Sumosan -

About a month ago, I went through a stage where I failed to book any restaurants due to not knowing where The Boyfriend or I were going to be. Now we are paying for it.That is how we ended up at Sumosan, the only sushi restaurant we wanted to try that had availability last minute on a Friday night.


I had heard about Sumosan via A Small World, so assumed it would be another Zuma/Nobu carbon copy. It certainly didn't look it. The décor was pretty boring. The bare purple walls and tables that clash with the chairs didn't really do it for me. It was like they hadn't quite finished decorating yet. If it wasn't for the Balenciaga to the left of me and the Celine to the right, it wouldn't have been obvious that this was an upmarket restaurant.



There was evidence from the start that perhaps this wasn't going to be a life changing gastronomical experience. Firstly, last minute availability wasn't great. Secondly, one of the sushi chefs was texting on his blackberry, and thirdly, at 8pm the place was half empty.

Anyway, back to the food... Edamame arrived at the same time as the sushi, which I would have appreciated being spaced out a little more to make it feel more like a real meal. Our soft shell crab came one minute later, so to stop everything taking over the whole table The Boyfriend had to ask them not bring our salad just yet.

The edamame was a little light on the salt but otherwise good.

We ordered a selection of rolls - Salmon Skin and T&T (Tuna and Truffle) as well as eel and squid nigiri. The sushi itself was delightful. Thee salmon skin roll was crisp and well flavoured. I personally didn't love the sauce on the tuna and truffle, as I didn't think it added much but aside from that I had no complaints. The nigiri, especially the eel, were equally great.

Our soft shell crab was badly thought out in my opinion. The plate was covered in a thin sauce. In order to eat the crab you had to move the crab off its perch into the sauce. Unless you had a vacuum like eating tendency, this meant that the crab was soaked in the sauce losing some crispiness. Also, the sauce didn't really add to the crab experience.

Our salad - crab and avocado, really lacked seasoning and needed an interesting dressing. Beautifully presented though. Overall, it was pretty boring although both the crab and the avocado were very fresh.

Still hungry, we ordered some more sushi. Our Spicy Tuna roll was great, not quite Jin Kichi levels, but still pretty good. But the scallop sushi, both The Boyfriend and I found a little greasy and tangy.

Service in general was not particularly attentive. I had to really look for our charming and smiley waitresses eye. The sparkling water we ordered at the start of the meal failed to arrive and their approach to tap water, which we ordered later, I didn't particularly like. Bringing glasses with no ice and no jug for some reason, this approach makes me feel like they are judging tap water drinkers, but perhaps that's must my paranoia. It became awkward and evident that the service was disjointed when we ended up with four practically full glasses of tap water after asking two different waitresses for some, with a 5 minute gap.

By the time we got to the end of the meal, the house music was at a cocktail bar type level. Great if your about to go out with a group of friends but definitely not somewhere you could take one's parents.


The total damage was around 130.00, only 30 of which was on alcohol.