On a Monday afternoon back in June, my sister and I just happened to have the day off from both our workplaces, so we decided to hang out together (aw). After a day of shopping, we wanted to have sushi at one of her favorite restaurants in Towson, Sushi Hana. Alas, Sushi Hana was closed. We went to Kyodai, another sushi restaurant that she likes. Also closed! Refusing defeat, we walked around for a while, before finally deciding on Jasmine Asian Bistro. That ended up being a meal that somewhat satisfied our palette but tried our patience.
Generally, my rule of thumb is that any place that has the words "Asian" and "bistro" in it is usually something to avoid. After dining at Jasmine Asian Bistro, I wish I had listened to my gut instinct instead of just my gut.
Inside, the restaurant was tastefully decorated, with booths and smaller tables on one side, and a sushi bar on the other. We sat down and decided to order Thai iced tea and iced coconut juice for drinks, and coconut shrimp and Japanese shu mai for appetizers. For sushi we picked white tuna, unagi, salmon roll, dynamite roll, and the dragon roll.
Initially, the food came out promptly. The coconut shrimp was elegantly presented, lightly fried, and it seemed like the start of a promising meal. The shu mai was acceptable. I personally am not a fan of shu mai, but my sister likes it, and even she thought it was nothing special. After we had finished our appetizers, my sister went out to feed the meter. Then our sushi arrived. That is, all the stuff we ordered, except for the white tuna and salmon roll. We decided to go ahead and eat anyway. The rolls were overall tasty, though not the best I've tried. I thought the dynamite roll tasted like it was filled with hot Thousand Island dressing with chili sauce and rice. Yuck.
During our entire meal, the server checked up on us a couple of times (as in literally looked at us but didn't say anything). She did not offer water or asked if we wanted refills of our drinks. Our sushi also came to our table without any chopsticks or any small dishes for soy sauce/wasabi. Keeping in mind that at this time, we had arrived at the restaurant around 5 pm, and the restaurant was not crowded at all except for maybe 2-3 small parties. There were about two or three servers, excluding the sushi chef.
When we finally finished our sushi, we had to gently remind them that we had ordered the white tuna and the salmon roll. Well, that took a long time for them to bring to us. I don't understand how they could forget that we ordered two additional rolls, because we marked it on the a-la carte menu! Out of the corner of my eye I saw the server fishing through the pile of orders at the sushi bar. Shouldn't ours be among those at the top? Not sure if they found our order, but they finally brought us the white tuna, which was swimming in some kind of watered down chili sauce. It didn't taste all that good, and didn't look like "seared white tuna" to me. They also forgot the salmon roll, which we had reminded them about earlier.
By then we were getting kind of pissed off, so we asked for the check. They did not charge us for the salmon roll, but they did charge us for sake, which we didn't order at all! But then I realized that with our two drinks it would end up costing more than the sake on the bill so we just paid and left.
This was a decent meal but the dining experience was so frustrating, that I cannot recommend this place unless you are the type of diner with the patience of a saint.
more