Haiku

Its pretty good but not the best sushi in Des Moines. It has a super cool environment though and is good just not the best. You should check it out if you are a sushi lover and I’m probably going to end up going back and experimenting with some different rolls to see if I can fall in love.

Stopped by Haiku since Sakari was super packed and there was an hour wait there. Haiku is located right by the Drake campus, which is nice for the students. Though it could be expensive if you’re a sushi addict :)
The interior is very nice and clean. Blue lights throughout the inside makes it feel like it’s affiliated with the Drake Bulldogs. We got served right away and since it was a Thursday, there were drink specials for $ 4. I got the Tsunami (vodka, pineapple rum, banana liqueur, pineapple juice, and grenadine), which was quite strong :)
Prices and sushi rolls were similar to other restaurants. We got the Volcano roll, Dynamite roll, Spicy Crab roll, and a seaweed salad. All of it tasted very good and nothing fell apart like some restaurants out there.
Overall, I enjoyed my first time here. It wasn’t amazing food that makes me want to go again really soon, but it was good sushi if you like special rolls. If you’re into sashimi (just the raw fish) though, you may want to read other reviews or be brave and try it out yourself :) I know there are some people that are very picky about their sashimi, which I can honestly say that I’m not a pro at telling if it’s good or not… since I love the special rolls :) Oh, parking can be a little difficult if the front is all full.

I order delivery from here very often. My all time fav is actually the Udon noodles & Haiku salad. I tried the lobster mango roll & it was great! The volcano roll is good too but sometimes it can be too filling.

Probably the worst sushi I have ever had. Hy-​Vee and cafeteria sushi is better than this. We ordered two rolls to go and they were crammed into one very small container. For $ 12 the rolls were extremely small. The rolls were like mush and just really bad. With several other sushi options in Des Moines. Drive the extra 5 minutes and go to Sakari. So bad.

Not happy with my service tonight. When I arrived to pick up my order I pulled it out of the bag to check for the peanuts. I ordered the vegetable pad thai (last time they forgot them). The cashier asked what I was looking for. I told her I was checking for the peanuts. She began telling me how good the chef was and I replied no one is perfect he forgot them last time. I then asked for extra peanuts and some chili flakes because after I looked at it. I didn’t see any chili flakes and I asked for it be medium spicy. She tried to charge me a dollar and I declined. Guess what? When I got it home… NO MEDIUM SPICY AT ALL! I was so disappointed. I like a little heat in my food. Not to mention the fact that there was an ungodly amount of onion and I’m an onion freak. I love it and put it in everything. But, its not a chocolate chip cookie and I don’t want to taste onion in every bite. (photos to follow). Haiku this was your last chance. The last time I went there I ordered the pork chop. They were chewy and completely inedible. Tasted like they had been in the fridge for 3 – 4 days. I was supposed to take them back for a full refund and I opted not to because it was a huge inconvenience to me and my time. I told them how disgusting the pork chop dish was and doubt they do this to people who dine in. This was a to go order. So BEWARE of the pork chop if your getting it to go. The sushi here is pretty good. Steer clear of the other items on the menu. It’s a crap shoot as to what it will taste like when you get anything to go. Very disappointed. Shame on you Haiku I have been a loyal customer but, your customer service sucks! and your pork chop recipe needs a complete revision. Buyer beware. If you like chewy pork chops. Haiku is the place for you. I won’t be going back.

Haiku is not only located in the middle of the United States it’s located in the middle of Iowa in the middle of Des Moines. It’s ranking for Des Moines sushi offerings is near the top. Wasabi Chi & Tao are what I measure all such restaurants against.
IMPRESSIONS: Located on the Drake University campus, easy parking, on the street level of a housing complex next to a Subway. When you walk it your ears are hit with a wall of sound as the hard surfaces amplify the din of a busy restaurant. We were greeted and seated quickly. I like the Drake blue lighting for atmosphere.
ORDERED: Sweet Potato Roll $ 4, Spicy Tuna, specialty rolls: Tiger $ 12 (Salmon, tuna, yellowtail & eel on the top with tempura crunch, roes, scallions & spicy tuna inside), New England $ 12 (Spicy salmon & yellowtail with pepper tuna & avocado on top), Peach Roll $ 12 (Salmon & avocado with sweet peaches on top), water to drink
TASTED: I order sweet potato roll at every sushi place I visit. This one is stellar — crunchy and warm potato. The regular rolls are larger than most. The spicy tuna roll was also fantastic, albeit spicier than most needing no wasabi. The Tiger and New England rolls rival the taste and appearance of Wasabi Chi & Tao. Lots of varying textures and flavors. Haiku uses less flashy sauces than most. The Peach roll was unique using peach instead of the standard mango. I really liked the umami and sweet fruit contrast. If ever there was a dessert sushi roll this would be it.
POST: Our service was inattentive. She checked on us once and that was after we were half finished with our dinner. Water kept full by at least someone on the Haiku staff. A solid place to drop $ 50 on a meal. Something struck me as funny that paper wrapped disposable chop sticks were wrapped in black cloth napkins. TVs tuned to the NCAA basketball tournament.
CHANCE OF RETURN: ⁷⁄₁₀

Located on Drake University campus, this is a great sushi restaurant for anyone looking for good food and atmosphere. To describe the atmosphere, if you took away the tables and seats it would look like a classy bar/​club. The lighting and décor is very nice, definitely a good place for a date.
The staff members are all very friendly from entry to exit. The customers in this establishment range from families, to young couples, to groups of friends. For our visit we ordered the Soft Shell Crab for an appetizer, the Drake Roll and Rock N Roll for the sushi rolls, and Coconut Shrimp for an entrée to share.
The Soft-​Shell Crab was okay, the taste was fine, but the amount was a bit disappointing. The specialty rolls were very good, I wouldn’t say the best in town, but very good. The Coconut Shrimp was excellent as well, the flavor and texture was spot on.
I would recommend checking this place out if you are in the area! You will not be disappointed with the atmosphere, staff, and food!

I was here once before and had an awesome dinner with family. Tonight I tried to take my husband after a long day. We arrived at 9:30 and the sign said open until 10. We walked in and the hostess was on her smart phone and caught off guard. She checked the time and said we could only get carry out. ?? As soon as we left (with no carry out) she turned off the open sign. What are your hours?

Oh my goodness. Had been awhile since I visited and glad that fate brought me back. My normal first choice was not open we swung out here instead.
I got adventurous and tried the Haiku salad. So glad that i did. Yum all the way around. Such a great in one salad. To quote another Unilocaler «it was like the chefs got drunk one night and mixed all the salads».
My choice for roll was the American dream. Yum! And just because I was craving it I had them add cream cheese. *wipes corners of my mouth* You can always add cream cheese. I enjoyed it very much. Very smooth texture all around.
My fiancé was head over heels for the Crunchy roll. And enjoyed the Dragon. Though He thought the was bland. He thought maybe for the price there would be more of the roll. I was stuffed from the salad and had to share my roll. He didn’t mind as he enjoyed it. We stuffed abd the waitress was kind and I will go back.

Update: tried this place again after boycotting it for so long. The service has improved and the only thing is that the sushi was very very loose and falling apart. We told our waitress and she brought us a dessert. So sweet!

I was pleasantly surprised with haiku. The location, although extremely convenient for me as a drake student, made me apprehensive. I wouldn’t imagine that somewhere in a little strip not in the city would have amazing sushi but it does! It’s delicious, I will definitely come here again!

This is over due. We have frequented many sushi restaurants and Haiku is hands down or favorite. I am perplexed as to why Myabi 9 receives high accolades when it cannot light a candle to Haiku’s food, ambience and service.
Sammi, a server, is such a sweetheart. You feel more like her friend than a patron.

Very, very good. Second only to my favorite, Umi Grill in Terre Haute, Indiana. My only complaint is that the nori was just a little tough, making it difficult to bite my American Dream roll without destroying it.
Staff is friendly and atmosphere is surprisingly sophisticated for being basically on campus.
Be forewarned: both Google Maps and Apple Maps incorrectly plot the location of this restaurant! It’s NOT on 31^st Street, but Carpenter.

Haiku is conveniently located next to the Drake University campus. It shares ownership with Appare I believe. So some of the food is a little similar.
I love the atmosphere here. The neon blue theme is really cool and there’s an awesome vibe here.
I got their most popular salad which is the Haiku salad and it was amazing! It’s basically like the chefs were drunk one night and just put all the Japanese salads together. It’s a mixture of seaweed salad, squid salad, crab, and avocado. The dressing is light and really compliments it.
Got a Las Vegas, American dream, and philly roll. The Las Vegas roll is amazing! Yummy fried goodness. Thought the philly roll had too much cream cheese in relation to the fish though. Too be honest, I felt there should have been more sushi pieces for the money when comparing other places in iowa. Also. My partner got the beef udon and really liked it.
Overall, I would recommend this place. I would have given it three stars but the salad made it worth a 4.

This is probably one of the best sushi restaurants in Iowa. The staff is very knowledgable and friendly.
If you are just looking for a Californian roll, you can find that somewhere else. These chefs are professional and have imagination.

I didn’t know what to expect because most of the recent reviews were less than stellar. It’s weird because most of the great reviews are before 2013. Then after 2013 the ratings go downhill. I don’t know what happened. Maybe there was a turnover in waitstaff or a change in owners? I wanted to give Haiku a try anyway because my husband and I are on a quest to try all of the sushi places in town.
I thought the atmosphere in Haiku was great. It definitely had a big-​city look and feel to it. It looked like it could have been a restaurant in Chicago or Minneapolis. I really liked the look. Kudos to the interior decorator. They definitely put some thought into the style and look. The parking situation isn’t that great, though. I wish they had dedicated parking for the restaurant.
We shared a plate of the gyoza because we love it and always try it at every sushi restaurant. Theirs was excellent; perfectly steamed and pan fried. It had great flavor, as well. So our evening started off on a good note. Our waitress was nice and attentive, too. So I don’t know what’s up about those bad reviews complaining about terrible service. Maybe it was just an off night or they were just unlucky and got a bad waitress. Ours was good. Although, she didn’t offer to refill my water until the end of my meal.
I ordered a California roll with spicy mayo (my favorite) and a Philadelphia roll. My husband ordered a spider roll and and an Alaskan roll. He thought both were pretty good, although, he wasn’t expecting the crab to be fried tempura-​style. He was hoping it would be fresh and uncooked. I liked my California roll, but it was kind of loosely-​wrapped. A couple of pieces fell apart when I tried to eat them. My Philadelphia roll was just ok. The smoked salmon in it didn’t taste that smoky. I’ve had better Philadelphia rolls at other places. I have to say they were generous with the amount of ginger they gave us. Usually most sushi joints are pretty skimpy with their ginger and I always have to ask for more. The wasabi was very fresh, too. I always like that.
One thing I was very surprised about was that they charged me $ 1.00 extra for the spicy mayo on my California roll. Every time I’ve asked for it at other restaurants, I’ve never been charged extra. I can’t believe they charged me for it. I wish the waitress would have told me that it was going to be an extra charge so I knew about it ahead of time.
The rolls were good but not the best sushi we’ve ever had. Appare is still our favorite place. They’re pricier, but worth it. We didn’t think Haiku’s prices were that high, contrary what some other reviewers have said. We’ll try this place again. Next time we’ll try some of the special rolls to see if they’re any good. We wouldn’t come here all the time, but just when we wanted a change of pace. Our favorite neighborhood sushi place is Sakura. Whenever we feel like having some good, inexpensive sushi, we go there.

We shared six rolls between all four of us and they were delicious!
However, when we got here today, there was a sign on the door that said they weren’t serving alcohol at this time! We asked the waiter why and we were told they let the liquor license expire. What a bummer!
The service also was not awesome. Took forever before we ordered and then also took forever when we were trying to leave.
We came here because we had been in the past and it was awesome. Not sure what the deal is now.

Visited Haiku based off some good word of mouth, wish I hadn’t, but at least now I know.
I was disappointed even looking at the menu. The sushi menu seemed unimaginative with a multitude of rolls containing different variations of the same 6 or so ingredients. I’d say Jalapeños and mango was probably over used. I’d prefer to see one specialty roll where an ingredient like mango is used very well, not multiple rolls where it’s the center piece.
We started with edamame, which was good. The beans were thick and it was seasoned well. Not to salty,
I ordered the mango lovers and a simple spicy tuna as a gauge for the quality. The spicy tuna roll was more avocado than fish, had almost no spice or flavor really at all. The mango lovers roll was a mess of its own as well. The roll taste okay as a whole, but none of the ingredients were distinguishable. It was just a sweet mess of moist fish and fruit.
I have no intention of visiting this place a second time as I have much closer to home sushi places that I regular.

My husband and I wanted to try a new sushi restaurant in Des Moines and decided on Haiku. The atmosphere is pretty neat.
The service staff and cooks arrived exactly at opening time, which seemed a little odd to me. So we were sat and then had to wait several minutes to order drinks or food. We ordered the California and Volcano rolls.
Normally between my husband and myself, we can share two rolls and be full. The rolls here were higher priced than other places in Des Moines and they were absolutely tiny. They fell apart easily; very difficult to eat. The Volcano roll was four small pieces — I would have liked a spoon to eat it because it was impossible to pick up with chopsticks.
After eating here, my husband asked me if I would like to go out for «second lunch» because he was still so hungry despite having spent around $ 30 for lunch already.

Best Sushi I have found in DM so far. Rolls and Sashmi was very fresh and tasty. I have seen better presentations else where but what they lacked there they made up for it in great fish.
We also had enamame (sp) as an appetizer. They were steamed well and lightly salted. Great start to a good meal.
We had a large group so we ordered the Party Platter and some rolls (sorry I don’t know which ones they were I did not order them) Like I said before it was all great. Very impressed.
I will go here over Maybi 9 any day of the week.