Luli Sushi

Best Japanese in Sanford! Wonderful! Love the Hibachi Chicken!!!

Gets better every time I visit. All the sushi is fresh and beautifully made. Excellent sized portions! I haven’t had anything on the menu I didn’t love. AND, I stopped in today & noticed they finally have their liquor license!

Service was horrible. We had a party of 10. Dishes came out over 20 minute span… they almost forgot one dish. Some parties that came in 10 – 15 minutes after us had their meals delivered before us. No explanation, no apologies offered. On top of that the heat was not working at it was 32 degrees outside. Will never ever go back.

This place is still fairly new but since I’ve eaten here now three times I feel like I have a pretty fair experience to review. First off I am addicted to the squid salad… I literally have dreams about this. As far as the other food I have had a few items across the menu:
Sushi– it’s good… Especially to be here in Sanford and a small little known place. It’s not top quality but it’s not the bottom either. Standard fare.
Phở– the broth could be a little more flavorful. I feel like they don’t give you enough toppings: I.e. Basil, bean sprouts, hoisin. But the portions are big and the noodles are great. Price is good too– 8.95 for a huge bowl. Great for these cold days!
Pad Thai– This is where I’m gonna let you down. It’s just not good… They don’t use enough noodles and the noodles they do use are broken pieces like they were left at the bottom of the box. Also– I got shrimp and they were not cleaned well at all. I don’t feel like I should have to devein at the table. Gross.
Dumplings are good, chicken spring rolls –good. Chicken lettuce wraps– OK if not a little salty.
The hibachi is just okay.
Overall– if you don’t feel like traveling out of town to Cary or Raleigh to go to Kanki or the lot take this place for a spin. If you’re craving some sushi and don’t want to submit yourself to grocery store value, OR if you really like squid salad like me-​GO TO LULI.
Ps — the waitstaff is wonderful.

We are trying! We want this place to be good so bad… and honestly the food is pretty good, but the service is so atrocious we may not go back! Our menus were missing pages and had pages taped together.
We ordered 5 appetizers and had to ask for plates. Squid and seaweed salad was very good. Tuna looked nothing like the menu picture. Soup was tasty. Lettuce wraps were good too.
An hour after we ate those, not ordered mind you, but finished our appetizers our main course came out. An hour? Really? Again we had to ask for plates!
Manager came over and could tell we were disappointed. She was concerned but at her wits end. (We weren’t the only couple complaining about service this evening.)
She told us the reason things were so backed up was because everyone was ordering sushi tonight. The nerve of these people! Ordering sushi at a Japanese restaurant.
Next time we are going to order pizza?
Please servers get better!
Please let the diners know that you are backed up and there is an hour wait for sushi.
Please assume we wish the best for you and keep on trying!
Three strikes and you’re out. This was our second visit.

I absolutely love the Phở here. There are very few options for any kind of soup here in town, especially for dinner. The broth they have is very complex. I can’t wait to try their sushi, it looks amazing. The inside is fabulously done. I am excited to have a party there in the big room. Great job!

As others have noted, the restaurant looks quite sketchy from the outside. When you first enter, there is an extremely dark foyer you must pass through in order to enter the actual restaurant. A simple lamp would help out. The inside of the restaurant is far better. Its very well laid out for larger parties.
I had a squid salad and a sushi boat, my wife had hibachi. Squid bowl and sushi were decent. My wife’s hibachi, however, was excellent. The sushi options on the menu are quite limited.
Luli’s is a fine place for hibachi and basic sushi options. Suggested improvements would be improving the foyer and adding additional sushi options.

Really good sushi and phở, but the service was terrible and they do not have a liquor license.
Met some friends for dinner on Veteran’s Day (we had 2 vets with us) and were seated at a nice booth. The place looks better on the inside than the outside.
We got some dumpling apps and the ladies got sushi while the men got phở. All of us enjoyed our food, but were annoyed at our waitress. She rarely filled our drinks, she didn’t know what anything on the menu was, she didn’t clear plates and when we were done we asked if she could please take some of the plates off of the table and she said she didn’t see them!!! I think that if you are a new restaurant in town, you should make sure your staff knows the menu.
I would definitely go back and give them another try. Maybe when I can get some sake though.

Wow… wow isn’t always a good thing. Finding the entrance is just the beginning of your quest. This place is in need of improvement. Dire need.
Once you solve the labyrinth into this place you walk across a large empty space that is awkward and uninviting. Perhaps someday that area will have more seating. It isn’t necessary now.
We were promptly seated and immediately asked what we wanted to drink. Normally that would be off putting but since they don’t serve alcohol (yet) there are limited choices. A second waitress asked us for our drink order 30 seconds later and a third asked us for our food order 30 seconds after that.
We order two appetizers, some nigiri, a roll and a boat for two. The nigiri came out first. Fresh with sticky rice. No plates or chopsticks but decent. Then came the roll, we had to ask for plates and were given two the size of a coaster.
The dragon roll was good. Chopsticks were round and slick. Then came the boat. Most of the sushi was fine but some was ice cold. Not fresh cold, near frozen cold.
Then came the appetizers. I explained the appetizers were to be served before the meal and I was told…” Yeah, well the fryer was down so here you go.” I let them know that was unacceptable and they returned the order. We were given a $ 3 discount.
We have high hopes for this place because it is so close to our home but the truth of the matter is until they make some huge improvements we will travel for our Japanese Food.

Food was delicious and probably the saving grace for us to return. Lost a star due to bad service. Went for dinner on a Saturday evening, semi empty when we arrived but quickly filled up with customers. Server seemed friendly enough initially. Menu had lots of tasty options.
Split an appetizer of dumplings and an order of miso soup… soup was decent but the dumplings were amazing! My husband ordered a sushi roll and nigiri and I ordered the Thai drunken noodles. His sushi came out before my food which isn’t out of the ordinary but after 25 minutes my food still hadn’t arrived. Our server was no where to be found and every other server was busy with other tables so we never had an opportunity to ask where my dinner was. Eventually another server stopped by and asked if we were missing something… she apologized and said it would be right out. In the meantime you could hear the commotion between the servers and the kitchen staff while they debated on why my meal was not prepared. Another 10 mins passed before our original server showed up with my meal. She didnt apologize or offer any sort of explanation as to what happened. She never asked how my husbands meal was or came to see how mine was after waiting nearly 40 mins. We quickly asked for boxes and the check as we had already been there way longer than we should have for a quick dinner out.
The check came and nothing was discounted and she never once apologized for the mix up. I’m not sure if the kitchen was to blame or our server but I find it to be very poor customer service that the issue was never addressed. Management heard what was going on and never once stepped in.
We will return – bc the food is that good and we realize that every new restaurant has its good and bad nights. Hopefully our second trip will yield better results. I think this place has great potential in our city… they just need to step it up a notch.

I got sushi boat for 1, so good. He got the bento box with the chicken & California roll & it filled him up. Very bright & clean inside fast service very attentive very nice. Great sauces.

I tried to eat at another local sushi place in Sanford twice but the first time no one was there 2 hours after their posted opening and the second time no one was around to make sushi.
Today I discovered Luli which has only been open for a week. It’s located just outside Sanford past the 1÷15−501 and 421 interchange.
It’s clean inside though seems to have limited seating for the floor space. But it’s much more brightly lit inside than the Mexican place that used to inhabit this building.
The menu is mostly hibachi and sushi, but they also do pad Thai and phó and a few other dishes. I had a dragon maki roll and a bowl of beef phó tonight and it was delicious.
The roll was well made and presented, the ginger was fresh and the whole thing was very tasty. They don’t do the BOGO or AYCE sushi like many places these days, and the menu is not as big as other places, but it’s high quality and well made.
As for the Phó, words can not describe my joy at finding a good place locally that serves noodle soup. I had the beef, and for the first time I actually ran out of noodles before I ran out of meat.
It was cooked the right way, noodles not overdone and the beef put in raw and allowed to cook by the soup stock. The broth was rich and savory, and really didn’t need the fish sauce or siracha, but I added them in after a but to see how they interacted. They interacted well.
The accessories were there, including the aforementioned sauces as well as fresh basil, lime, bean sprouts and hot peppers, the latter I left out.
All in all, it was delicious and well prepared and presented. The staff was attentive and friendly and fun and seemed to enjoy themselves, which is important.
So all in all, I have a new favorite local Asian place. Now I just need to convince them to put traditional ramen on the menu.