Sake Japanese Bistro & Bar

This place is my favorite sushi restaurant in town. The manager Matt is always friendly and knowledgeable. I like to try new things and they always have good recommendations and adorable price. The calamari appetizer is my favorite and my favorite roll is the Tiger roll.

I went 3 times in one week! I ordered the rainbow roll twice, the caterpillar roll once, and the unagi roll. I loved everything but the caterpillar roll. Fish was fresh and I would go back. The server could have been more attentive.

This place was on an upswing (kinda, sorta, considering their starting point) for a while, but, alas, I am disappointed. Service and food quality at Sake is mediocre, as sushi restaurants go. Geisha closes at 9:30 on Saturdays (odd, i know!), so we reluctantly patronized Sake. Of course, we were disappointed again. We had an Add Sheet coupon and were told «even though it says ‘show this screen to merchant’, we will not accept it unless printed out.» Of course, this is a way to deter the use of coupons. Why have them out there if you don’t want patrons to use them? If you want to be shady about it, you’re just going to lose patrons who are intelligent enough to realize what you are doing. We were told they only accept printed coupons — who prints an electronic coupon anymore? What is this, 2008? Anyway, I left disappointed once again. Their management is just not doing it right, in my opinion. I really want to like this place — I’ve given it so many chances. I wish they would train their servers appropriately and stop trying to cut corners because they do have some attractive features, including some menu items/​specials (that Sake Special is a good deal), drink prices, and that fact that they post Add Sheet coupons (even if they embarrass you when you try to use them). Can we please get it together, Sake?

EDIT: how does one rate a sushi place in the middle of Missouri? As a teriyaki/​tempura place? As a bar? As a sushi roll (i.e. lots of sauce, little or no raw fish) place? As an actual sushi/​sashimi place? The 2 stars are as a sushi place (and not adjusted for being in CoMo); but if you (more reasonably) just get tempura and rolls or something, it’s fine (3 – 3.5).
The tempura was pretty good, although lacking my favorite tempura item (kabocha). The rolls were enjoyable enough. We got one rainbow roll, to try the 5 pieces of sashimi on top separately. The salmon was pretty good, but the other 4, not so much, so glad we didn’t venture more into the sushi/​sashimi. But, if you restrict your order to fried stuff and rolls where the fish is chopped into tiny bits and covered with other flavors, sure.

Food was great. Some of the best sushi and calamari. Try the dancing marlin, it is definitely worth the trip. Service is also top notch. Very friendly and attentive staff. Very nice atmosphere.

Good, but a little on the pricy side for what I expect sushi in Columbia to cost.
We had the following:
Pork dumplings w/​ginger sauce — Yummy
Tempora appetizer — Meh, everything tasted the same
Mizzou Roll — Yummy
Big-​O Roll — Super yummy
Tiger Roll — Meh, a little bland
Nippon Roll — Yummy/​Meh
Nothing was bad. It was a mix of meh and yummy.
The restaurant is a little too trendy looking for my taste, but everything is new and clean. The server was patient and friendly.

This place is cool, Friendly staff. Very bistro style food and a decent selection of sake if you’re into sake. The sushi was Good, the Mizzou Roll was the best of the Three that we tried. My one complaint is that Columbia is so Midwestern half the sushi on the menu is deep fried.

Very good sushi rolls! The Mizzou roll was excellent. Presentation of the food was just ok, not as good as some of the sushi places I have been to. Very clean and modern inside.

We have eaten here 3 times and will not be back now. Everything is very tasty with the exception of sashimi (raw fish) which is why we go. It has not been fresh at all. So if you aren’t into that, then this place is very nice. The rolls are quite good. The service is also wonderful

Very nice and modern looking sushi bar. I am a huge fan of their Udon Bowl and the Aspen Roll which consists of salmon, mango, avocado all rolled up in rice paper. The only reason I’m giving it one star less is because I think the taste of the food can be inconsistent at times. For example, the Udon Bowl can range from delicious, to overly spicy, to kind of bland, presumably depending on the chef currently working. My guess would be that each chef has a different dashi recipe that they follow for the Udon Bowl’s broth. However, overall it is a very satisfying experience!

Nothing spectacular. I think the chef at Sake needs to realize he has competition. We went there today and asked about their special soup of the day… the waiter described it as a delicious crab soup… but forgot to mention how over-​poweringly spicy it was. I think the soup would have been watery and bland if not for the super spiciness of it. We did eat it to our regret, but we did mention our surprise to our server and he did nothing to appease us… he only mentioned the crab fritter (basically a crab cake in the soup) as if that was the excusable factor for it being tasteless. Mmmm soggy fritter. He was inattentive. I kick myself for not returning the soup and leaving. When I asked about the size of the seaweed salad the waiter’s delusion got the better of him. His description was way off. $ 6.00 for a measly seaweed salad. This was all before we ordered the soup. The Sushi was okay, but the rice was too dry according to my boyfriend. We would have gotten twice as much for half the price at Kobe’s on Broadway. Kobe’s has better quality of food and is reasonably priced. I realize there are a lot of loyal costumers at Sake… and they don’t understand what good sushi tastes like by settling for mediocre food. A waste of ingredients.

I’m very disappointed with Sake. I’ve been coming here since the year it opened, and back then I remember really liking it… but I suspect it’s just because I love sushi and there wasn’t an alternative. Now, Columbia has four sushi restaurants. I’m sad to say that Sake hasn’t adjusted. They are the worst of the four and also the most expensive.
Today, I blew $ 40 on two soups, a roll and an order of nigiri. The soup was watered down and had way too much pepper, the rice in the nigiri was dry, and the roll was about what you’d expect at a grocery store. It was so disappointing. I wish I would have walked the three blocks to Geisha or taken the drive to Kobe.
The only good things I can say about my experience today… first, the service wasn’t horrible. Second, the interior design is nice. Third, the plates seemed clean. That’s not enough to keep me coming back. This is the last time I’ll be coming to this restaurant.

I have always found this restaurant to be good and recently it got even better. The food is very good and the service, amazing. They have a chocolate-​tini to die for.

This place is great! The tuna is overnighted from Hawaii ! That’s rare! We had the calamari — the tuna tartare — edamame and Maguro tuna ! It was all top notch. I’ve been to other sushi here in town n this one is the best. Service was stellar also. And the food presentation was as well.

This place is amazing! Everything I’ve tried has been great so far & the happy hour specials are a tremendous bang for your buck. Nice place for a date, random dinner, late lunch, or maybe to pre-​game it before going out for the night.

My wife loves sushi I on the other hand not so much. With that said I was able to stomach all the fish and my steak was wonderful!

For Sushi this as good as it get in Columbia. When I go out for sushi, I get a spicy tuna/​salmon roll and one that I’ve never had before. The last two times I was here I got the Mizzou roll and the Tiger roll (yes they are 2 different rolls) in addition to my usual spicy salmon roll. WOW they were both good! This place is up there with Drunken Fish and Sub Zero sushi bars in STL. Oh and the spicy tuna was good too.

Just stopped by for a Sake at SAKE. WOW!!! The fly their fish in fresh 2 to 3 times a week and being from California I can totally tell. I love it when a place tells me their in season specialties.
I had some hamachi (delish) some ikura (awesome) and mussels that were flown in fresh from Prince Edward Island. Yes they were fresh, sweet and tender.
The staff was fun, and informative and the service was top notch and attentive.
These guys just purchased, remodeled, upgraded this place and as far as I’m concerned it is the best place in Columbia for sushi, and if you are a foodie, there is no other choice for sushi here.

Very nice décor and the waiter (Mark) was very friendly and courteous. However their food is not good at all. Their rolls are not much different than the ones from a grocery store. #dissapointed

Their sushi is delicious, not really worth the price though. They had a saxophone player that was a bit too loud, my date and I had to yell to hear each other.