My wife and I visited AZU Lucy Ho's Restaurant and on Apalachee Parkway of Tallahassee in early June 2026. We hadn't been there since its opening many years ago.
Foreboding was a sign on the front window with the words ' Hiring employees' or something like that. When a restaurant can't hire employees to work there, its potentially a sign things are going downhill in my opinion.
As we waited to be seated, we realized they had no hostess as they had when they first opened years ago. One of the waitresses had to excuse herself from waitressing duties to come over and seat us. She was, at least, a sweet person with a smile, an almost apologetic smile in my opinion.
Once seated another young lady actually waited on us. We ordered water which a young man delivered with a smile. Then our waitress came for our orders and I ordered a beer, my wife ordered a lemon drop martini. Along the way, our waitress told us they had a new bartender which, as it turned out, was probably the reason the lemon drop martini was no martini at all. It came in a martini glass but there was no discernible taste of either lemon or vodka. My wife said it tasted like sugar water. Later when we checked out, the waitress asked how everything was and at that time we told her the drink was a failure and she offered to remove the so-called martini from our bill which we accepted.
Regarding our entree orders, my wife ordered pork fried rice which she said was bland and tasteless. She also ordered fried gyoza. When that was delivered to our table, they were not hot and were over fried and dry. That made us think they were pre-fried, heated to lukewarm warm and served. When my wife offered me one, I declined on the visual aspects alone. I ordered YuShang Triple described as chicken, scallop, shrimp, and vegetables in spicy yu-shang sauce. Yu Shang Triple was ok, the sauce almost well seasoned but somewhat weak as a spicy type sauce. There was an abundance of peppers and onions, about 3-4 shrimp, 3 scallops and chicken. BUT It just didn't have a distinguishing flavor profile. Of the three scallops in the dish, the largest of them was cold that I didnt know until I put it in my mouth. I choose to just swallow it rather than spit it out. That was gross. The other two scallops were lukewarm. I hoped I didn't get food poisoning from eating a cold sea scallop that someone probably handled with their bare hands.
I also ordered Eel sushi roll. The sushi roll had very little flavor, the rice not seasoned well and when the waitress brought the soy sauce, I viewed that as the potential savior of the sushi roll and the other food as well. The sushi roll was poorly made and seemed to lack rice vinegar or whatever they put in good sushi roll, the rice somewhat loosely packed and that affected the experience of actually eating it.
Our waitress was competent and I wished to myself that she could go to a restaurant where she could work and be proud of what she was serving and make more money.
The last impressions I had as we drove out of the parking lot was that AZU should just go to a buffet restaurant format FULL TIME. The location certainly warrants that format. But to be a good buffet restaurant, they should at least visit the local buffet on Capitol Circle NE, Tallahassee, that serves real sushi and does a fabulous of it and emulate them. This restaurant that today holds the name of AZU Lucy Ho's is, in my opinion, an insult to the memory of Lucy Ho who for many years in Tallahassee served delicious asian food, for which people would flock to her stores to experience.
As for my wife and I, we will never go to AZU again. read more