Suan

Critic's Review

I had to drop off some package at Fed Ex across the street from this place; I never think about it when I'm trying to decide which "nearby" placed I can have lunch when I'm short on time. Didn't like the place when they first opened; I checkout out their lunch choices and decided to try it again.

3 Asian places in a week. Some sort of record for me.

The place is always dead. One thing I noticed when I walked in is that they've added some bench seating. I don't really like it; I get that it's easier you get a couple of extra seats with it but I don't want to sit that close to other people in an empty restaurant.

Suan Dining Room

I got a table on the north side, which a nice view of the TV.

Suan Front Area

A girl came over and took my iced tea order; they have regular iced tea now for $2.50 so you don't have to pay $3.50 for the fancy tea that you don't really want.

Suan Iced Tea Service

I like the idea of giving a carafe so you don't have to wait for refills. And they did some little flower thing with the straw wrapper. Very Asian.

I ordered the Tuna Tataki sampler, sticking with the all fish options. It comes with a salad; the only choices for dressing are Ginger and Peanut. Asian restaurants simply refuse to offer dressings that Americans like, despite operating their restaurant in America. Ginger is junk. so I thought I'd try the peanut.

Suan Salad

Uh, this looked just like the Ginger dressings; thick orange stuff ladled onto a bed of lettuce. The dressing wasn't terrible, however they put WAY too much on. The salad was swimming in the thick sauce, to the point where I couldn't really eat it. It would have been a lot better with 1/2 the amount of dressing.

Suan Salad Dressing

Waiting for the food. There were 3 other people in the restaurant. I caught some Divorce Court on the TV, and I had a delightful view of Fed Ex Office. I've never seen anyone eating outside here. Maybe in the evening it's more appealing. I've expressed my opinion of these storefront restaurants; they should really board over half of these windows so you don't feel like you're eating in a Radio Shack.

Suan View

The girl slipped by and dropped off some sauces; something not offered at the more elegant Coco Asian, where I dined last week.

Suan Sauces

I could see the "chef" working up a storm; how long does it take to slice up some fish?

Suan Bar Area

The box came about in 15 minutes. Similar to the portion you get at other restaurants. I think they sell these trays on Alibaba.

Suan Lunch Box

The main event, the Tuna Tataki, is seared tuna usually garnished with garlic and ginger an served with a citrus vinaigrette or something. This didn't have much of a sauce at all; green onions and tomato didn't seem right; it just tasted like raw tuna. Good quality tuna; a few extra slices of sashimi to me.

Suan Tuna Tataki

The sashimi was good quality but sliced thicker than I like. They could have sliced these pieces in half and claimed to give you twice as much and it would have suited me just fine. Thick piece of fish aren't as good as thin slice of fish.

Suan Sashimi

I decided to eat the nigiri as sushi rather than stripping off the fish. Surprisingly, it didn't taste like sushi at all. It seems that they used long grain rice and forgot to vinegar it.

Suan sushi rice

The rice was completely useless so I ended up having to strip off the fish. The california roll fell apart when I bit into it,which is kind of annoying.

Suan Sushi

The seaweed is exactly the same everywhere; I think it comes in a big jar form the local Japanese Big Box distributor.

Suan Seaweed

One of my new peeves is ginger being cut in slices that are too long. I get that everyone does it similarly, but why are the slice so long? I don't want a 3" piece of Gari and you can't cut it with chopsticks. Why not cut them into smaller pieces? Nobody wants to bite into a huge piece of ginger.

Suan Ginger

I passed on the cookie.

Conclusion

On my first visit here I complained that the dish I ordered had no taste; interestingly the same applied here. Nothing tasted the way I expected, not even the sushi rice. The fish was a good quality, but given the storefront ambiance there are better places at the same price in town to get your sushi.

The also open at 12:30pm on Weekends, which is kind of strange.

Review 5/14/14

Suan Tha and Japanese, Fort Lauderdale

Suan Thai and Japanese quietly opened last week in the space previously occupied by Baja Fresh Mexican; I picked up a take-out menu when I dropped off a package at Fed Ex but they don't have their hours on the menu. I noticed the "Open" sign on last Friday so I supposed that they were open for lunch.

At 2:00 there was 1 person eating inside. They don't have a hostess. "Sit Anywhere". I had the choice of sitting in front of the register or near where the owner was having a meeting. I'm not a fan of the big open rooms. Privacy is kind of nice in a restaurant.

Suan Interior

They have a lunch menu and a "book" with their regular menu that's a bit daunting to go through. The lunch specials are various combinations of sushi, sashimi, california rolls and tempuras and teriyakis in just about every combination. They're mostly 11.99 to 12.99. They also have an "organic" tea menu for $3 that I mistakenly thought was iced tea; not realizing where I was. Regular iced tea is $2.50 so I ordered "Jasmine Green Tea", I also ordered off of the regular menu; Garlic Squid which is described as served on a bed of vegetables.

Suan Jasmine Green Tea

The tea turned out to be a mistake. I didn't like it at all. I drink Green Tea once in a while but this stuff was vile. Oh well, at least it's good for me. My server swung by and asked if I wanted white or brown rice, I guess he forgot to ask. I wasn't eating rice but I asked for brown to see what I got.

There's no music at all. A few other people came in so at least I wasn't in here all alone. The food came out in about 15 minutes.

Suan Brown Rice

The brown rice was completely devoid of flavor, which I guess isn't unexpected, but a bit of salt makes all the difference with rice. I don't know why they can't season it a bit and throw in some green onions.

The squid was a pretty big pile with a loose brown sauce.

Suan Garic Squid

Not exactly what I expected. The "vegetables" were some not-so-green broccoli, shredded carrots and cabbage leaves. Some of the squid was rubbery but overall not too bad, but there was no flavor in the dish. The squid could just as well been steamed; the brown sauce was not savory or garlicky at all. Like brown water.

$23 for this and I didn't like one thing about it. Not a bad looking place and service was cheerful. Oh, and they don't take AMEX.