He Says: great service for all the wrong reasons
Sushi Time Towa was yet another notch in our belt in our search for a good sushi restaurant in Savannah. More than one of the reviews online said this place had "the best sushi in Savannah" so I was hoping I had found our holy grail. It was actually quite an adventure finding the place. I Unfortunately it fell short of our expectations, much like the rest of the sushi places here.
It started out poorly right off the bat. It's not the nicest looking place from the outside. From the parking lot you can see their trash out back, along with some beer bottles and cleaning supplies. But hey, don't judge a book by its cover right? Look at every barbeque restaurant in America. They all tend to look like a shed from behind the house in Deliverance, but the food is amazing. Well...that rule doesn't apply to sushi joints. When we walked in the door the first thing I noticed is that we were the only ones in there. Uh-oh, never a good sign.
We sat down at our table (covered in a lovely plaid vinyl picnic table cloth) and began to look over the menu. Their menu was pretty extensive, so my hopes were raised a little.
My go-to barometer for how good a restaurant will be is if they make good sweet tea. Any restaurant in the south worth their grits knows how to make good sweet tea. Nine times out of ten if the restaurant has really good sweet tea there is a direct correlation to how good the food will be. The tea here was pretty good, so I thought maybe we were onto something. Too bad this turned out to be that one time out of ten.
We ordered our favorite, the crunch roll (or whatever we find that's closest to one - tempura shrimp and cucumber), and I also ordered the Unagi. Our order came to us very quickly. I could tell right off the bat something didn't look quite right. When you've eaten as much sushi as we have you can pretty much tell just by looking at your plate whether you have fresh ingredients in front of you. Sushi should also have a modern look - very sleek and minimalistic. The first thing I noticed was the cucumber in the crunch roll was diced up and seemed to be stuffed in the roll. This led to it spilling out when I picked it up and an overall sloppy look to it. The unagi wasn't terrible, however it was definitely on the mushy/slimy side. My piece of crab wasn't looking as rough as Licia's, but it had a strange aftertaste as if it had been touching a piece of the unagi or teriyaki chicken.
But aside from the sketchy looks outside, the lame atmosphere, and the below mediocre food, I will say that our service was fantastic. Probably because we were the only ones in there, but fantastic none the less.
We left feeling defeated. Let down by yet another sushi place. I'm not ready to throw in the towel yet, but I wouldn't recommend this place.
-Will
Taste: Two noms
Plating/Appearance of Food: One nom
Service: Five noms
Cleanliness: One nom
Atmosphere: Two noms
Overall Noms: One and a half noms
She Says: if it sounds bad and looks bad, it probably is.
See, Will and I are what some would call sushi fanatics. If sushi were a pop star, we would be the fans crying hysterically behind red carpet ropes, before deciding that jail isn't THAT bad and lunging at sushi's ass as it strolls by. This love affair started at Nikko's in Statesboro, Georgia while we were both in college.
The 'Boro (as locals refer to it) doesn't sport a lot of really superb restaurants, but it does have quite possibly the best sushi I've ever had (not to mention the best Mexican place, but that's another review for another time). Will and I used to have date nights at Nikko's, sharing the best eel nigiri and toasting crunch roll bites at least one Friday per month. What Nikko's sushi has that makes it so superb is . . . well nothing. It is simple, clean, fresh food that is well executed. No elaborate sauces, no ginger roses, no gimmicks: just true flavors. Nikkos is where I fell in love with sushi, where Will and I started bonding over food, and where my standard for quality sushi was set.
When Will moved to Savannah, we were intent on finding a great sushi place to continue that date night tradition. We assumed finding a sexy sushi place on the Coast would be easy. We assumed wrong. After trying out every historic district sushi restaurant religiously almost every weekend, we realized our small mission was turning into an all out food-quest to find decent Savannah sushi. It was as if our superstar had gone into hiding. But we are dedicated fans who aren't distracted by look-a-likes. Thus, we continued our search at Sushi Time Towa.
Appearances can sometimes be deceiving. That homeless looking guy in the corner of the bar can sometimes turn out to be a multi-billion dollar superstar. So when we pulled up behind the restaurant and saw buckets of beer bottles and dirty kitchen rags, we weren't deterred. On the outside, Sushi Time Towa looks like one of those hole-in-the-wall type places that serves killer cuisine to those who are brave enough to come through the front door. Will and I love these types of places, so we went on in.
On the inside the restaurant looks like it came straight from the 80's, with its Karate Kid-like decor. So while our waiter was taking our order, I was imagining him as Mr. Miyagi. And he was fast (although we were the only people in the joint), getting our teas promptly out to us before taking our order.
In a wam-bam-thankyou-mam type fashion, our food was out before we could even fully comprehend that the mom who came in with her kid after us was wiping down her entire table and seats before allowing her child to sit down. Because of the fast service, my hopes were high that we'd found a new date-night place.
But when the waiter set the sushi plate in front of us, my dreams were dashed. I'm a visual person - you know, the if-it-looks-nasty-I'm-not-putting-it-in-my-mouth girl. So when the crabstick nigiri I ordered looked like Jaws himself took a gander at one end of it, I wasn't exactly thrilled to take a bite. Nor was I excited to try the spicy tuna roll I ordered, which had a pale, pink hued tuna piece in the middle - odd for a fish that should have a deep, red tone when raw.
When I tasted the fish, it was just as I expected: gross. Sushi should have a fresh, clean taste and this sushi did not. The red snapper nigiri tasted as if the fish had been frozen and thawed before plated and the tuna wasn't firm, but soft and slightly mushy. Sushi should also have rice that is slightly sticky and tightly rolled. But all of the nigiri I ordered fell apart as soon as my chopsticks touched it, which made it very difficult to eat. To make matters worse, I could hardly even toast the crunchy shrimp roll we ordered because the mustard/mayo sauce they put in it was too distracting. Rarely do I leave sushi on a plate, but I had to leave a half of the tuna roll and the red snapper behind and passed off the majority of the crunchy shrimp roll to Will.
Sushi Time Towa was just as disappointing as thinking you've spotted Lady Gaga, only to find out it is just some amateur look-a-like who enjoys sporting bubble dresses. The quick service and arrival time of the food was merely a distraction from the poor food quality. Maybe if the chefs took more time to order fresh ingredients, roll their sushi properly, and present it in a half-way appealing way, then the restaurant could be Savannah's new hole-in-the-wall place to go. But until then, I won't be going back.
-Alicia
Taste: one nom
Plating/Appearance of Food: two noms
Service: five noms
Cleanliness: two noms
Atmosphere: two noms
Overall Noms: 2.3 noms
Other Info -
Cuisine: Japanese
Price: $$
Separate bar: yes
Takeout: yes
Coke or Pepsi Products: Coke
Address: 54 West Montgomery Crossroads, Savannah, GA 31406-3434
Phone: 912.920.2788
Website: N/A
