Tally Sushi: Sumo Sabi

Tallahassee for what it is, pseudo country/city/campus town, still has its hidden gems. Coming from the golden state, where everything I mean EVERY THING from food to clothes is right at your finger tips, it's easy to be critical. You don't have to drive more than a half hour to an hour to get to the next big city. You want sushi, you'll have to deal with choosing from 10 options in each direction. You want Trader Joe's, I had 3 to pick at Mission Viejo. Produce was sooooo much more affordable. I could cook whatever and whenever I wanted. Wherever you go in Cali, high chances are that you'd meet someone from out of town.

However, I've done some research and hubby's co-workers gave us a few recommendations. So, date night came and we picked Sumo Sabi. It was quite empty on a Thursday night, but still cute ambiance.

Hubby ordered a crunchy roll and I wanted to try one of their specialty rolls. I, of course, wanted to try their Sumo Steak Bowl. Gotta have the red meat since we've decided not to buy red meat for a while until ahem we catch up financially. Sweet hubby let me order a meal and I realize now that he ordered just sushi. Don't worry, I didn't let him starve and so we shared the bowl.

Photo taken with my Android, which explains the blah quality.

Cute plate...Isn't it?

Sumo Steak Bowl w/ Sumo Sauce & Terriyaki on the side.

They had a sauce bar with at least 10 options. The most popular is the Sumo Sauce, absolutely creamy and delicious. Not sure what's in it, but tasted like a nice blend of garlic, onion, sugar, sour cream. When my order of Sumo Steak Bowl came, I was delighted to see how huge of a bowl it was and the uber amounts of meat covering brown rice w/ yummy looking veggies. More for us, yay! I quickly got stuffed and my usual stingy self was happy to share the rest of the meat with the hubs.

It was on the affordable side, so hubby was eager to go to Sumo Sabi over my preferred place, Cypress Restaurant. But, it was fun to go to the other side of town near the campus about 20 minutes away. The juicy steak drizzled with their homemade sauce made the trip worthwhile. There wasn't much of a crowd making the night less interesting, but great food = great times with the hubby.

Review in Brief

We would come back for the sushi. Although reviews aren't as great on Urban Spoon or Yelp. We still would go again.

Hooray for Late Night Hours - Open til 3 a.m. Finding a place for a late night outing after the kids are down is hard to come by, in Tally. So I was thrilled to find out they were open past midnight. The bummer factor is that they don't have anything like shaved ice nor Boba Tea. I'd have to go to Gainesville for decent milk tea. Which we did get at Bento Cafe. Or, I can make my own to save myself an hour drive. Their milk tea was better than what any place in Tally could offer, but won't ever beat Tapioca Express, Guppy's, nor Champions at Irvine, CA.

Endless Menu - I think they had at least 100 options to choose from, which was personally overwhelming. They've got great corporate identity to begin with, but I would recommend a menu redesign. Potential client maybe?

No dessert Caught My Eye - With the literally hundreds of items, I didn't have time to glance their dessert selection. So, we went to Lofty Pursuits Ice Cream (Tally's Local Ice Cream Parlor). We found a review on this via Sweet Tea & Bourbon (local foodie blogger), whom I can agree with most of the time. Watch out Tally, Julia Holly is a food snob tasting her way through every restaurant (worth the trip of course).