Soho Japanese Bistro

Where do you go for sushi in the middle of no man’s land? Soho!
The BF and I have been several times. Always good. Fresh and lovely presentation. I dislike the big television in the bar area, but I don’t have to sit there, so I can’t ding them for that. The dining area is dark and cozy. There is a separate area for the communal «chop chop chop,» but we’ve only done sushi so far. I love the wakame salad — –sesame oil, sesame seeds, cool, toothy seaweed. Plenty for two to share. The rolls are fun. Rainbow my favorite, the tempura laden ones, not so much, but that’s my taste. We’ll go back for sure.

I discovered Soho while staying a the Hampton Heritage Square. I’ve eaten here several times as I come to town. Everything has been excellent on every visit. I don’t usually go for the hibachi, as I am always on business and dining alone. It was fun hearing the cheers and laughter coming from the hibachi room. I usually go for some miso soup and and appetizer. This time I had the red snapper. Delicious and perfectly cooked! Very flavorful! The salad had a lot of dressing, so I would suggest getting the dressing on the side. My server was great. Very helpful.

I am from San Francisco/​Bay Area, visiting family for a few days. My cousins really like this spot, though they are not big on sushi, or Japanese, so I thought, let’s give it a shot!
Reservations were made, the restaurant was not busy when we got there, yet we still waited 10 minutes for a table.
After we had been seated, our server was extremely slow getting to us, even getting our drink order. After taking our food order, items started coming out… slowly. Definitely not the servers fault, maybe they were short staffed that night, not sure what the issue was.
We ended up flagging the hostess down a few times after our server not coming by to refill drinks, to get more ginger, etc.
My daughter ordered the Filet Mignon, it was not prepared to her liking, though I thought it was okay. The rolls that came with «crab», was not real crab. I wish it was specified beforehand. A bit of a bummer to get something and have it not be what you expect.
Maybe we do things different in SF?

This is a great date night restaurant. The chefs are engaging and the food is lovely. The portion sizes are generous and the prices aren’t expensive. The atmosphere was wonderful and my date and I enjoyed a beautiful dining experience.

We came here a few months ago and everything was much better. We were really looking forward to having dinner here again but we were left disappointed. It was not just one thing in particular. It was the time to receive the food, the time to speak with the manager, and his response that disappointed us the most. This is a shame because this is not the only place in town to get sushi. It just felt like everybody stopped trying. We are not planning on returning anytime soon.

I love this place. It’s relaxed, intimate, fun, and the food is great. I love the sushi here! And, if you love beer, and especially Asian beers, this place has them!

Seriously, one of the worst meals I’ve ever had. The sushi was… bland and poorly made, with the rice and rice paper lumpy and too hard. We also ordered a filet mignon stir fry, much of the stir fry vegetables were under-​cooked, the onion was harsh. The service was also very poor — loud and not very knowledgeable. Overall, a horrible experience.

Food was good but nothing special. Hostess was very rude, waitress was nice, chef was nice. Took forever (at least half hour) to get a chef. Had to ask several times for egg yolk sauce and they still forgot to put it on the shrimp. Dessert was served with no silverware and both parties at our table had to wait several minutes before waitress came back so we could ask for silverware, then she brought 4 spoons for 9 people.

Terrible horrible food. The noodle is over cook. And the tempura wasn’t crispy? Wasting money to eat here!!! I will never come back.

The waitress didn’t know if there was a lunch menu or different menu then the dinner one. The entrees are expensive. They come with yummy salad and soup but then the entrees aren’t very good. I got the filet. Ordered medium. It was pretty rare. A friend got the duck in blackberry sauce. It was disgusting.

There is no way I would want to recommend this place to any of my friends… After making the reservation 2 hrs before arrival, we were told to wait for another 10 min and then 10 more min and then 30 min later, we were still on the waiting list. They are not capable of taking care of their customers and their food is not as good as before. The restaurant was not busy, most of the dining table is empty and the staff are complaining a lot when they get together with their fellow workers. Don’t know how they can still price their food so expensive! Totally a stinky bomb

Absolutely disgusting food on tables, dishes and chairs. Rude waitresses and staff. Left before eating. Understaffed. Should have been a negative 10.

Crowded Tepenyaki room, there was a party at one table and they pretty much ruined our entire evening because they were so loud. They were like yelling and screaming so loud that you could not hear the people you are with. Can’t blame them for having fun, management needs to have a party room though.
The food
Pretty average Japanese steakhouse food.
Service
Not the greatest
I gave it 3 stars for décor and beer selection.
We noted how empty they were for a Friday night. There are a lot of Japanese steakhouses popping up in the area. Soho needs to step up their game and be competitive.

Soho really disappointed us last night. We went with a group of 5 girls from work and right off the bat we experienced poor customer service. The front hostess stand girls did not even smile at us and told us we had to wait to be seated until more people came. We asked if we could get a drink and they pointed at the bar and said nothing. Sitting down, 30 minutes after our reservation, we had our orders taken and we asked if we could get something other than beer or wine. The waitress said, «no, we just have beer, wine and sake.» My coworker then asked about the Saketini drinks she said she saw on line and the waitress said, oh yeah, we have those…
Moving on to dinner, the rice was SO bland. We had to dump soy sauce on it to get some salt content and flavor. My steak was medium well and I ordered rare and we didn’t get our vegetables until we were done eating. We had also asked for egg yolk sauce and the chef rolled his eyes we we asked about it. It was a very strange teppanyaki experience.
My husband really enjoyed the chicken fried rice that I took home to him, though. Also, the ambiance and lighting was very nice. I, sadly, will not be back.

I love this restaurant for many reasons! Just a few things (as others have reviewed) holding me back from a few more stars.
Let me start by saying if this review was based on food and beer selection alone, it would be 5 stars! We always go to the grill side and the plates are always delicious. To start you get a tasty miso soup and salad with a ginger dressing. Then the chef cooks your meal in front of you (more on this in a minute). We usually order a combo plate of chicken, beef, and shrimp. It comes with veggies and rice too. The portions are generous in my opinion… Enough to eat for left overs later :)
The cons mostly have to do with the wait staff and certain parts of the «chef show». The waitstaff (during our multiple visits) is inattentive and not very personable. They don’t seem to be very concerned in keeping up with drink orders and haven’t been very knowledgeable about the drink menu.
The «chef show» can at times be a little unnerving as well. I get that they want to be entertaining but if I don’t want to catch vegetables in my mouth or get water sprayed on me I feel like I should be allowed to opt out :) I usually don’t because I think it’s fun but it makes my husband all antsy.
We will go back because we love the food and craft beer selection and just keep hoping the service part improves.

We arrived 5 minutes before the place was closing, they didn’t mind at all.
They stayed for over 30 minutes over for us
They were kind, fast and the food was fresh and delicious!

I was visiting a friend at Notre Dame and wanted to go eat some sushi. I am giving a one star because I really liked the atmosphere of the restaurant.
I work at a sushi restaurant back at my college campus and I was surprised on how unprofessional this place was.
First, we had a party of 8 and was told around a 30 minute wait, but we ended up waiting around an hour and a half. They did not even give us a table, we had to point out the table and had to tell them that it was an open table.
Second, when I asked about some of the items on the menu, the two hostess gave me a bigger menu and told me that the answers to my questions was in there, but it ended up being the same thing as the paper menu, resulting in that the hostess did not have any knowledge about anything on the menu.
Third, when I ordered one of the nigiri in japanese, the waitress didn’t know what I was talking about. Then when I told her in english, she still didn’t know what fish I was talking about when it was stated right there in the nigiri section. She also did not seem very professional about her knowledge of the dishes or the fish.
The food was not very appealing to look at.
The rolls had very big chunks of the fish which was nice, but the rice on the rolls was very slim, and it looked like they were really trying to save as much rice as they can while making it because some of the pieces of the rolls were missing some sides of rice which was ridiculous.
Also, one of my friend ordered the teriyaki chicken and it came with 2 and a half piece of broccoli, and it did not look like a 22 dollar dish.
Overall, I feel like the atmosphere of the restaurant makes it seem like it is an upscale Japanese restaurant, but considering the food and the service, it’s pretty bad.
I guess I was full after two rolls, but I felt like I was getting ripped off.

We go here every year on our anniversary. We used to love it. Beautiful place, great décor, waterfall and fish pond. Separate sushi bar and grill and restaurant areas. Great food at a decent price and the sushi always looks amazing, is fresh and delicious. The service in years past was also very good. Attentive waiters, friendly sushi chefs and great hostesses. Even sometimes a free dessert and our waiters always talked to and interacted with us.
This year the service has taken a nose dive. We waited over 5 minutes before the hostess even acknowledged us. Then they sat us in the restaurant area and lit our candle which was nice. Our waitress came and took our sushi order. We asked her for edamame with a side of wasabi to come first with a hot sake to come with our meal. She brought the warm but not hot sake to the table with the edamame and no wasabi. We had to ask for more soy sauce a couple times also after having to track her down because she was no where to be seen. She spilled water on the table and left it, never came to check on us while we ate and wasn’t very friendly at all. While we sat there we saw other diners have long waits at the hostess station and often with no hostess to be seen. Then a Pizza Hut guy came and delivered 2 hot pizzas to the hostess desk.
We left after one course and didn’t even order dessert. It was VERY disappointing for our one special meal. We spent a whole lot less than we normally do at Soho because the service was just horrible. The food is very good but the service is awful.

I used to frequent Soho when I was a graduate student at ND. It hit the spot when I was craving sushi/​Japanese food (which was often!) but was stuck far away from any ocean in the midwest :(. This place has decent sushi options. There was usually a wait to be seated. The interior is very dark but modern enough — it definitely doesn’t have the generic/​chain-​restaurant vibe that many restaurants in the MIchiana area do, which is nice. Overall, if you’re craving sushi and in the South Bend area, this place is A-​ok to curb your cravings, but nothing amazing or outstanding.

This gets 3 and that is pushing it. Not from the sushi. The sushi I had itself was worth 5. What brought this review down was the service.
When I walked in there were 3 people at the hostess area. No one verbally acknowledged me. One girl just looked at me. So I asked for a seat for one for sushi. She then asked me if I wanted to sit at the bar like she was bored to tears. Then told me to go sit down and she would bring me a menu in a minute. …What?
Then the waiter came and he was nice enough. I ordered a couple rolls and the sushi chef did a great job and was really fast at getting it to me. But I had no soy sauce. So I asked the sushi chef. He clearly told the waiter to get it for me and I had to wait a few minutes to start eating because he took a good long time to bring the soy sauce to me.
I really wanted to enjoy my sushi experience but the service here was upsetting. The rolls I ordered were smaller than I expected for the price and I would have ordered more but I just wanted to finish my sushi and gluten free beer and leave.
They even have gluten free beer available! They would be such a great place if it weren’t for the service. That is why I gave 3 stars because the menu was worth 5!
Possible that Wednesday evening is not the best night to show up, but the service should be decent any time.