Misora Express

Misora Express is one of my favorite lunch spots in the city (that list is still growing: D), and why not since their choices of bento boxes make me feel like a kid in a candy store. Oh wait, I am STILL a kid in a candy store, how relevant! :p
Back to bento boxes: look carefully at the options, because you just might find what you REALLY want. I will go out on a limb her and recommend ANY of the bento boxes, though you are also welcomed to try the individual menu items.
But back to the bento boxes: I have gotten the tempura bento box and the teriyaki tofu bento box, and I have been surprised both times by how much care and thought the cooks put in to make them look and taste wonderful, a well-​balanced meal (not unique to this establishment, but notable!).
Althought Misora Express is small, it is worth your time and effort to go — BENTO BOXES! (there, I’ve said it one last time)

Great deals for lunch!
Decided to meet a friend in the city for lunch and ended up in Misora. They have a great selection of bento box lunch specials at reasonable prices. You’ll get miso soup, house salad, half a california roll, seaweed salad, rice, and another thing or two ON TOP of your entrée choice. Don’t worry, they don’t put quantity ahead of quality.

Came in for a quick bite as I am still trying to hack the cheap sushi scene in Philadelphia.
After seeing that the prices weren’t so express I decided to go with one roll. No spicy salmon was left so I ended up with spicy tuna.
All in all the sushi was okay, but for roughly $ 7.50 for six pieces I expect to be a bit more blown away. If i’m eating cheap sushi, that’s fine I have made my bed and I will sleep in it full but I unfortunately don’t plan on going back.

For $ 10 the bento boxes are a great deal and have tons of variety for anyone who doesn’t want to get just sushi or salad. The place is small but there is plenty of seating. There is also a small 5% discount if you pay with cash. Overall nice place for a quick meal in the city for lunch!

Lots of tasty and very affordable options when I’m craving Japanese food but not necessarily sushi. The beef negimaki and Japanese curry hit the spot. Plus, everyone who works there is extremely friendly and helpful. Great place to grab a quick lunch or bring home some take-​out for dinner on your way back from work.
They also do salads, and not just Japanese or asian inspired ones. I’ve never had one, but they are made to order, as-​you-​like-​it a la SaladWorks and look pretty fresh.

Come here if you like fish sliced as thin as a Victoria Secret lingerie model.

What can I say?
I was working in Philly for a couple of days and this place was around the corner from my office. I only came here for one reason: bubble tea. Something about this drink makes me latch on to it like the blood of Christ. Every time I came to Misora I ordered the Thai bubble tea. Sooooo sweet and blended with ice… amazing. They have other teas too that I might try if I find myself in Philly again.

i primarily eat their lunch boxes (bento boxes) but friends have eaten their salad bar. very affordable, but also very small! do not expect to seat a party together…
Their portions are HUGE especially for the price. if you are a small eater you may want to split the box. i am NOT a small eater and even i have sometimes taken stuff home.
with the box you get a miso soup (nothing too exceptional, its good, not OMG!)
a rice (ditto)
and then your box…
almost all boxes come with a salad with dressing, and a seaweed salad or noodle salad (i dont remember the names, sorry, see my review below)
i have ordered the vegetarian box… a warning note! everything in it is fried except the cucumber roll and salad. its good, but can get greasy. the age tofu is … well its bland, and a bit greasy. frankly i dont suggest it. the vegetable tempura is excellent however. even though i know the tofu will be «meh» i still order this when i am feeling HUNGRY… seriously this is huge. as i said i am a BIG girl and eat a healthy amount, and i have split this one…
the salmon teriyaki box has a really large piece of salmon. its not sushi grade, or «spectacular», but its good. and a big portion. i am a bit of a salmon snob, so when i eat the salmon there its pretty good. the teriyaki sauce is a bit sweet and heavy, but also good. ii admit i like it sweet, so for ME its great.
i do not recall what the noodle salad is called, but NOM NOM NOM i could eat a whole box full of it. its a warm slightly smokey taste cold noodle salad. a friend said it was Korean. i dont find it anywhere else.
the seaweed «salad» is often served with the sushi at other places. its good. a friend said it was definitely up to her sushi standards also.
the sushi i have had has been good, basic, sushi. nothing stunning or etc but good. i have had the cucumber (default with most boxes) the salmon (prettyy good!) and the mock crab (decent)
my friend who ate their salad bar ended up raving about it FOR the price. as she said, its not the best in the world, but its like 3 meals! she isnt a small eater either and she boxed up most of it to go home.
also…
DISABLED FRIENDLY
now if you are in a wheelchair, its a tight fit. this is a small place… but i brought my dad here with his hearing ear dog and they were VERY courteous and got us a place to sit so she wouldnt get her tail stepped on, even though the seating is a tiny area.
i am on a cane, sometimes a walker and they have usually brought me my food. very good nice staff.

The best lunch time sushi in the area.
I’ve eaten sushi at a few other places in this immediate area and they make me feel all tingly (in a bad way) after eating. I’ve eaten Misora for two years now and never had a bad bite. Thanks!

This is the perfect place for inexpensive good japanese food. Especially when your tired of greasy burgers, pizza and other processed foods.
The large bento boxes are packed with crispy vegetables. The salmon is always fresh and delicious. The short grain rice is nicely prepared.
The ambiance is fairly minimal and utilitarian. The bathroom is large and clean but you need to get a key. Perhaps that is the key to how they keep it clean.
This great little lunch place is not Morimoto, but of you want fresh delicious Japanese food quick at a great price this place is a nice little secret

If you have the lunch time hunger for a quick bowl of ramen in Center City, this is your place. Though they have other things, like salads and Bento boxes, the ramen is all I’ve needed form this place. If you get it to go, your broth comes in one container while a mammouth amount of noodles and whatever you wanted in with your soup comes in another, ready for your to mix when ready. The noodles are very decent — nothing mind-​blowing, but very enjoyable — but the broth is fairly far above average. With it you get a tiny container of spicy red powder and pickled vegetables. For about $ 8, it’s a very solid and filling Japanese lunch.

Food: Really hit or miss. For the price, you should have adjusted expectations. Something are surprisingly enjoyable (bento box meals) while others are a disappointment (noodle soups).
Ambiance: Cute enough when it is not packed with people or a line. Convenient location.
Service: Good, not much interaction since you order at the counter and bring your food to your table.
Overall: A decent and convenient option, but play it safe on your meal choices and then stick with what you know you like.

I go here for lunch if I want a good bento box. They have the biggest bento boxes, with the most choices in center city area. However, the actual sushi selection is very small, they don’t have lunch specials for 2 rollls w/​soup or salad… nope… just a huge selection of bento boxes. I’ve had the bbq eel bento, salmon bento, K-​bob bento (scallop, shrimp, salmon, peppers & onions), and the tuna roll bento. All were really good, but they put too much sauce on top of the main entrée dish which i always scrape off so its not so many calories. But, overall, its good food (not great, but not bad), and you get alot of food (bento boxes only).
There is alot of seating inside which is nice, but I always get to-​go.
Prices are steep for lunch, but I love how they take LEVEL-​UP so you can work toward discounts.
Overall, don’t order sushi unless you’re willing to spend $ 20 for some good rolls. Get a bento box, they are huge with lots of ingredients. For actual sushi rolls combo, I go to the sushi bar in the Liberty Place food court.

I was on LeveledUp, and was looking for a place I hadn’t tried yet. I was craving sushi, so I decided to go in and give it a shot.
The place inside seats more people than most sushi restaurants, which I enjoyed. I quickly noticed that their sushi selection was small, and they didn’t have any sushi specials for lunch. The only specials that they have are for their lunch/​bento box — and they show a wall of specials that look kinda unappetizing.
Random, but also in the store, they sell salads. No, not a seaweed salad, but I’m talking about a chefs salad, cobb salad etc. When is the last time you have gotten a cobb salad from a Japanese restaurant? They are trying to do too much, which is going to make the quality of what they are supposed to be known for (sushi) go down.
Based on the pics of the bento box specials, the fact that they sold cobb salads at a sushi joint, and the fact that they had no specials, I was having second thoughts about ordering here. Despite the above, I was really hungry, and didn’t feel like thinking of another place to eat. I ordered a Philly Roll, and a Spicy Tuna roll to go. It cost me $ 12, with my $ 2 LeveledUp coupon.
I bought back my food to my desk, and what I got looked a little sad for the $ 14. 6 small pieces of each roll. And the sushi just wasn’t good. The spicy sauce that they used on the spicy tuna roll was ok, but the tuna just wasn’t. The Philly roll is a pretty standard roll that you really shouldn’t be able to mess up, but it was just not good either.
I was very disappointed and will not be back.

If you compare the size of the rolls vs the price of the rolls, I’d say give this place a pass.
Don’t get me wrong, some of their rolls are really good! But they are a little pricey if you look at the actual size of the rolls.
I’ve gone to this place twice for sushi, and yes, the sushi is good; but some of their rolls are expensive!

Came here for lunch with a friend of mine during the week. This center city lunch spot delivers big, low-​priced bento boxes of Japanese favorites (teriyaki, tempura, etc…). The food is good, not great, and the atmosphere definitely lacks something, but considering how much food I got, it’s no doubt a good bang for your buck.
I got the salmon teriyaki box, which comes with more food than what I know what to do with. Miso soup, cellophane noodles, seaweed salad, edamame, gyoza, california roll, salmon teriyaki over cabbage, a green salad, and rice, all for UNDER TEN DOLLARS (yes, you heard that correctly). I don’t know how these guys make a profit giving away so much food for that little.
But while the quantity of the food is incredible, the quality not so much. Everything tasted pretty ok and standard. The seaweed salad and cellophane noodles were really good. The salmon was a bit thin and not very flavorful (and coated with a sticky goopy, almost syrupy teriyaki sauce). Despite this, however, I didn’t leave disappointed. I left full and satisfied.
On the whole, value rules at Misora Express, and it’s a cheap option when you’ve worked up a big lunch appetite.

The Tofu Teriyaki at Misora Express is very good. While the tofu wasn’t browned to give it the texture I normally like, the awesome Teriyaki sauce more than made up for it. I also liked they had several vegetarian options on the menu. It was also nice to see so many different veggie sushi options (ex: Avocado, Cucumber, Zen Roll, Oshinko (Pickled Radish), Tofu Skin.) Another bonus is they have LevelUp.

I want to really love this place. It has all the necessary factors in place that could essentially make it a force to be reckoned with in the express lunch world, so to speak. There are over 10 bento boxes to choose from that appeal to any palette — from the less adventurous (chicken teriyaki) to the sushi connoisseurs (all raw box). And there’s also a Saladworks-​type salad station with just as many choices, a new smoothie menu (including bubble tea), and ready-​made to-​go sushi, edamame, and seaweed salad for those truly in a hurry. And each bento box comes with a generous portion of rice, and an equally nice-​sized miso soup. Lots of food, not a lot of money, and the quality of the food is above average.
What is lacking is that I do not believe that the folks at Misora really understand the «express» part of their name. Even when the place is not crowded, it takes upwards of 15 minutes for the bento box to be ready. I appreciate that my food is made fresh (really, I do), but I go to Misora in the hopes of having a good meal that doesn’t take up a huge portion of my lunch hour just for the wait time. If I had the time, I’d go to a real Japanese restaurant a couple of blocks away and get higher-​quality sushi and pay the extra few dollars.

This place was over priced and the sushi and fish were not that great. The rice was not the best it didn’t have enough rice vinegar and seasoning and the chirashi bowl was way over priced for what you got, 17 bucks for 9 pieces of fish…
I’m still trying to figure out how this place got voted one of the best sushi spots in the city, really? Give me a freaking break… the only reason i didn’t give it 1 star was because the fish was real.

I have been trying to think of ways to clearly articulate how ANGRY this place made me, but I don’t think I can do my rage justice, so I decided to just rant. Trust me, this rant is valid, but I will acquiesce that this is a rant.
One day, I decided I was going to eat healthier and perhaps inject a bit more fish of the raw variety into my diet. Since I work in Center City, there are a definitely a number of places that will offer a suitable options for this strategy.
As I was walking by Misora Express, I decided «hey, why not here?» since I had purchased their bento boxes in the past and had thought they offered decent variety and portions. Well, I’ll tell you this — that may be true of their bento lunches, but MOST CERTAINLY NOT OF THEIR SUSHI/​SASHIMI.
I ordered the Sashimi Regular, which purported to include 15 pieces of sashimi for $ 14.95. I was, for a moment, excited because the sashimi dishes are made to order. You can imagine my utter disappointment when the guy came out to cut up the sashimi for my order and I saw how small he was cutting the pieces. AND btw, i was standing RIGHT THERE and he still cut up the smallest, saddest series of sashimi pieces I have ever seen.
Ultimately, I walked out of here, wallet almost $ 20 lighter (bought a 20oz soda + tax), with essentially 3oz of fish AT MOST and a grim expression. Clearly I was going to need to buy a 2^nd lunch.
The width of the piece was just about the diameter of a NICKEL. I took a picture because I was so appalled. To add insult to injury, the fish itself wasn’t very good. They must not have high turnover on the made-​to-​order sushi/​sashimi side because it was not fresh; the saba (mackerel) was so gross I had to throw it away.
SIGH. Don’t get sushi/​sashimi here. Just stick with the cooked japanese bento boxes or the salads, if you must.
I know that sashimi is expensive for restaurants to sell, but it’s just insulting to offer the kind of quantity/​quality that this place does.