Springfield, MO Entertainment

Trying to find the Wayo: A Foodie Review

Posted by Brett Johnston

CIMG0361 224x300 Trying to find the Wayo: A Foodie Review

Wayo tries to shake the fast food history of the location.

The grand opening for Wayo is the first week of March (1-5), but they’ve been open and rolling. We had been curious about the giant “SUSHI” sign on South Glenstone. The outside has not changed at all, except for signage and a few windows, so I had images of Taco Bueno‘s interior still in mind when we entered through the side. While booths still border the outer wall, they are raised and made semi-private with a black plywood enclosure. Red curtains separate the booths (firm benches) from the rest of the dining area. It’s a nice concept to try to pull in an intimate Japanese feel at a friendly price. We were immediately seated before a kind staffer delivered a plate of fried bananas to stave off a mini-tantrum from my son – an extremely nice gesture.

We made a simple sushi-and-rice only order from their pretty standard roll menu, with a few additions like the Glenstone Roll (deep-fried California Roll). Complimentary miso soup is always an appreciated bonus. Our order included the Caterpillar, Spicy Tuna, Firecracker and 911. Our order took a little more than 35 minutes to arrive, which didn’t help the case for the backless wooden benches and the 911 was forgotten but joined the table a few minutes later. I should mention there were only five tables seated and we counted three servers. In general, the rolls were quite disappointing – small portions, tough shrimp, chewy spicy tuna which wasn’t at all spicy, the Caterpillar was an avocado roll drowning in eel sauce, etc. It was the first sushi experience in which I did not feel compelled (read: didn’t necessarily want) to finish every roll – we did finish everything but it was more a product of the portions. The hardest part to swallow was the premium sushi price tag. For those rolls, three sides of rice and waters to drink, the total came to $56. It seems like there may have been a miscalculation along the way when it came to getting the quality, presentation, and price aligned.

While it’s just the beginning, there’s time for Wayo to adjust. The biggest positive was the friendly and responsive staff. One of the most uncomfortable situations is getting asked if everything tastes great when you can’t answer “yes”. Unfortunately this was one of those occasions. I went with the response of upward nod, a sip of water and look down.

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  • bradbelote

    I tried Wayo the first week it was open. No one was in there but it still took a while to get my order.

    Sushi was fine – not Mijuri good – but acceptable.

    Complimentary soup was good too.

    But I found it a bit pricey.

  • http://BobsWhineAndDine.com Bob

    I went there on day 3 of their opening with my brother and his family . My brother and I got the spicy chicken dinner and it was very, very spicy – almost too hot for me to eat (and I like spicy food). I would say 98% of people would have sent it back and asked for something else. If the spiciness had been toned down a few notches, it could have been a good dish.

    One of the servers was too friendly in my opinion – hovering and talking to us way too much. The staff messed up our orders in several different ways – for example we got our order of sashimi at the end of our meal even though it was the first thing we asked for. I’m pretty sure that the messed up orders were due to the ‘talkative’ server (who wasn’t even our main server) who kept trying to help us.

    Even with the hovering at times, Diet Coke refills (as well as water) were few and far between which got me a bit frantic at one point as my spicy chicken was causing 2nd degree burns in my mouth and esophagus.

    My wife liked her teriyaki chicken bento box and said the chicken and sauce both tasted good. We also got a spicy tuna roll that wasn’t spicy and was pretty small.

    We made a special request for just some noodles for my nephew (he is 5) and were told that was not possible – we would have to order a noodle entree. However, after a few minutes the head chef came out and said we could have the small bowl of noodles after all. The noodles were really good – with a very light coating of something sweet. The head chef guy was really nice and came out at the end of the meal with some more fried bananas for us.

    I too found the prices to be higher than I expected with two entrees, one roll and one diet coke totaling just over $40. At least the fried bananas were free.

    I expect I’ll be back to give Wayo one more try – but just one.

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