This weekend I had dinner at MoshiMoshi, an Asian fusion restaurant in Richmond’s Carytown.

You might like first to read about Moshi elsewhere:

• Style Weekly
• Adventures in Food and Fashion
• Read, Drink, and Be Merry

It’s been hot this weekend, and we were looking for a place that was cool. After arriving, we were ushered upstairs at Moshi Moshi where… it was still warm. Granted, the restaurant indoors had far less humidity, but the inside was still… balmy, in that bad type of way. I am sensitive to temperature, and it likely didn’t bother other diners. The dining area is small, but it was kind of fun being upstairs. The decor is minimalist, with wood tone throughout, and the atmosphere, despite what I read in at least one of the links above, was quite casual. The bar downstairs and the comfortable vibe would make it a great place for a “bite” to eat—thinking appetizers, sushi rolls, and a few drinks—if you were in the “neighborhood.”

Destination restaurant? I’m not so sure.

I am not sure I’ve ever sat so long at a restaurant deciding what I wanted to eat. This was not the fault of the waitstaff, they were plenty efficient. I just couldn’t figure what I wanted. I think I’d want one thing, then… change my mind, because it had something in it I didn’t like, or thought would be bad. Among our party we tried the calamari appetizer (good sauce, crunchy tempura batter, not sure what was inside mattered—could have been anything with the same taste), spider roll, spicy salmon roll, avocado roll, miso soup, two different steak entrées, seafood with mixed vegetables, and raw tuna with fried avocado wedges in a citrus sauce.

I don’t care for fusion food’s authenticity; it’s not authentic, period. But it can be delicious. The sauce I had with my steak entrée was good; I cared less for the taro root “whisps” on top. And while i was served rice, I would have preferred something like… wasabi potatoes. The citrus sauce with the fried avocado was great, but I’m not sure there was enough sauce for all the supposedly “seared” tuna on the plate. As one diner said, “That tuna was supposed to be cooked, but it didn’t come inches near any source of heat!”

The miso soup, everyone agreed, was… disappointing. It was watery, it had difficult to chew and eat chunks in it (not sure what of, perhaps some kind of fried onion?), and even adding soy sauce to the soup didn’t make it palatable. Should have opted for the salad, although it was typical, chunks of iceberg lettuce with a sweet gingery dressing.

The sushi items were not bad, in fact, while my steak was tasty and cooked well to perfection, I liked the rolls best. I detest these 5-10 ingredient rolls with so much sweet sauce on them that are more and more popular nowadays. These had a good quality mouth feel with the rice, and good texture. Flavor wasn’t bad, either. Yet, some of the rolls wrapped in nori were falling apart; the nori “peeling away” from the roll. I’d never seen this before.

While some in my party said they’d like to return to Moshi Moshi, I can’t say it would be high on my list. No one thing won me over: the restaurant was relatively quiet, the bar list didn’t have any exotic cocktails (but did have a pretty extensive sake collection), the decor was plain, the aforementioned temperature warm, and while some of the food was above average, other parts of the meal disappointed.

Again, service was good, but not superlative. Three of us got our entrées at once with the help of an extra waiter, but the fourth had a 4-minute wait for his. Don’t you hate that, when hot food is delivered, and you can’t eat because you are waiting in kindness for others to get theirs? When the waitress returned, she asked how everything was. Good manners would have dictated a non-response since none of us should have tasted anything yet, left waiting.

I’m glad I tried Moshi Moshi, as it had escaped my normal radar. If I am in a Japanese mood again and find myself in Carytown, I can’t say I won’t go back… but now I know what to try more of, and what to avoid.