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| - From the outside this place looks like a run down Asian restaurant, but don't judge this book by the cover. Inside isn't much to speak of either with its tacky Asian decorations. Sushi Tomo is a top player in Pittsburgh's sushi scene.
My first time here I had three rolls, spicy salmon, spicy tuna, and a dragon roll, an order of seaweed salad and Saki. These are no little rolls, these would have filled up any Pittsburgh steel worker after a double shift. The rice was perfectly cooked, sticky and delicious, the salmon and tuna perfectly aged and flavorful. The sauces delicately drizzled over each roll, normally added to please the eye, also pleased my palate, adding a zingy creaminess to these Japanese works of art. The seaweed salad was good, but I've never had a bad one.
My second visit was for lunch, as I was alone, I sat at the sushi bar. Remembering my first foray at Sushi Tomo, I only ordered 2 rolls, being a salmon freak I had the spicy salmon again and asked the chef if he worked with salmon skin. He made me a delicious salmon skin roll with the fatty belly as the main protein in the middle of the roll. It was delicious and to guild the Lilly, he topped each piece with salmon eggs. As if the fatty belly and crispy salmon skin wasn't enough richness, the salmon eggs added even more creamy richness to each piece. It was an epicurean delight, a mixture of textures and temperatures. Warm rice, crispy salmon skin, cool salmon belly, and the creamy salmon eggs. Just a touch of soy sauce for that wonderful umami earthiness. This was a work of culinary art. I hope this roll is on the menu, I'd order two of them, although I'd just have the salmon eggs on one of the rolls, as their richness became tiresome to my palate.
Great place, even if the outside could use sprucing up, but in life we find these are the hidden gems that normally we'd pass up.
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