra cream cheese or sweet potato or something.

The manager and staff told me they’d have to charge me extra (if I needed to swap cucumber with something else). I said I don’t think it’s fair, that I feel like I’m being punished for my allergy. Well, I let that one go.

So here we are; enjoying cucumberless sushi nonetheless. And then the manager lady starts yelling at her staff (and our waiter) right in the middle of the restaurant! Then she goes into the kitchen and you can hear her screaming in there too! And just as our waiter came to check on us (it’s 9:30), she comes over and cuts us off, telling us we need to order now and wrap it up. She’s obviously peeved, and bringing that energy to our table and there was a half an hour before close and we were, in fact, just getting one more salmon roll and leaving. Our anxiety was at an all-time high after her yelling.

Anyway, back to the language barrier. One of the last plates we ordered was a Philadelphia roll and a Boom roll. He said something about the boom roll and then no cucumber. I clarified and was like “yes, right, the boom roll doesn’t have cucumbers. It just has the eel, cream cheese, and avocado. We’re good! Thank you!”

Then he comes back with… 3 rolls. A Philadelphia, the boom roll, and just an eel and avocado roll. Now I can understand the confusion and it’s not his fault. Easy mistake with language barriers. So I left the roll and told him I didn’t order it but I see his mistake.

So some other staff dude that was cleaning comes and peaks at our stacked (finished) plates and claims I have to pay for them. I said oh no, I didn’t order that. The waiter comes up and.. maybe explains what happened? He insists : I have to pay for it because it’s still on the plate. I realize maybe it’s still not understood so I speak up and start explaining where things may have been misunderstood. Here comes the less than friendly manager, cuts us off for the second time instead of listening to our feedback. She’s obviously pissed but doesn’t charge for roll. I’m pretty sure she said something along the lines of “Stop talking/if you keep talking I’m going to charge you.”

They gave me a slip with a tip line and I couldn’t bring myself to tip. I instead wrote, “ I did not have a great experience. Maybe next time. Thank you.” And left.. Wife and I were really upset about our...

First off, our experience is based on having had sushi 100s of times from California to Maryland, ranging in price from $7-$45 a roll (just not Japan yet.) Before comparing Kumo Sushi to other local sushi restaurants, I'll give PRO's and CON's, unacceptable, and suggest what I'd like to see improve before consdering returning. PRO's: $20 for buffet (15% waste fee if there are uneaten portions) comfortable space, feels roomy but not outdated, inviting minimalist decor, when being served the waiter/waitress would smile. Food had nice presentation, tempura shrimp professionally prepared and filleted for tempura frying. (Tail laid flat and shrimp was butterflied.) Shrimp were not mini-shrimp. I didn't get sick. Maki and uramaki passable but very simple in terms of flavor, slightly mushy despite tempura added for texture. CON's: long wait for a self described buffet style restaurant. Nigiri arrived warm, the texture of the fish was mushy, slightly fishy smell which I could forgive the fishy odor as I obviously ordered fish (for the uninitiated sushi cuts should be a firm soft, so think icecream texture when it's still frozen from the freezer, leading me to believe it was sitting out and not refrigerated. (Maybe that should be under unacceptable). We had to ask for ginger and wasabi, for sushi rolls, and Nigiri. Through out the meal flavors felt very one dimensional such as the ramen soup which I had higher hope's for, and occasionally in conflict with others in the same dish. The Green Tea Icecream had a very proceed grocery store flavor like that of artificial flavoring, instant green tea, or Liptons green teas. UNACCPTABLE: observed waitresses fight over the electronic register, waiter/waitress and would pretend to not see you wave them over, as they went to a table behind you. Fish fraud, I ordered 2 spicy tuna, escolar, and salmon Nigiri style sushi; the spicy tuna/ahi was a white fish. If I were to hazard a guess I'd say tilapia or poor grade escolar.... raw tuna/ahi is dark pink, leaving me feeling insulted as though my host thought I was so ignorant as what types of fish they served looked like that I'd never notice, if I had been paying per roll, it most certainly would have gone back to the kitchen. Which I can say about most of our order. Mushy warm fish fillet on nigiri? Now for comparing to another restaurant. Our usual place is Ootori, who have a very good to high grade quality of fish which is treated with great care, with authentic styled dishes, americanized just enough to be friendly to experienced and the uninitiated to sushi, nigiri, maki, uramaki dishes with a seasonal pork belly ramen (very very good), Takoyaki and Korean items such as kimchee all at very reasonable prices, decent selection and good presentation. (See my review for them, ) I'd rate Ootori 10/10 and Kumo Sushi 3/10 and...

The food was great and the staff were very attentive. The place was a bit small but very clean. I would say, it wouldn’t be the best place if there was a huge party though.

There was a good variety of food to choose from and the food was very tasty. My table ordered our food and when it came out, they had combined the duplicate dishes and had the sushi all on one plate. This was fine as we were ok with sharing our food and eating a family style lunch. I love how it was a buffet so we can order as much as we would like. Also, some of the food has a small portion so we could order just a little bit to try each item. For example, the shrimp tempura. One order of the shrimp tempura comes with just one but if I want more, I can just order more. This comes in handy as we would be charged for food waste, which is understandable because it is a buffet and they don’t want people to be wasting food. I loved the fried dumplings and the fried shu mai! The beef udon was very tasty and refreshing as well. The soft and chewy udon noodles really went well with the crunchy veggies they had in the soup. I’ve never had sashimi before, but I tried their yellow tail sashimi and it wasn’t too bad. I was surprised that it wasn’t as fishy as what I had imagined and the cucumber slices they gave with it really complimented the fish.

Overall, I would definitely go back with my kids and as a date night. I live about an hour away from Rochester, but I would definitely make the drive just...