Zuma Miami- Modern Japanese Cuisine

Zuma Review

This weekend I had my college orientation at Johnson and Wales University in North Miami.  We ate lunch at a restaurant called Juice and Java and I 'll have a review on that coming soon.  

For reference, throughout the review, there was 3 of us in our party.  I don't believe that reservations are required, however, we did make a reservation through open table. 

This is the entrance to the Zuma restaurant inside of the hotel.

Zuma is a chain restaurant with other unique locations, such as Hong Kong, London and Dubai.  This particular one that I went too is in the heart of downtown Miami and connected to Kimpton EPIC Hotel.  

Zuma has modern Japanese cuisine, this includes, soups & salads, cold dishes, robata grill, tempura, signature dishes, sushi and sashimi.  Everything is served sharing style, meaning that all dishes are large enough for everyone at the table. They bring the food out smoothly so that there is always food on the table, the meal flows very nicely.  

We got there about 30 minutes early to help with parking.  I would suggest you valet park.  Yes, it really is $17 dollars.  However, if you don't it's eight dollars every half hour.

This is the entrance when you first arrive at the hotel.

To start off our night they explained to us how their restaurant functions.  We decided on 4 things. 

We ordered a started of steamed edamame, a rice hot pot with vegetables and four different types of mushrooms, sea bass with chili sauce and garnished with a watercress and bean sprouts mix with a lemon vinaigrette, a California roll and lastly, the mixed seafood and vegetables tempura.

We also ordered two deserts, a hazelnut molten lava cake with french vanilla ice cream and the Zuma mocha bamboo. 

To start my review, we had the edamame I didn't get to take a picture of this, but it was a fairly large bowl. Like I said previously it was steamed and had been tossed in salt. They had the perfect amount of salt and were delicious dipped in the soy sauce. These lasted us until almost the end of the night, so there definitely was plenty. This appetizer was $7.

The second thing we had brought out was the rice hot pot.

(I know these pictures aren't the best they were taken in very low light.  They look much better in person.)

The official name is the kinko no kama meshi.  It is a rice hotpot with wild mushrooms and Japanese vegetables.  The rice was cooked perfectly and was very flavorful, although we did add soy sauce for a little extra saltiness, but was still very good without it. 

The third thing they brought out was the california sushi roll.

This roll was absolutely delicious.  It had Alaskan king crab, avocado and tobiko.  I don't have much to say about this, it was your traditional California roll, nothing fancy.  

The fourth thing they brought to our table was the sea bass.

This sea bass was amazing.  The greens on top has a lemon dressing that went perfectly with the sea bass, however it was very strong and could've had a little dressing.  The fish itself was cooked to perfection.  It melted in your mouth and fell apart when you cut it with a fork.  The bottom of the plate had a chili sauce that matched the fish very well.

The last thing we got was the mixed seafood and vegetable tempura

This was probably my least favorite thing of the night.  It wasn't bad it just didn't have much flavor.  The veggies were; asparagus, lotus fruit, bell pepper ect.  The two types of fish were prawn and grouper.  These were both good, just again, very little flavor.   

Desert

This is the hazelnut molten lava cake, unfortunately I don't have a picture of the bamboo desert, it was a earl grey tea ice cream with kinako cake and coca crumble built tall inside of a cylinder with a pocky stick on top. This was by far my favorite thing of the night and would definitely recommenced this desert.  The molten lava was also delicious and had a custom piece of chocolate that said Zuma on top and the vanilla bean ice cream was super creamy. 

Overall, I had a wonderful experience at Zuma Miami, and I would definitely recommend it to others if you're in the area.  It is on the more expensive side, for three of us without drinks it was $168. So expensive, but not too bad for what you get.  There  online menu  does not have prices, but an entree was between 30-60 dollars and the sushi rolls were $16 I believe. 

I will definitely go again, for a special occasion or nice night out.