Sumiko Sushi Vietnamese Cuisine

Ummmm, someone needs to update this page because this location is now closed. I literally walked to the location where it used to be, and to my dismay, there was a ramen shop in its place. Hopefully this ramen shop will be better.

I really like the Phở Tai here. The broth is light and flavorful. Just the right balance of everything. They were generous with the noodles… a little slight with the beef however. Service was pretty good. Took mom and the nephews and they tremendously enjoyed the meal. Been here more than once and will return.

Had a coupon for this place so decided to stop by for dinner on a Wednesday night. When we walked in there was only one other customer in the restaurant. First impression: room was too stuffy. It felt like the AC was not on and it just made for an unpleasant 10 minutes for my body to adjust :(For food, we ordered the grilled pork and egg roll vermicelli and the grilled Korean short ribs. The vermicelli was decent… tasted pretty much like what you would get at any other Vietnamese restaurant. It came with a lot of veggies and fish sauce on the side. The short ribs, on the other hand, were overcooked and too chewy. The plain white rice that accompanied it was also over cooked and super dry :(On the up side, the owner was very friendly and made sure to check on us and refill our waters several times.

Found this place using a coupon. Very satisfied! Well worth the price.
Ordered seafood bibambap with ponzu sauce, it was large enough to share for two. Tangy and refreshing. I would recommend asking for a side of eel sauce if you have a sweeter taste. Eat each bite with radish for an enjoyable combination.
Second order, sumiko special sushi roll, has a cucumber wrap for a nice crunch. Slightly spicy with the spicy mayo dipping sauce.
I’ll definitely come back to try the other rolls.

I was in town to see some stand up at the ICE HOUSE, I had about an hour to kill, I was hungry too, I walked across the street to Sumiko. My original intention was to grab some Thai food. Unfortunately, thai food was close. Settled for Sumiko.
I got the black beans catfish fillet, and the shrimp spring rolls. The spring rolls we’re pretty good. The portions served on the plates are beyond decent. I got lots of fish. But it was kinda bland. It needed lots and lots of sauce. At least for my taste.
I passed on the soup. Thanks.
Coming here with no intention turned out to be OK. Although not the greatest food in Pasadena, it’s good for a night out before hitting the club or the dance floor. Great customer service.

Good food good price, for lunch phở is $ 7.99 and sushi is $ 11 – 14
Service was a bit slow
Minimum credit credit card usage is $ 8

This place primarily serves up one of the most ill-​thought combinations of foods ever: phở, which sits in a giant boiling vat hot enough to warm up an entire kitchen ²⁴⁄₇; and sushi, which doesn’t do very well in, you know, warm kitchens. I haven’t had their sushi, but I’ve had their phở, and I can say that it is hilariously bad. The sad part is that even I can point out exactly what’s wrong with it. And I’m just a total thug life bro who likes to randomly try cooking things sometimes to impress bitches.
These guys are damn stingy with the meat. And the noodles are pretty much dumped in the bowl straight out of the packet, leading to some consistency issues — they’re supposed to be separated in cold water, then blanched for a couple seconds in boiling water. It’s also not difficult to get the various spices «right» in phở, once you know what they are. You can be off by several measures and still get it pretty close to delicious. Not these guys, apparently. It almost tastes like the ONLY spice they used was anise, making it taste like you’re eating a giant bowl of licorice soup — which is about as nasty as it sounds. Lastly, not everybody likes a shit-​ton of cilantro in their phở; it shouldn’t be thrown in unless one asks for it.
All that said, it’s like $ 8 for a bowl of phở and two strange-​smelling egg rolls. Not the cheapest phở, but I guess it’s decent for being in Pasadena? I don’t know.

Sigh. I have to say this place was better when it only served Vietnamese food.
I used to come for lunch all the time and it was very consistent. Then it was bought out or changed or ?? The quality has gone down too. Before it changed, I would have given 3 stars.
Let me say one thing: steer clear of the sushi. I decided to give it a go and… well…I’ll never to that again.
If you do go, only order from the Vietnamese menu. They do grilled meat well with the bun and the lunch special is a good value.

I hate knocking a small family business but the waitress just really sucked. There is only one waitress that overlooks the small 8 table establish and the lovely couple that owns and runs the kitchen. Food can be a bit slow but the wait is well worth it. It would also be nice if they were open on Sundays when everyone is out and about too.
The resaurant itself is like any other Vietnamese joint, clean and simple. It’s upstairs and hidden by a tree but if you look up when you reach the stairs to the plaza it will be on the right. We ordered a Vietnamese coffee to start and it came out very bitter. All it needed was more condense milk so we asked the waitress if she could remake it. She flat out said no. We asked her for a side of condense milk and she begrudgingly gave it to us.
The eggrolls cane out with a side of pickled carrots, radish, cucumber and lettuce to wrap. It was a salad on its own, combined with the rolls it was refreshing and delicious. Highly recommended!
The beef noodles is nicely cooked, broth is hearty and flavorful. They really know what they are doing with the noodles.
I’m not sure what the sushi portion of the restaurant is about but the sushi bar didn’t even look operational. Parking is street only but there seems to be a good amount of them except at lunch.

This is a family-​run Vietnamese restaurant that has «sushi» in their name because the cosmic forces decreed that it be so. I resist such cosmic forces, so I haven’t tried their sushi — but I quite enjoy their Vietnamese food.
LOCATION: They’re upstairs in a weird little building on the south side of Colorado near Caltech/​Lake Avenue/​the Academy Movie Theater. They have big glass windows, and a cool view at night, and a smallish-​but-​not-​tiny dining area. The parking is weird — if you drive up a steep ramp from Mentor you get to their raised parking area, which is free most of the time (I think you pay a buck or two at lunchtime on weekdays, or something.) All in all, I like the location — not crowded, free parking, near cool stuff, and the dining area is nice enough.
SERVICE: We’ve only had take-​out; so far they’re been friendly, and the order has always been accurate (including the million separate things they include when you order phở, which they wrap up really nicely; honestly, it must take a lot of work to ready my phở for take-​out!)
FOOD: Oh, the PHO. I’ve had phở elsewhere, and it never excited me, but THIS. Ooh. OOH. It’s so good. (It’s possible it has a year’s supply of MSG in it, or maybe just salt — it leaves me feeling a little spaced-​out afterwards, but IT MIGHT JUST BE ITS SHEER AWESOMENESS.)
Lemongrass Chicken is tasty.
Bun (vermicelli noodles) is excellent — we had a couple different ones, and they’re not in-​your-​face, but we kept coming back for more. Just good food.
I’ll be back!

We decided to pay another visit using our $ 10 off Unilocal deal. My wife and I ordered beef phở, fried egg rolls along with a Thai Ice Tea and a honeydew melon shake.
Everything tasted pretty good. My wife said she couldn’t detect MSG like she can at a lot of other Phở places. I know people will say they could get better phở a little further south in the SGV, we are perfectly fine with the level of food here with only a two minute drive to get here. I was curious about the sushi offerings under the new management but, they said they weren’t serving sushi because the chef was not coming in that day. Good think I wasn’t craving for sushi.
We’ll probably come back here if we are craving for Phở and not wanting to drive south.

Vietnamese/​Japanese fusion. Good food at decent prices. Phở was nice, salmon sashimi and sushi rolls were fresh and we’ll done. Will probably be back.

The Phở Dac Biet, the special beef noodle soup, is done to par.
The ice vietnamese coffee w/​condensed milk far below par.
The lunch specials are not offered on the weekend. I need another Unilocal deal and/​or craving for me to repeat.

Went here at 5:00 on a Thursday evening, right when they re-​open for dinner, with a Groupon for $ 30 worth of food. We were the only customers in the place until just before we left over an hour later.
This is a tiny place on the second floor, facing Colorado Blvd. The restaurant was so hot inside it almost made us ill. We commented on the temperature when someone came by with water, but the acknowledgement we got was a simple head-​nod. No one went near the thermostat until an hour later.
The sushi chef took our order, made our order and delivered our order. No idea where the serving staff were.
Because it was so hot inside, we decided to eat light dishes. We had:
Gyoza appetizer-​not convinced these are made in house. They look and taste an awful lot like the ones you get from the freezer at Costco. Not horrible but definitely not worth $ 7 for five tiny dumplings.
Fried Tofu appetizer-​was really good, but then how hard is it to screw up fried tofu? The pieces were nice bite-​sized, served piping hot and we loved the sauces it came with for dipping.
Sumiko Special Roll– far and away the BEST thing we had. Having spicy tuna and avocado wrapped up in thin cucumber (rather than rice) was light, delicious, fresh tasting and refreshing.
Tempura Shrimp Roll-​was okay but we’ve had much better. The shrimps used were very small, so mostly what we tasted was the rice. Plus they «decorated» with panko crumbs on top, which made for a very sloppy, mushy mess with the sauce that was also on top.
If I had another Groupon, I’d go back. I’d skip the gyoza and Tempura Roll and spend my money on the special roll ($ 12). I would also make sure I didn’t go when starving because the service IS very slow. The staff wasn’t smiling, welcoming or grateful for our business.

I ordered take out.
Food was ready when I got there so that was easy.
I got phở with rare meat, cooked meat, meatballs, and tendon. I wrote under special instructions «no tendon». The phở came with tendon, one tiny meatball, and tripe which I hate but did not event write to not include because it wasn’t in the description. Not only that but the tripe took like ¹⁄₃ of the Togo container (noodles and meat in one, broth in another). The broth was also lacking in flavor.
My fiancé got bun thit nuong Cha gio (noodles with pork and an egg roll) he thought it was ok but not much.
Would we go back?
Even though it’s close enough to walk to I think id rather go to old town and go to the phở place there (Saigon something… It’s on Raymond) or just drive towards Monterey Park or something. So no I wouldn’t go back. I didn’t hate it but I know there are better options.

Appetizer: started off with the 3 hand rolls. Tried the California roll, spicy tuna and salmon. The pieces of fish were really cold and only so so. The California roll was pretty good.
Dinner: Kalbi BBQ dinner. The beef has a sweet sauce and the beef is kind of tough because it isn’t the best cut of meat. Served with rice and a salad which has a bitter vinegar sauce that I don’t care for.
Phở chin — delicious phở broth. Tender sliced beef.
Overall kind of slow service so don’t come if you want to rush. But I like that you have time for a leisurely chat.
Came with a groupon and all of the above and a hot green tea was barely $ 30.

I am not usually one for fusion food but this place did not disappoint. In fact, it was a pleasant surprise and I walked out extremely satisfied (I am also not one to easily throw around positive superlatives abt my meals and even reconsidered notching down that «extremely» but I really can’t find a better way to put it). No, but really. If I had to describe my meal in one word, it’d definitely have to be: satisfying.
The food:
I had the 3 hand rolls daily special — spicy tuna, spicy scallops, and salmon. It was quite filling and delicious! Perhaps not the best I’ve ever had but would definitely order it again. The side salad wasn’t the measly small bowl of iceberg lettuce often served in other places. It wasn’t big and the contents were simple, but nonetheless delectable.
Etc:
Small mom and pops hole in the wall that does not look particularly appetizing on the run down exterior. The interior, however, is fairly cozy and has a bit of a personality.
Service was decent — not overly friendly but not cold either. Got to see the owners interacting with some of their regulars and they seemed to be on good terms – usually a good sign of any business.
Cons? Hm. really can’t think of any. Yet my judgment is currently still clouded over by how happy I was with my food. No kidding.
Oh, and they honored a Unilocal deal we got $ 10 for $ 20, which made the experience that much better. Good food + awesome price = will return and am willing to pay full price next time!

My favorite Phở place around! For a veggie-​head like me this place is top notch! I love their vegetable phở with soft tofu. Comes with hearty servings of delicious veggies, and in a bowl so big it’ll last you forever!
Service is always friendly too.
Sumiko is worth the venture!

Different. And not in a good way.
Don’t understand. Sushi rolls wrapped in cucumber instead of rice? This wasn’t explained well on the menu. Phở (#4 with well and rare beef) tasted OK.
Service was lacking. No dish to pour soy sauce to dip the sushi. And it took a while to get a small bowl for us to split the phở.
Even with the Unilocal deal, we wouldn’t recommend this place. (Me: ²⁄₄. Mrs. G: ⁰⁄₁.)

Sweet baby Jesus– all those complaints about slow service must have never had food that was prepared when you ordered it. There’s a Jack in the Box around the corner if you all want fast food. The travesty about our culture of instant gratification doesn’t appreciate the real art of serving sushi (precise cuts, correct serving temperature, etc).
The food is amazing and portions are plentiful (they definitely don’t skimp on the fish or shrimp!). Don’t let the décor or lack of uniforms turn you away because this is real sushi and Vietnamese food served by people who understand their cuisine.
I’ve been here twice already and haven’t been disappointed at all by this hidden gem.