Midori’s Floating World Cafe

Nice restaurant. I liked the sushi I ordered. Very good salmon and it was fresh. I also liked the miso soup I had.

We were in the mood for sushi and remembered this gem in our neighborhood. They have a lovely selection of tea and a surprising about of desserts to choose from. We had a garden roll, salmon skin, soup, gyoza, and ginger ice cream. All was delicious!

Maybe my favorite sushi place in the Twin Cities — the rice seems fresher and the spicy salmon/​tuna rolls are actually spicy. There are a few other sushi places that are closer and a little cheaper, but I still always end at Midori’s. Service has always been fast, and the place has a very family-​owned feel to it (a few times when I’ve called for take-​out, they’ve been like «Let me check with Midori on how long it will take»). The ambience is cute and colorful, and it’s a great place for a date or catching up with friends since its usually quiet enough that you don’t have to shout over the background noise.

Sushi and salads are above average. The service is slow and the soy sauce is virtually inedible. Please note: even when the place is ¾ empty you will wait for service for awhile.

Imagine that your eccentric Japanese aunt decided to move to Minneapolis and set up a spot for her homesick expatriate friends. She’s got grandchildren coming through creating crayon and finger paint art, which she mounts on homemade hanging decorations. She created a whimsical space with origami, upside down paper umbrellas, and colors that remind you of a Japanese summer festival. All her friends crafted decorations from Japanese materials scrounged up from somewhere, the likes of which you will never see in Japan but somehow still remind you of Japan, not Pier 1. She cooks up food just like her mom made in postwar Japan, and she serves them on dishes that look like they’ve been collected in Japanese fleamarkets over the past half-​century. In the background she plays some CDs that she scooped up on her last trip to Japan. It’s stuff that she likes, not J-​pop her customers might prefer.
I have no idea if that actually happened, but that’s exactly how I feel when I walk into Midori’s Floating World Café.
As Asian food increases in popularity and availability, my expectations for Asian food, particularly Japanese food, just goes down year to year. I completely did not expect this place to knock my socks off.
It started with the salad. The salad dressing seems to have been handmade, with fresh herbs and a taste that seemed both familiar and new. The rice was cooked perfectly, not overcooked and no browned bits from the bottom of the rice cooker (which does happen in restaurants, believe it or not). The rice was sprinkled with black sesame seeds, a nice touch. My mackerel box dinner had just the right amount of food, and was beautifully arranged. The mackerel was tender and cooked perfectly. The meal also came with small portions of seaweed salad and somen (thin noodle) salad served in sake cups. There were small slices of banana, orange, and apple carefully arranged, with a small cluster of Japanese pickles in the center. The restaurant seemed to have no interest in catering to supersized American tastes, or the Midwestern custom of fried things with cheese (although I did see some kind of cream cheese wonton in the dessert menu). For me, the real showstopper was the yakiniku (thinly sliced beef cooked with broth and vegetables). Most places season it with sugar and soy sauce and call it a day, and on a good day you might get sesame oil and hot pepper for an extra kick. This dish was made with love. The beef was simmered slowly with small slices of vegetables such as red bell pepper and kabocha squash, with layers and layers of flavor. I couldn’t identify everything, but I definitely tasted ginger and the proprietor (I assume this was Midori) said it was cooked in vegetable broth.
The menu was relatively standard for Japanese restaurant. Don’t expect pages and pages of exotic rolls named after baseball players or inventive dishes like burdock root sticks served with Camembert cheese. But I have a soft spot in my heart for places that focus on the basics, and do them really well. This restaurant fits in that category.
I imagine most Unilocal reviews will focus on sushi, ignoring the fact that most real Japanese people don’t eat sushi very often. But for your homesick Japanese friend or relative who really cares about Japanese food, you need to take them here. I think they would be pretty happy.

This restaurant is amazing!!! I’m not even a sushi person and I eat here!!! It is small but comfy. I love their food! I can’t eat raw seafoods, and most sushi places have cooked sushi but it’s just not good. But here… Amazing. Their tempura is extraordinary. Their. cooked rolls are too. The dining is a bit slow. But it is completely worth it. The best desert I’ve had there was the amazingly crunchy and sweet lemon custard stuffed wontons. Although the syrup tasted like sugar inducted cough syrup. It tasted great!!! Come here and have a experience you won’t forget!

It breaks my heart to write this review. As someone who has eaten at Midori’s well over thirty times since the place opened (and moved), we won’t be back.
We fully expected the «quirky» service, and know well that food can take up to an hour after ordering if you are there with several other tables. That said, we had a two-​hour and twenty minute ordeal. By the time the food for our table of six arrived– and only for two people in our party– it had been an hour and 45 minutes, and three other tables who had arrived after us had been fully served.
At her best, Midori is an artist, and she’s a warm and wonderful person. The issue is that the venue has never figured out how to scale for service, and the waitstaff is entirely hit or miss on competence, with either no idea how to communicate or no permission to do so.
If you go, choose a non-​rush time; be ready to state your expectations openly and politely. The food is very good, and if the service issues can be solved, we’d happily return.

Why didn’t I find this place sooner! Great ambiance! Nice happy hour all day on Wednesday’s with $ 3 beer and $ 4 rolls. The chirashi bowl was fantastic, $ 19 a fair deal especially with the avocado included.

A charming restaurant environment that will lift your spirits when you enter and sit down. Great place for lunch with girlfriends or a date.
Prices are very reasonable.
Staff is very friendly and attentive.
Best tempura I’ve had!
Try the banana wonton dessert!

What’s wrong with Unilocalers? 3.5 stars? I don’t get that –at all-​. This is one of my favorite, if not my very favorite Japanese restaurant in the Twin Cities and –also– one of my favorites in the world. Maybe there have been some staffing changes in recent months that I haven’t observed, but I was last there just in late Feb. and the service was just as it has always been– great. Aha, I get it now after reading some of the negative reviews– some people don’t seem to get that this is a small, family owned place and that sometimes when it’s busy they do sometimes get a bit overwhelmed. You just have to go in expecting that and make your peace with it. It’s worth any wait you might experience, I think.
In fact I’m such a huge backer of this place in part BECAUSE of the personal connection that the head chef, Midori, is so enigmatically able to form. I really like her and I really like that one of MSP’s best sushi restaurants is owned, operated and chefed by a woman. She is NOT chatty, but she IS sweet and kind, in my experience. I used to love sitting at one end of the bar while her cute little daughter played at the other end. It was, as we say in Danish, «hyggelige» (meaning cozy, comfortable, pleasant, etc.).
Also, one thing most reviews have in common, even the negative ones is «all the food is good». It is. Full stop. No, wait, it’s freaking great. I’ve heard that several other sushi chefs in town come here to eat. They do that for a reason. Midori knows her stuff. And the menu is very wide ranging besides sushi as well so there’s lots for that person in your group that still doesn’t get raw fish. Also! The spam sushi is legendary. Apparently this is a Hawiian thing but it’s a hilariously appropriate little tidbit for MN, too, considering this is the home of spam. I haven’t used appetite on it in a while, but COME ON, you have to love two perfectly cute little pigs riding on top of the perfect sushi rice Midori’s boasts. Where else in MN (or the lower 48 for that matter) can you get THAT?
Oh, and the happy hour is great! Fantastic deals.
I also love the ambiance. I do sorta miss the other small hole in the wall location but the big windows on the new one are, technically, a lot nicer.
Parking has become more of a challenge as the neighborhood has developed, but it’s doable.

Midori’s is a wonderful gem in South Minneapolis.
The staff is always friendly and seems to really enjoy working at Midori’s.
The freshness of the sushi is excellent and has yet to let me down. I would say Midori’s is the best Sushi in Minnesota! They have great happy hours specials and when compared to other sushi restaurants around town they cannot be beat.
For those that have issues with the pace of the service I urge you to realize they work very hard and the staffing levels are very minimal so the amount of work they do the fact that Midori is the only Sushi Chef, they do a damn fine job! I suggest getting over yourself, relax and have a drink while you wait :)

The location (Lake Street) and atmosphere are good. I appreciate that it’s located in a diverse, non-​upscale neighborhood. The vegetable udon is fresh and beautiful, and I appreciate that you can get Shiitake broth instead of bonito broth. However every time I’ve been here it’s been very cold inside the restaurant. There’s not double door or foyer so if it’s winter, every time the door is opened a blast of cold air enters the small restaurant. The service is also spotty. Last night other people were served first because of a «mix-​up» and my vegetable udon took one hour to reach the table from when we sat down at about 6. Also, the vegetable tempura appetizer is strangely small. When I asked if the temperature of the room could be turned up, the server said she would check, but then never gave me an answer. She also forgot to give us hot /​moist napkins-​in-​a-​bag (but other people got them) (No big deal, but, another detail ignored). Midori did come over and apologize and comped us our meal; I would have gladly paid and had good service. The restaurant was not busy, there were perhaps four or max five other tables filled (about half the restaurant). If Midor’s can fix the temperature and the service (perhaps hire more experienced/​older servers?) I would definitely return. As it is, I probably won’t go back any time soon.

The food was fantastic! We ordered 6 sushi rolls and some dumplings as an appetizer. The food was extremely fresh, well prepared and well executed. We couldn’t ask for anything more from the food. The cocktails also were wonderful. I had a green tea, sake and lemon drink that was one of the best drinks I’ve ever had. The cocktail menu was creative and unique, i really enjoyed it. If I was rating this place purely one food and drink, it would get a higher rating.
The downside was the service. Right off the bat it was a bit awkward. Our server was not knowledgeable about the menu and was extremely inattentive to our table. It’s a small restaurant and I believe they had three servers working which is more than enough to cover the tables they have yet more than once we had to get up and track down our server to order something. Water was never refilled, neither was hot water for tea.
We were warned that food takes a little while since Midori (the owner) is also the only chef. It was obvious Midori loves making the food and is very good at it, so the wait was not a huge deal. However, with the wait for food our server should be checking on us, we would have ordered more food actually if she had asked us. Being sushi we wanted to order in waves but didn’t have the chance since she didn’t even stop by to ask how the food was.
We were in no rush and were happy to hang out at the restaurant for a while on a Friday night, but being it’s a restaurant we would’ve preferred to continue ordering food and not just sit at an empty table.
The place could make so much more money if they just payed attention to the service aspect of the place like they do to the food.
Sadly none of our group will be going back due to the service, it saddens us because we thoroughly enjoyed the food.

It’s been awhile since we had visited Midori’s. Thank god they don’t serve the regular size bento boxes for take out, the mini ones were plenty for me. Very good sushi, not great, but very good. And pretty decent prices too. We had the sushi and tempura boxes and enjoyed them. Tempura really needs to be eaten on site and not taken home and we will do that next time. Still very tasty.

Midori’s is just a simple neighborhood restaurant, but it is by far my favorite place for sushi in town. I urge you to try their happy hour and stay for dinner.
Without a doubt, they serve the best vegetarian and vegan sushi I’ve ever had. Their noodle soups are also superb and something I frequently crave. Consistently the best tempura I’ve had as well. It is always perfectly prepared and has a great variety of veggies.
The atmosphere is pleasant but not super romantic — so good, but not ideal, for a date.

A group of friends came over the weekend for an early dinner. There were two other tables when we came. We were greeted and seared right away. But then no one came for another 15 minutes and no explanation or apologies given.
The server seemed indifferent and appear just wanted to take down the orders and go. Our questions were answered mostly in one or two words. Perhaps that’s a sign of how the dinner would progress.
We ordered several specialty rolls, some nigiri sushi, and a plate of sashimi for the sashimi enthusiasts in the group. It took about half an hour for the food to come and we really hoped the food was worth the wait, and we were hungry by then. Unfortunately, that was not the case. The rolls had a lot if rice, I mean, a lot, an unusual amount of rice surround the ingredients, which weren’t much flavor of themselves. The quality of the fish on the nigiri and the sashimi were mediocre. Better than the supermarket sushi but definitely not what we should get at a sushi place.
We barely finished half of what we ordered and the server said nothing when she took those away.
Overall, the service was disappointing, the food was even more disappointing. We really wanted to love this little place but don’t see how we would ever return nor recommend to anyone.

I’ve gone to Midori’s a number of times now, and my experience has largely been the same each visit regardless of what I order. Namely, the food is decent and the prices are pretty typical for non-​happy hour sushi/​Japanese food. That being said, it’s not my *favorite* Japanese restaurant in the Twin Cities and I mostly go out of convenience because it’s in my neighborhood.
The restaurant itself is small and typically I’ve only seen one or two servers working at a given time. That being said, service is great and staff is always very attentive. They’re also good about making recommendations and can answer most questions about the menu.
They have a huge tea list, some specialty sodas, plus beer and wine — which of course includes sake. I’ve never tried their sake cocktails but they have a list of these as well and I’m sure I’ll eventually give them a shot.
If you’re ordering sushi, it’s good to check out the specials. They can be hit-​or-​miss but worth checking out just the same. You’ll receive a slip of paper with the various sushi offerings and can make selections this way. I’m not sure if it’s easier for the sushi chefs or if maybe this is a way of eliminating any communication confusion when people mis-​pronounce certain rolls or something? Either way, expect that. I don’t recall if any of the non-​sushi menu items are also on this checklist.
For appetizers, I’ve tried the edamame (good but standard), the vegetable gyoza (soft interior, slightly crisped exterior, good flavor, typical dipping sauce), vegetable tempura, seaweed salad (which I can’t find on the menu… maybe it’s called something else?), and miso soup. All were pretty good, the gyoza and seaweed salads being my favorite.
For entrees, they offer some chef’s choice sushi or tempura plates, bento boxes, noodle dishes, and rice bowls. Of these, I’ve only tried the Saikoro-​donburi rice bowl («diced raw tuna, salmon, hamachi, shrimp, egg, avocado, veggies, with spicy sauce over rice» for $ 17). Rice bowls come with a small soup (miso or shiitake broth) and a side salad. At $ 17, I was expecting a pretty mind-​blowing experience. It basically sounded like it would be a deconstructed sushi bowl. However, it was EXTREMELY bland (where was the spicy sauce?!) and the bowl was mostly just filled with rice and then topped with skimpy portions of everything else. Needless to say, I was rather disappointed.
For dessert, they actually have a few vegan options which I appreciate. I haven’t tried the Daifuku («sweet azuki bean paste covered in a soft mochi rice shell») yet but split the Banana Wontons («four deep fried, wonton wrapped banana chunks, served with fruit syrup, whipped cream») with friends and was pleased. Of course, deep-​fry anything and I’ll probably like it.
Check this place out if you’re in the neighborhood, but recognize that it’s not cheap. If you keep expectations in line, you’ll probably have an enjoyable experience!

The sushi is a pretty solid 3.75; service is unfortunately a 1.25.
Background: was craving the sushi. NEEDED the sushi and needed it asap. We were on a pretty tight schedule that night, so the manfriend called Midori’s beforehand to see how long of a wait we would expect for a two-​top.
Ring ring — guy answers phone, proceeds to start dialing before he realizes someone was on the line.
After a somewhat awkward exchange of conversation, we learned that we could get seated at the sushi bar really quickly since no one was sitting there and there were a few tables open. So, we rush over. Place was relatively busy… maybe 5 out of the 9(?) tables were occupied and the sushi bar was completely vacant. After standing around for a bit, we were eventually greeted by the waitress and told that the sushi bar was actually closed. We explained that we had been told otherwise no more than 10 minutes earlier, but all we got was a blank look and a shrug. Ok… table for two then.
What happened after that was basically just a muddled mess of poor organization, management of time, management in general, and customer service. We sat for a while before receiving any attention or water although there seemed to be three different people running around… one person might have been from the kitchen, the other I think was only pouring waters leaving the one waitress, who was kind of in her own special world, to deal with everyone herself. Meanwhile the sushi chef, unfortunately suffering from a migraine (which is why the sushi bar was closed… why didn’t the guy say anything about that earlier?), looked like she was in absolute misery and wanted to either serve everyone bad fugu or run screaming out of the restaurant. Anyway, the overall «vibe» we ended up getting was one of aloof, scattered indifference pretty much from everyone (except the poor sushi chef… I know your pain, fellow migraine-​sufferer!).
The sushi itself was really tasty — the rice was well seasoned and not overly gummy and the fish was super flavorful, especially the scallop. My reason for the 3.75 rating was how meager a slice of fish and egg we were given on our nigiri. Very thinly sliced, to the point where it was almost rice with an essence of fish; this was best demonstrated on our tamago sushi… seriously, it’s egg. No reason to skimp on that.
We spoke to some friends about our experience and showed them the pictures of our sushi, and they were a bit shocked at how thin the servings were and said that was unusual. Perhaps it was because of the migraine. I’ll definitely give it another shot, maybe not on a friday night but a random weeknight. Hopefully I’ll feel a bit more sushi-​satisfied and the customer service will be less of a mess.

Complete disappointment at an overpriced price. Our party of 4 contemplated a few options one being a combo including sashimi and a California. A few of us don’t like California rolls so we asked if we could sub for an equal or cheaper roll and were told NO.
We all ordered miso, 4 rolls, and the sashimi plate. The miso tasted like water and the sashimi plate (chefs choice) was offensively undersized with paper thin cuts of meat. It looked like an appetizer.
We were all still hungry but refused to order anything more. After paying the $ 85 bill we walked across the street and got pizza off the truck at Harriet Brewing.
The service was unhelpful with no real suggestions or recommendations. Sorry Midori’s there is too much competition that make a real effort to get my sushi business. We will never return.

Yes, the service is slow. Unconscionably, mind bogglingly slow. But we’re all Unilocalers here so I’ll assume you read the reviews and know the deal before you go.
On to the good stuff, delicious sushi at a reasonable price, wonderful miso and lovely salad. But the star of the show, the absolutely most amazing thing available at Midori is the Saikoru-​donburi. Imagine everything you love about a sushi roll in one delicious bowl of goodness. And I mean everything; tuna, salmon, hamachi, shrimp, egg, avocado and veggies. Served over perfect rice with the most amazing sauce in the city.
Do yourself a favor and try this sublime dish. But be sure and try to find that sweet spot between hungry enough to savor your meal but not so hungry that the wait is intolerable.