I Don’t Recall Ants Being On The Menu – Moshi-Moshi
Author: Bookstore Piet // Category: Moshi-Moshi, heat, restaurants, richmond, sushi
Lethargy. That’s the only way I can describe the way I felt yesterday. Day 4 of our fun little heat wave/ozone alert left me sticky, tired, cranky and feeling like I had taken up smoking again. My HVAC people didn’t help as they didn’t show up for a scheduled annual check-up that I had for yesterday. Admittedly, my AC was working (to an extent) and they had been swamped with calls from people whose AC was not working at all. Annoying but understandable. So, as I was sitting in a just barely enough cooled house, when M called, the last thing I wanted to do was fire up the stove or oven to cook any food for dinner. We decided what we needed was a nice cold plate of raw fish in a nice cool restaurant….
Sadly, the AC at Moshi-Moshi wasn’t up to the challenge. We arrived, ordered drinks and appetizers and proceeded to perspire. The apps were good. We got our favourite, the tempura shrimp (10 pieces, a value RVA Foodie would be proud of) and we tried the pot stickers for the first time. Finn loved them, filled with fresh tasting shrimp, and after a bit of hesitation he started gobbling up the grilled tofu. Great food aside, I was getting a bit worried about ordering raw fish in the heat of this dining room.
Moshi-Moshi still only does huge orders of sashimi (6 pieces for $12-$15) and doesn’t have any combo platters on the menu. I grumbled this to the waitress and she produced a sheet of paper from her pocket that outlined some platter options. Eureka! A way to get an array of fishies without ordering way too much food. I decided to go with the mega platter and pass the California Roll off to Finn. The platter had 4 pieces of salmon, 4 of white fish, 4 of white tuna, 4 of albacore, and 8 pieces of chefs selection of sushi. The verdict? It was ok. The pieces were huge, almost too big, but it wasn’t too exciting of a selection. For $35 I would have been better off ordering exactly what I wanted even if that meant sushi sizes and giving the rice balls to Finn. I also felt kind of rushed to eat quickly as the fish quickly moved to room temp in the heat of the dining room and went from nice and firm to soft and mushy (moshi?).
Finn ate the California Roll so fast we were concerned he was going to choke himself.
Normally, I order hot sake to go with my little fish bites but even I, who drives around with his seat heater on in this weather, couldn’t quite stomach that in this heat. Moshi-Moshi has a very nice list of different sakes that are served cold. I had actually never tried cold sake but, as the descriptions on the sake list were very educational, I decided to take the leap. I chose one that claimed a light pear flavour yet dry rather than sweet. It was exactly as described and was refreshing in the heat. As I was the only one drinking I was concerned about the sake getting warm and loosing it’s appeal. The waitress, who did a great job throughout, paused at the dilemma and then came up with a solution to keep my sake cold. She also apologized for the uncomfortable temperature in the dining room. Seems it has been an issue even though they had been assured the system that came with the building was sufficient, they are looking into solutions to the problem. I can imagine it won’t be cheap.
Speaking of issues left from the previous occupants of the space….
When Finn finished the California Roll as well as the rice off my sushi he decided to go exploring… I mean, annoy the other guests. After a couple of admonishments he began to play around our table and, like any other 3 year old boy, play with his favourite insect, ants. The ants, which frequently do not survive the encounter with Finn, were all over the floor. This was also the moment I started picking them off my arms and legs. Ugh. A few words with the waitress informed me that they were aware of the problem but hadn’t been able to resolve it. Ummm…. Call an exterminator perhaps? Yes, I know, there are much worse insects to find in a restaurant but I still don’t like them crawling on me.
Overall? The food was good – still think they can do better on the combo options though. The service was better than our last visit. We’ll go back in the fall when it’s cooler in the dining room and the ants have gone into hibernation.