Migoto — Restaurant in Seattle

We went to Migoto looking for a casual sushi dinner. The atmosphere was pleasant, the service was friendly and attentive but we were quite disappointed in the food. Generally, prices were on the high side for sushi in Seattle. Practically every sushi roll on the menu had tempura shrimp, other fried item or mayonaise. When we ordered vegetable tempura ($8.50), the waiter asked us if we'd like to try the fried garlic calamari instead, which we ended up ordering. The dish that arrived was a mixed green salad with a small pile of below average fried calamari on top. Not only did the waiter not mention that the dish was essentially "a salad", we were pretty appalled to find we were charged over $25 for this very mediocre special. The sushi rolls we ordered were for the most part, loosely formed and somewhat hard to pick up without having them break apart. We were dismayed to see that two of the rolls were drizzled with a flavored mayonaise. Finally, one other annoyance was that the sushi chef was singing out load as he was closing; not well and not even the song that was playing over the restaurant sound system. I would not recommend...

They don't understand food allergy. Once that became clear, I had to order carefully to avoid the conversations about ingredients.

They don't seem to know much about Japanese seaweeds. When asked if they had hijiki, the waitress (co-owner, I think) hadn't heard of it. When I explained it's a kind of black seaweed, she said yes they have seaweed salad. It became clear she'd never heard of hijiki, and she insisted there is only one kind of seaweed, and it's green!

The sushi was tasty but very soggy. When my husband told them I didn't like it (but I pointed out I would pay for it anyway), the chef came out from the kitchen and got defensive, basically telling me I was wrong. (Not to like it, I guess? To expect nori to he toasted?) He opened a fresh hag of nori to show me that it's already toasted. He wanted me to touch it, I refused - seeing as that wouldbe unsanitary, if it was going to he used in some future customer's sushi.

He said all sushi is made on demand, never ahead, which is good. So maybe their rice is too wet, and it's wetting the nori? I don't know, and don't...

Service was great! I came during the dinner rush and was still warmly greeted by the hostess even though she was juggling phone orders, and I only had to wait about 10 min for my food. Unfortunately, I can't praise the food the same way 😔 I got the King Midas roll and Samurai roll, and both rolls were pretty average.

King Midas: The salmon was a bit too tough and firm for my liking and it didn't have a prominent flavor. I thought the filling would be real crab meat, but it was imitation.

Samurai: The soft shell crab was pretty mediocre, not much flavor here either.

Both rolls fell apart way too easily, and some of the pieces were lacking in filling. The prices are about average for this area, but the quality didn't quite...