Went yesterday to Mishik, a newish Japanese restaurant in the Hudson Square neighborhood. We chose to eat here bc there were still Vday reservations available when we were booking, and I’ve wanted to check it out because of how nice the interior looked.
We felt duped because as soon as we sat, we were told there was only 1 menu for the night – the $200 per person tasting. The issue here is that when we were booking, Resy and Mishik’s websites mentioned NOTHING of a tasting menu for Vday. Typically their regular a la carte menu is about $100 pp which is very acceptable for a restaurant of this caliber… but $200 per person without warning? It felt duplicitous.
As for the food… nothing stood out or was memorable. The quality of the cooking and taste is very average. For a place that is charging $200 per person, I would expect the food to at least have something to rave about. But nope – everything was very average.
As for the experience… it felt like an average restaurant with very average service. The tables were kind of close together, which is not acceptable for a restaurant charging this much for a “tasting”. The staff seemed inexperienced, needing to check with management when we asked very simple questions.
I feel like this type of behavior is unacceptable for a restaurant… to force a captive audience to eat their overpriced $200 mid “tasting” menu without forewarning. Not all chefs can do a proper tasting menu, and Mishik definitely cannot.
IEatTooManyCookies
That sucks. They definitely should have had some kind of valentine’s day menu at least on their website. My girlfriend and I balled out on Tuesday at another restaurant to avoid the vday menus and just ate at home last night.
Deutsche_Bank_AG
Valentine’s Day food everywhere is basically always a rip off. Why wouldn’t it be? The restaurant gets a huge influx of people who otherwise wouldn’t be dining out at that price point but for the holiday, and who will likely never return. The restaurant packs the reservations as full as possible to wring every dollar out of the outsized demand, so the “tasting menu” is more so they can make/prep everything in advance in the necessary quantities, the let us sit in the fridge till you get there. Of course it sucked—you guys were the suckers that ate out on Valentine’s Day.
FitzwilliamTDarcy
Repeat after me: do not eat out, anywhere, any restaurant, on Valentine’s Day.
It is, as a rule, amateur night.
Clear_Helicopter_607
Agreed it’s a license to steal every holiday. However you weren’t a “captive audience” you could have declined and gone elsewhere. Plenty of decent places in the neighborhood.
e-buddha
Mantra to recite: I do not support Hallmark Holidays!
isuamadog
I had a dinner reservation at a restaurant. We moved to the bar to order from the menu. It was fine.
WaitForSingleObject
This place sucks on regular nights as well
sbarber4
We went to same neighborhood Italian place we’ve been going to for 40 years for all occasions from the mundane to the truly special.
Same menu, same prices as any other day. Made the reservation about 6 days ahead. Couldn’t get a 7pm, so got an 8pm.
It was lovely, as always. Not fancy. Salad, wine, entree. $90 for 2, including tip.
OP, sorry you were taken advantage of. It’s too common on holidays and not just visitors who have to deal with this but also not universal.
blue_suede_shoes77
Rookie mistake. Valentine’s Day, Mother’s Day, New Year’s Eve (am I leaving any holidays out?) are terrible days to eat out if you’re looking for value. It’s demand and supply. A lot of people want to go out those days so restaurants jack up their prices.
Remarkable_Common312
Just to defend the restaurant’s basic premise – I have never eaten there and never heard of it, so have no dog in this fight – it is almost always the case that any remotely nice restaurant will have a pre fixe menu for Valentine’s day, and in my experience that menu is always overpriced relative to a given restaurant’s typical menu.
It’s honestly a bummer that it was not flagged by the third party reservation sites, but is an incredibly common practice for restaurants on V Day.
krugo
I was sat at the sushi bar last night and had the first 3 on your menu + 12 pieces of nigiri and dessert. I think it was 165, and we had no choice (I was expecting the ~135 omakase).
While they were helpful with allergies, the staff was slow and inexperienced with drinks, and I got an embarrassingly small pour on a glass of wine, which one of the other staff members fixed for us without much complaint.
I thought the fish was quite good, but would have been overpriced at the regular $135 price.
I likely won’t be returning since there are other places in this price range or cheaper I’d like to try.
Negative-Rich773
I’m with you to a degree on this. You weren’t held at gunpoint, but you were duped. You made a reservation. And given the language of their reservation process, they needed to let people know within 30 days of Valentine’s Day that on that day two menus were not available as stated on their website. Nobody forced you to stay, but you can’t look like a dickbag on Valentine’s Day by saying “fuck this” once you’re already seated, or being a Karen and asking for the manager upon hearing about the menu bait and switch
ab216
Wife and I went to local bar and paid $78+tip including 2 drinks, no reservation needed and then watched Love is Blind in bed.
futurebro
Yo I work at a restaurant and last night it seemed like half my tables had never been to a restaurant before. Amateur hour.
If I ever have a partner on V day, we are staying in and cooking.
VisitPier26
I agree that it seems you were duped. But $200 pp is unfortunately par for course in NYC for Japanese tasting menus/kaiseki /Omakase/etc
kyliejennerslipinjec
This is partly why we never go out on Valentine’s Day
mead1
Soogils vday tasting menu is one of the best dining experiences I’ve ever had in nyc, or at least it was a few years ago. I’ve never had another vday menu that wasn’t mediocre bullshit.
thxmeatcat
Tbh this is not surprising because it’s been this way for years. Not many restaurants don’t have an overpriced, mediocre pre fixe for vday. That would be my default assumption unless you wanted to call ahead of time to ask, which no thank you I’d rather just not eat out on vday
PrincessGwyn
Going out on Valentines Day is a scam. Restaurants charge crazy amounts just because of the “holiday”
thighcandy
Why are people defending this? OP shouldn’t have to embarrass his date on V day just to not get swindled. This is gross and the restaurant should be called out. A lot of restaurants do this but this was a total bait and switch and should be against the law.
nyc-dad
My wife and I decided to go out to Le Pavillon on Valentine’s Day. I know i overpaid by $100 pp probably and it’s a restaurant I would never typically go to (we don’t do fancy midtown) but…. seemed like a good excuse to dress up and go fancy and have a fun night. sometimes it’s great to make a splurge and celebrate being a couple (30 years married) and we can afford the splurge. Not everything is dollars and cents and we had a fun fun evening.
jwelsh8it
We had a surprisingly nice meal at Bar Boulud last night. Not that we were expecting a bad meal, but it exceeded our expectations (which were lowered from past experiences).
Chose this place as we had tickets for the ballet across the street (which was amazing, btw).
24 Comments
Went yesterday to Mishik, a newish Japanese restaurant in the Hudson Square neighborhood. We chose to eat here bc there were still Vday reservations available when we were booking, and I’ve wanted to check it out because of how nice the interior looked.
We felt duped because as soon as we sat, we were told there was only 1 menu for the night – the $200 per person tasting. The issue here is that when we were booking, Resy and Mishik’s websites mentioned NOTHING of a tasting menu for Vday. Typically their regular a la carte menu is about $100 pp which is very acceptable for a restaurant of this caliber… but $200 per person without warning? It felt duplicitous.
As for the food… nothing stood out or was memorable. The quality of the cooking and taste is very average. For a place that is charging $200 per person, I would expect the food to at least have something to rave about. But nope – everything was very average.
As for the experience… it felt like an average restaurant with very average service. The tables were kind of close together, which is not acceptable for a restaurant charging this much for a “tasting”. The staff seemed inexperienced, needing to check with management when we asked very simple questions.
I feel like this type of behavior is unacceptable for a restaurant… to force a captive audience to eat their overpriced $200 mid “tasting” menu without forewarning. Not all chefs can do a proper tasting menu, and Mishik definitely cannot.
That sucks. They definitely should have had some kind of valentine’s day menu at least on their website. My girlfriend and I balled out on Tuesday at another restaurant to avoid the vday menus and just ate at home last night.
Valentine’s Day food everywhere is basically always a rip off. Why wouldn’t it be? The restaurant gets a huge influx of people who otherwise wouldn’t be dining out at that price point but for the holiday, and who will likely never return. The restaurant packs the reservations as full as possible to wring every dollar out of the outsized demand, so the “tasting menu” is more so they can make/prep everything in advance in the necessary quantities, the let us sit in the fridge till you get there. Of course it sucked—you guys were the suckers that ate out on Valentine’s Day.
Repeat after me: do not eat out, anywhere, any restaurant, on Valentine’s Day.
It is, as a rule, amateur night.
Agreed it’s a license to steal every holiday. However you weren’t a “captive audience” you could have declined and gone elsewhere. Plenty of decent places in the neighborhood.
Mantra to recite: I do not support Hallmark Holidays!
I had a dinner reservation at a restaurant. We moved to the bar to order from the menu. It was fine.
This place sucks on regular nights as well
We went to same neighborhood Italian place we’ve been going to for 40 years for all occasions from the mundane to the truly special.
Same menu, same prices as any other day. Made the reservation about 6 days ahead. Couldn’t get a 7pm, so got an 8pm.
It was lovely, as always. Not fancy. Salad, wine, entree. $90 for 2, including tip.
OP, sorry you were taken advantage of. It’s too common on holidays and not just visitors who have to deal with this but also not universal.
Rookie mistake. Valentine’s Day, Mother’s Day, New Year’s Eve (am I leaving any holidays out?) are terrible days to eat out if you’re looking for value. It’s demand and supply. A lot of people want to go out those days so restaurants jack up their prices.
Just to defend the restaurant’s basic premise – I have never eaten there and never heard of it, so have no dog in this fight – it is almost always the case that any remotely nice restaurant will have a pre fixe menu for Valentine’s day, and in my experience that menu is always overpriced relative to a given restaurant’s typical menu.
It’s honestly a bummer that it was not flagged by the third party reservation sites, but is an incredibly common practice for restaurants on V Day.
I was sat at the sushi bar last night and had the first 3 on your menu + 12 pieces of nigiri and dessert. I think it was 165, and we had no choice (I was expecting the ~135 omakase).
While they were helpful with allergies, the staff was slow and inexperienced with drinks, and I got an embarrassingly small pour on a glass of wine, which one of the other staff members fixed for us without much complaint.
I thought the fish was quite good, but would have been overpriced at the regular $135 price.
I likely won’t be returning since there are other places in this price range or cheaper I’d like to try.
I’m with you to a degree on this. You weren’t held at gunpoint, but you were duped. You made a reservation. And given the language of their reservation process, they needed to let people know within 30 days of Valentine’s Day that on that day two menus were not available as stated on their website. Nobody forced you to stay, but you can’t look like a dickbag on Valentine’s Day by saying “fuck this” once you’re already seated, or being a Karen and asking for the manager upon hearing about the menu bait and switch
Wife and I went to local bar and paid $78+tip including 2 drinks, no reservation needed and then watched Love is Blind in bed.
Yo I work at a restaurant and last night it seemed like half my tables had never been to a restaurant before. Amateur hour.
If I ever have a partner on V day, we are staying in and cooking.
I agree that it seems you were duped. But $200 pp is unfortunately par for course in NYC for Japanese tasting menus/kaiseki /Omakase/etc
This is partly why we never go out on Valentine’s Day
Soogils vday tasting menu is one of the best dining experiences I’ve ever had in nyc, or at least it was a few years ago. I’ve never had another vday menu that wasn’t mediocre bullshit.
Tbh this is not surprising because it’s been this way for years. Not many restaurants don’t have an overpriced, mediocre pre fixe for vday. That would be my default assumption unless you wanted to call ahead of time to ask, which no thank you I’d rather just not eat out on vday
Going out on Valentines Day is a scam. Restaurants charge crazy amounts just because of the “holiday”
Why are people defending this? OP shouldn’t have to embarrass his date on V day just to not get swindled. This is gross and the restaurant should be called out. A lot of restaurants do this but this was a total bait and switch and should be against the law.
My wife and I decided to go out to Le Pavillon on Valentine’s Day. I know i overpaid by $100 pp probably and it’s a restaurant I would never typically go to (we don’t do fancy midtown) but…. seemed like a good excuse to dress up and go fancy and have a fun night. sometimes it’s great to make a splurge and celebrate being a couple (30 years married) and we can afford the splurge. Not everything is dollars and cents and we had a fun fun evening.
We had a surprisingly nice meal at Bar Boulud last night. Not that we were expecting a bad meal, but it exceeded our expectations (which were lowered from past experiences).
Chose this place as we had tickets for the ballet across the street (which was amazing, btw).
Was it good tho?