Sushi Tong is a humble mom and pop sushi restaurant located in an unassuming run-of-the-mill strip mall on the east side of Smyrna. It's not too far from the I-285 Perimeter (exit 18: Paces Ferry Road - Vinings). When it comes to sushi restaurants in Smyrna, I prefer Minato on Spring Rd (I think the quality of their sushi is better) and Maru Sushi on S Cobb Dr (for their lunch buffet), but Sushi Tong isn't bad. It's held its own for years in Smyrna's sushi scene -- I know that might not be saying much, but I think they're quite alright for the area, hence the four stars.
I found out about Sushi Tong on Twitter. I follow retired professional wrestler Scott Hall (https://twitter.com/SCOTTHALLNWO) on Twitter. Scott Hall loves sushi and in 2013, he tweeted about Sushi Tong multiple times (https://twitter.com/search?l=&q=%22sushi%20tong%22%20from%3Ascotthallnwo&src=typd). Scott and his son Cody used to go to Sushi Tong regularly. I pulled up pictures of Scott Hall on my phone and showed it to our server, an older Asian lady who looked like an owner/manager type. She instantly recognized Scott Hall and said he and his son used to order bento boxes at Sushi Tong often. However, she hasn't seen the pair in a long time.
I actually tweeted at Scott Hall and suggested he try Maru Sushi. He said he's been to Maru and it wasn't his favorite ("#Something #Fishy" https://twitter.com/SCOTTHALLNWO/status/360111502293860353). For those who don't know, Scott Hall became very popular in the WWF (now the WWE) in the early 90s as Razor Ramon and in the WCW in the mid 90s as an original member of the nWo. He was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame in 2014.
My friends and I visited Sushi Tong on a Friday right when they opened at 11:30am. This is a casual restaurant and it's not very big. There's a small sushi bar, TV, and several tables (no booths). The restaurant was quiet and, during our visit, there was no background music or other noise to dampen the conversations between customers. Therefore, it was very easy to hear the conversations going on at other tables. This didn't bother me, but I can see how this type of atmosphere could make some people feel a bit uncomfortable. Maybe the staff just hadn't gotten around to turning on the music for the day.
Sushi Tong's lunch menu offers many affordable items. All lunches are served with a simple iceberg lettuce salad with ginger dressing and miso soup (standard for a Japanese restaurant in America). During our visit, sushi rolls were 2 for $7.95 and 3 for $11.95 (21 rolls to choose from); lunch (bento) boxes were $7.95 each; most lunch appetizers were $4.95 or less each; and most lunch entrees were $8.95 or less each. There was a nice variety on the box, app, and entree selections like oshinko (yellow Japanese pickles), unagi don (eel over rice), tonkatsu (fried pork cutlet), and beef negimaki (beef and scallion roll). There were also whiteboard specials. These consisted on teriyaki and sashimi dinner combos ($17-25 each), a couple Thai dishes, and a few sushi bar specials (sushi pizza and more rolls).
Here's what we ordered:
* Sushi pizza ($12.00) - crispy rice cake topped with fresh tuna, avocado, mango, imitation crab, special sauce, and masago (fish eggs)
* Two lunch sashimi orders ($12.95 each) - tuna, white tuna (escolar), salmon, snapper, and imitation crab; comes with sushi rice
* Lunch chirashi ($13.95) - tuna, white tuna (escolar), salmon, snapper, imitation crab, tamago (egg), seaweed salad, oshinko, masago, and furikake (dry Japanese seasoning) over sushi rice
In general, the food was good. Everything was made to order by the lone sushi chef at the sushi bar and all of the ingredients were fresh.
The sushi pizza was interesting. The pizza was piled high with yummy sushi toppings. It was cut into four pieces. The crispy rice cake was fried and served as a nice, hard, sturdy base for what seemed like a plethora of chopped ingredients. There was a generous amount of "special sauce" poured over just about everything. I usually don't like "Americanized" sauces on my sushi, but this one worked. It tasted like some sort of spicy mayo. Perhaps it was Sriracha mayo?
The lunch sashimi and the lunch chirashi contained the exact same types of fish (as listed above). These are basic and standard fish when it comes to sushi and, at these prices, I'm not complaining. The slices of sashimi here were satisfyingly thick. As for the lunch chirashi, I like the lunch chirashi at Minato better (https://www.yelp.com/biz_photos/minato-japanese-restaurant-smyrna?select=Jq5_MhIZZPP1hDgRhHMFDQ), but Sushi Tong's version was still plenty tasty and gratifying. I liked the chef's additions of oshinko and furikake, ingredients I'm not used eating with my chirashi. As for the salad and soup, they were par for the course (A-OK).
Service was great. Our server was polite and efficient and our orders came out in a reasonable amount of time.
I would come back. read more