Abe and I had no idea where to go for dinner one night last week so decided to hit a spot on our list. We picked Masa, thinking some sushi might be fun.
*Spoiler*: BIG mistake.
I had been told by people I trust that Masa sushi isn’t the best in town, but I did not anticipate it being the worst sushi I have ever had. Now, I am prone to hyperbole on occasion, so you may be doubting that statement. But I swear that is not the case here. I actually would not have paid for anything we got if given the choice, but I am not the type to return food for being plain bad but executed the way it was meant to be. This is a character flaw of mine clearly.
We started with edamame, which was okay but overpriced at 5 dollars. I’ll give them they were not over cooked as is often the case, but I felt they were light on the salt and I don’t even LIKE salt! And the salt was not coarse and tasty, but akin to what comes out of those plastic pre-filled salt shakers you can buy in the dollar store (okay, maybe that was hyperbole). We also had shiitake tempura as an appetizer, and it was okay. I didn’t mind it, but the tempura batter was underwhelming and not crunchy enough.
I don't have a picture of the apps, so here are our puppies instead!
Really, the meal came off the tracks when our sushi arrived (disclaimer: I use “sushi” to represent all varieties of rolls, sashimi, etc., so please keep that in mind before you click away shaking your head at me). We picked a few rolls, both fancier and more typical, and conch sashimi (which was tasty enough) for our main meal.
Roll #1: a tempura battered roll with spicy tuna. Take a look at the picture, particularly taking note of the chopped tuna inside the rolls. Now, I have had lots of spicy tuna rolls with chopped tuna, but this was the theme of the night…there was not a single whole piece of fish to be had at this place. This immediately makes me wonder what the fish looked like to begin with if it could not be kept whole. Ironically, we sat at the sushi bar and there was plenty of whole fish slices there, but I did not see the chefs reach in for them often throughout the night.
In total, there was overall little flavour. The tempura wasn’t that crispy and the spicy tuna was not spicy or overly tuna-y. It would not have surprised me if they had pulled a bait-and-switch with the fish in this roll. And the presentation was not very nice (we had ate the few pieces that were stacked on top of the ones you do see in the picture, like they had sliced the pieces too thin and had to throw the extra somewhere).
Tempura Spicy Tuna
Roll #2: Abe’s choice (so I blame him). Fried white fish roll. I have never had anything like this before. It was literally fried white fish inside rice. With some sesame seeds. There were supposed to be other things inside of it. I could not find those things, and had to use plenty of soy sauce to get this dry dry roll down. The fish was overcooked and tasteless. I would have killed for some avocado in there.
Fried fish roll, Yellowtail roll, Conch sashimi
Roll #3: A simple yellowtail roll with scallion. Please see back left corner of the picture for this roll. You may not recognize it because it is chopped up “yellowtail”. I cannot confirm it was actually yellowtail as it was tasteless (I am using that word a lot), and not a whole piece of fish. There was scallion in only 2 pieces, and minimal at that. Poor rolling execution. I have nothing more to say about this roll.
Overall: 0 thumbs. Tasteless, with odd proportioning (some rolls way too small and some really big), and no regard for the art of sushi rolling (see pictures). Overpriced chopped questionable fish.
I will say, our server was excellent and I feel bad for the girl as she has to serve this food.
Abe and I have had lots of food of meh-quality in Tallahassee. This experience made those restaurants seem like they had stars. It totally ruined our night and left us a little shaken about Tally dining in general. The only way this could have gotten worse would have been if we got sick.
