Sinobi HQ

Short update — not sure if it’s even open anymore… We walked by this afternoon, hoping to get us a bulgogi roll and noticed that it was all shut down, even after their 12pm opening time listed on the door.

Brutal.
Showed up at 11:45 for a business lunch with coworkers. Not open yet.
Once they did open, the service was almost as mediocre as the food. Skip it.

Everything we tried was awful, not one thing remotely resembling Korean food. Only the fried dumplings were tasty. We will never go back.

This place won’t be in business much longer.
I attempted to use a $ 25
gift certificate last night (10÷3÷2011) and the restaurant would not accept the gift certificate, claiming they have «reached their limit for the day» and will «only accept two gift certificates per day.»
If you run a restaurant and enter into a business relationship with a company like
, you owe it to your customers to honor the purchased gift certificates. It is not my problem that you made a poor business decision. This place was a complete waste of time.
In addition, I have dined here on one other occasion and the food is mediocre at best.
I will not be returning.

In the 15 656 area for a few days and did some online research beforehand to find some decent food. Sinobi is located in Pittsburgh Mills at the entrance to the mall, next to Borders and Panera Bread.
I felt pity for this restaurant, being Japanese in the Pittsburgh suburbs — it is not clear that cosmopolitan types from the city are prepared to leave the city for a meal. As we entered on a Monday evening there was only one other party of two there, and even the mall seemed a bit deserted. We were nonetheless impressed by the décor — modern, colorful, and tastefully done. (Eventually two other parties did show up.)
Our waitress, Jina, was very knowledgeable about the menu and apologized that several items were not available that evening. We decided to start with the Japanese Fried Chicken. Good and very fresh, though not quite a revelation of Asian flavors.
For the main dishes we settled on several kinds of sushi — the first they brought out was our Spicy Shrimp Roll and Alaska Roll. The Spicy Shrimp was spicy by way of sitting in two sauces — very tasty with a little additional dip in some soy sauce.
Next came the fancier rolls, beautifully presented with 3 colors of tobiko on top. We had the Chakra Roll, the French Roll, and the Bulgogi Roll. The Chakra and French were both very good, and the Bulgogi? — my company enjoyed it the best, but to me the fact that the meat was barely warm kept it from being anything out of the ordinary. To be fair I have yet to try Korean barbecue that I have particularly liked.
For dessert we both had the Mango Mochi — mango sorbet in a soft shell — tiny portion, tiny price, and refreshing enough.
Overall I would call this good quality sushi, reasonably fresh and very nicely presented. The staff was certainly attentive, and I certainly don’t regret giving Sinobi a try, even in an area where King’s (restaurant) is king. Good luck to them.

I wouldn’t go back here.
Not that the Sinobi doesn’t try REALLY HARD to make you love it…
It just fails on so many levels.
First and foremost:
If you’re going to call yourself a Korean/​Japanese restaurant, you need to have more Korean offerings than just Bulgogi beef.
Seriously.
No Kimchi.
How is it possible that a restaurant that includes «Korean» in it’s description doesn’t offer kimchi?
Or any other Korean staple (besides Bulgogi beef)?
Moving on:
have you every been to one of those «fancy» Italian restaurants that REALLY overdoes the Italian décor? Like– lots of marble and statues, fountains and vines all over the place…
Sinobi is the Asian version of the the «fancy» Italian restaurant.
You get the pagoda/​temple stereotype.
You get the «fancy» fishtank.
You also get a GIANT FREAKING SILK SCROLL FOR A MENU.
Seriously. It’s so big and cumbersome that I set it on the seat next to me because I wanted to have some room on the table for my drink.
Okay, sorry for the rant… on to the food:
We started with the Koibto appetizer and soup. I had miso and my hubby had Oden.
«Koibito» was Bulgogi beef on a slaw of cabbage and onions.
It was good. Not great, but good.
The miso soup was terrible. No flavor at all. None of that salty/​sea flavor that makes miso so yummy. I added a TON of shoyu and it was still bland.
My husband said the Oden soup was *meh*. A standard sunomono broth with some fish cake sliced in.
We skipped sushi and went right for entrees.
I had the Yakisoba and husband had the «Spicy Japanese Noodles».
The yakisoba was so oversauced it was sad. There was nothing special about it. I was disappointed.
Husband liked the spicy noodles, which were made with a packaged Udon noodle and some kind of spicy sauce. Again, nothing special.
My husband was also disappointed.
Save your money. Go to Kotobuki or Sushi Tomo if you want REALLY good Japanese or Korean food.
I guess I could have saved myself a lot of typing if I had just said that exact sentence for the entire review,