i am very, very sorry to give a bad review of my only, my favorite japanese restaurant in fayetteville, arkansas. my husband and i have been going to meiji for years. we always order the same, because it is the only place where you can get piping hot, delicious miso soup, a salad with the traditional japanese dressing, and the freshest fish for sashimi, nigiri, or rolls. this time, i took my husband there for his birthday. the whole experience was sub-par and very, very disappointing. the waiting time for someone to come to our table was unacceptable. my husband ordered hot sake, and it came out about 20 minutes after and only after reminding the waitress, and it was not as hot as it should be. the soup and the salad were brought at the same time, which should not happen either. if there is something the japanese are good at, it is tradition. that is not the tradition. when after a long, long wait our food was brought out, the order was wrong. my husband had ordered vegetable tempura, and they brought him some fried shrimp roll. then, the portions of sashimi were much smaller than usual, and the salmon had not been skinned properly. on top of it all, the rice for the nigiri and the rolls was not fresh. that is unacceptable. i mentioned this to the waitress. she kindly reported it to the owner, who came out to our table and listened to us. his solution: do you want anything else? no, we did not want anything else. we wanted some understanding and recognition that my husband's birthday dinner had been awful. i thought the owner would say, "your husband's dinner is on us," but he didn't say that, so we paid full price plus tip for a very sub-par meal. meiji, i know we are picky about food, but i lived in japan for two years. the meal i ate at meiji was not acceptable by japanese standards, even in fayetteville, arkansas.