Mifune Bistro

Oh boy. Where to start.
Upon arriving, the wipes tables smelled bad.
Fair enough, we’re hungry, so focus on the menu. Plenty of Ramen /​sushi /​sashimi /​rice dishes. Let’s go for Ramen and Donkatsu.
Bad choice. The Ramen ($ 9) came with Chinese noodles in a thick, undistinguished sauce, with half of an egg and pork. I ordered miso broth but couldn’t taste any of it. It had more the texture of curry than a ramen broth.
The Donkatsu was also disappointing. Pork and egg mashed together on top of dry white rice.
What is it that Japantown has great Japanese stores but the restaurants are such a disappointment? Drive a few blocks to Tataki on California and Divisadero — MUCH better food right there.

Took my friends from Sac here few days ago. To be honest, it’s an average rating food. The workers are nice. We got our orders quick but the taste doesn’t amaze me. I ordered the tonkatsu ramen, my friend ordered the special ramen (I think?) and my other friend ordered the donburi. We also ordered the karage and the calamari and a salad. Unfortunately, the salad was not good. Maybe it’s the dressing that killed everything. I couldn’t remember what the waitress said but the dressing was disgusting. I think it was mixed with vinegar and mayo and something else that I couldn’t remember. We were seated pretty quickly on a Saturday night which was nice. Overall, it was an okay experience and I think next time if my friends want ramen, I would take them elsewhere around the area.

I’ve been here several times and I’ve always had a good experience here. My favorite thing to order is the sukiyaki nabe (udon). This noodle soup is flavorful and delicious and comes in an iron pot. We also had the chicken katsu curry and the chicken was perfectly fried and it went well with the curry.
The sushi rolls are a bit pricey. I’ve never tried their ramens.
Order right and you can’t go wrong!

My friends and I were craving for some nice hot Ramen and was planning to go to Suzu Ramen House but ufortunately the line was too long and our tummy was growling so we decided to go somewhere close by. We came across Mifune Bistro and since there were no waiting line, yay for us. When we were seated, it took the staff a while to come back to take our orders when we were ready. Basically service wasn’t that good, if you needed something you have to use some arm muscles to flag them down cuz they won’t come back. Although service wasn’t at par, the lunch special Cha Su Ramen was alright but the side order gyoza was pretty burnt so didn’t like that. I’ll come back if other places have long lines and I’m starving lol. But if not, I’ll most likely go somewhere else.

I would say 4.5÷5 actually
Good food, decent price, nice service
Many options of food including ramen, don, sushi, etc.
I came here three times.
First time I got a katsu don. Huge portion of katsu ALSO the rice… totally can’t finish it
The second time I had a salmon chazuke. Still, lots of rice with only a little salmon on top.
The third time I came and had a tonkastu ramen. This time the food is in the right portion.
Food always taste good. I can come here again, but with not much desire. Food taste good overall.

We are regulars here because we get great service from the staff of Thai women who take orders and bring the food to the table. The comfort food at this restaurant is very flavorful and the surroundings are very clean. The cooks do a nice job but I think the strength of this bistro is the terrific teamwork among the women staff in sharing work duties and interacting with customers. They deserve a grade of A versus a D or F at the sister Mifune restaurant upstairs in the mall.

Let’s make it 3.5 stars for the really good customer service. (And hopefully I’m reviewing the correct Mifune restaurant… my friend and I dined at the one right across from Maido and some toy store)
I love the display of food just outside of this restaurant… makes you hungry and lures you right in haha.
Anyway, customer service is really nice and attentive, but when it comes to the food alone, it’s decent, but not the greatest…
Our orders:
–Appetizers: Just a note, they serve a pretty generous portion for appetizers… I pretty much made a meal out of it… we ordered the fried octopus and fried chicken… karaage, however you spell it. The octopus was over cooked… the breading tasted good, but the octopus itself was tough to eat to the point where chewing started to make my mouth hurt… we didn’t finish it. As for the karate, the breading was good and the chicken was nice and tender… it’s fine without the ketchup.
–We ordered Tonkatsu ramen and Chicken Yakisoba as our entrees. My friend’s tonkatsu ramen okay, but the noodles were on point. I ordered the chicken yakisoba… tasted good, but again, nothing to blow my mind with.
–The highlight of this lunch was when we were about to leave the restaurant, my friend decided to take home a bottle of Sake, so we bought a bottle for $ 10. It turns out that the sake was to be purchased as part of your dine-​in, but she was nice enough to tell us that since we already dined in and paid for our food and sake, we could just take it home. How nice of her!
This lunch was a great start to our hours-​long journey around the mall lol…

Not bad, decent ramen for me. My husband and I come here on Sundays since it’s on our way home from church, sometimes we’ll come early enough before the lunch rush and service is great. When it’s during lunch rush that’s when you can tell the servers are in panic mode and it gets unorganized.
No biggie, I understand. But really wish they would slow down, didn’t even get to order a soda because the waitress just said she would get me a water before running off. Chill! Haha

I am not sure why there is a huge difference between the Mifune Restaurant in the main mall or the Mifune Bistro next to the bookstore, but the bistro is a million times better.
The family and I went the there for dinner on Sunday and was pretty surprise it was pretty empty. We tried the other Mifune a couple of months ago and had a really bad experience. I was rethinking about it but my mom wanted to try it out so in we went.
The service was way better than the other Mifune, which was really bad. This place came by eventually to take our orders without. They came by with food in a timely manner, and came back to check on us a couple of times. Not great, not bad.
The food was good. We had a California Roll for the kiddies. It’s a California Roll, no complaints. The spicy tuna roll was good, instead of chopped up tuna, it was large chunks with spicy sauce. The Rainbow roll was also delicious, nothing special, but not bad.
Both my wife and I order ramen from here. The soup was really soup, I think they actually made at least part of the soup, instead of powder form. There was a nice think film on top, a clear indication of house made soup base. It was nice and thick, with nice handmade noodles.
Pops had the nabe beef. Looks good, he didn’t complaint. It had a mountain of food in, soup, beef, mushrooms of all sizes, tofu, udon, stuff. Came with sauce and rice.
Moms had a Japanese ribeye, which was the highlight of her dining experience. So good and tender, couldn’t help but try a little of it. Came with the cast iron plate with veggies with rice and dripping sauce and flavored salt on the side.
Yakisoba with steak was good as well, just like yakisoba from other places but the difference was the huge pieces of beef it came with.
Overall,. good dining experience, service could have been better, meh. The food compensated for the lack of semi good service.
So, tip of the day, two different Mifunes in the Kintetsu mall, one in the restaurant row, DON’T GO TO THAT ONE. Another downstairs by the toy shop, called Mifune Bistro, go to that one.

DO NOT GO TO ANY OF THOSE MIFUNE.
The food sucks all the way. Not a single dish which I’ve tried were close to even acceptable. Not to mention the entire staff including the cooks were all South East Asian, not like I have issue with where they came from, but how do u expect someone from other countries can make traditional Japanese food? I mean they tried to act like they were Japanese gave u the bow and all that that’s cool, but the food is completely wrong and taste awful. Do not go to any of those Mifune, its not The Mifune you and I know anymore.

It was Christmas night and there weren’t many options available so we settled for Mifune Bistro. Tried their Nabeyaki Udon which was served in an iron pot and it was pretty bland and disappointing. Overall the food was meh and the meal was pricey.

This place sucks. The food tasted horrible. My gyoza fell apart when I picked it up. Wth???
After eating there, I felt so sick. The grease sat in my stomach.
The service is so so.
There are so many other choices in Japan town. Go to any of them.
Seriously, ugghhh.

Testy noodle with soup. I ordered a steak with noodle soup. It is so good. The service is ok because it was peak hour when we walk in.

When I get a craving for tempura or Japanese curry I make sure to come out here. This is the sister place to Mifune Don and Mifune which are also located in the Japantown area.
I’m usually torn between getting the katsu chicken curry or the tempura Don. Both are super filling and always hit the spot.
Usually the side is a salad with yummy peanut dressing or miso soup with tofu or egg.
Beside the main entrée I get a scallop and crab roll with a spicy sauce, which is always tasty that my companions always try to eat all of.
The Gyoza, calamari, and house salad are also good items to get.
Usually the people I’m with end up getting the chicken teriyaki don or the beef ramen which they always enjoy.
I like the atmosphere here since its down stairs and a bit hidden. Which makes it pleasant to have a convo with your peeps.

The one called beef shabu, it was horrible.
Beef was stinky. I can just tell when they served us it smelled that something was wrong.
Broth flavorless. Wonder how can they even make that broth. Noodle was worse.
Nevertheless service was awful.

Home made curry?
That’s totally BS because I can make better curry than this shit.
Cya-​Soba? BS too, because I can make better curry than this shit.
I think that’s enough for my BS review.
But, I do wish the place gets better.
I really do hope so, for J-town’s sake.
I’ve heard the owner is an AH.
WTF?

I have never hated my dining experience so much until I ate here. My go-​to spot for ramen is hands down Suzu Noodle House (which is next door). I was craving ramen on New Years day and of course Suzu was closed so I decided to give this place a try.
The restaurant was full when we arrived but we were seated immediately. And this is where it starts to go downhill… We sat there for 10+ minutes, waiting for a server to come by or bring us water, and nada! After awhile, a group of Caucasian folks seated next to us, got their water immediately and ordered their food within 2 minutes. We had to flag down the waiter that helped the table next to us to order our own food! At this point, I was already irritated by their services and the wait.
We ordered fried soft shell crab for starters and I had the seafood ramen. I was a little disappointed with the soft shell crab, it only came with one, the décor around the crab looks better than the taste. My seafood ramen had no wow factor. The broth looked oily, dark, and the overall taste of my ramen was bland. After we finished, we sat there waiting another 10 – 15 minutes for someone to come by and check on us, still no one bothered stopping by. Once again we flagged down a random server to get us our check! He dropped off our check and disappeared again for another 5+ minutes!!! At this point, I was furious and almost tempted to walk out and ditch the bill. Once again, we flagged down the server to give him my card to pay the bill, we also made a verbal complaint that the services we had was terrible and unacceptable. The server didn’t care to acknowledge our complaint.
Overall, I would NOT recommend this place to anyone! The food was below average, but worst of all, the workers here are slow, and inconsiderate.

I’ve been coming to Mifune for three years now. It’s always delicious and I would recommend anything from their menu. However, their wait staff can be quite rude some times and the wait on your food varies. Sometimes it’s comes right out, sometimes you’re waiting half an hour.
Overall, for a place in the J-​town mall, it’s not bad. They also serve Japanese beer and sake. If you want a sit down restaurant inJ-​town you can actually afford, come here.

Terrible service, below average food. Try the one upstairs (Mifune Restaurant is much better.)
The service at this restaurant was not only slow, but inconsiderate.
I came here with a group of friends. We were seated very quickly, but the service just dragged on after that. I remember sitting there for at least 20 minutes before waiter came to take our order. I ordered a donburi, which is usually a safe option in my opinion. By the time my friends actually started getting food, I had already lost track of how much time we waited. When I got my donburi dish, almost all of my friends had finished eating (and they are not known for being eating quickly). In addition, they forgot to give me the miso soup that was included with the dish. I had to flag down a staff member to remind them.
The worst part of my experience had yet to come. I was about a third of the way through with my dish when they pushed a check onto our table. They expected us to leave after giving me my dish approximately 5 minutes ago. Also, they automatically calculated an 18% gratuity into the bill. I know this is standard practice for larger groups, but I do not believe this level of service deserves it. We paid the full amount anyway.
I was so disappointed with the service. The food seemed to be cooked in a rush and the staff was very neglectful of its customers. Don’t come here. I had way better food and service at Mifune Restaurant, upstairs.

Ugh.
Bad ramen.
The end.