Tatu

The very first time I went to Tatu, I fell in love. The prices were great and I get what I wanted. But the last two times have been awful, and I will never be going back. The calamari is thickly deep fried to where you can’t taste the actual squid, you just taste the grease which was discussing. My favourite sushi roll is The Mexican roll, and almost every sushi place has it, but this one www disgusting. Since their tempura is like cake, and they smothered it in shrimp sauce, it was soggy and disgusting. Lastly, I got clear soup and you can tell they use the onions from the frenchs fried onions that you would use in green bean casserole and not the actual onions you’re supposed to have. It was not good. I will never recommend this place again.

I expected much better food for the price I paid. Had lunch here and the food was mediocre quality. Service was alright. The food also took absolutely forever to be ready. I do like the atmosphere, though.

Freshest sushi sashimi in town. The owner is a very experienced sushi chef. Lunch special is honestly one of the best deals in town. And their rolls are way better than anywhere else and very very reasonably priced.

This is the worst place I’ve ever gone to for sushi. Sushi is supposed to be small, bite-​sized pieces that fit in your mouth without falling apart. Big enough to get you full but small enough that you can still chew a sushi roll without looking like a blowfish and possibly choking from how big a portion you just put into your mouth.
Not only was the sushi mediocre and I sent it back not once, but twice. But the fried rice was lousy and lacked flavor. The steak teriyaki was mostly fat & served cold.
The waiter was rude and lacked interest in serving us after he saw that we did not like the quality of the food we were given. It’s not our fault the restaurant you work for serves crappy foods. Get with it.
Overall horrible experience. And I’m an avid sushi lover– from Miami. As a student in Gainesville I have yet to experience a truly amazing sushi restaurant while being up north. I miss the freshness and quality of sushi in Miami! This place sucked.

Unbelievably slow…

I would give Tatu 3.5 stars just because it’s a bit run down… But I’ll go ahead and give it 4. Sushi is very reasonably priced the staff is great and the food is great. My favorites are the fried calamari appetizer, Pacific roll and Crispy roll. It is very conveniently located. The place isn’t super fancy or anything but I’ve been to dragonfly once before and I definitely think that the food is better here. They have lunch specials and saki specials chill place to meet up with friends. All in all two thumbs up!

I’m giving this a Ta-​TWO. The food is way below average. I actually feel bad for my stomach for subjecting it to Tatu. The dinner meal for $ 12 are a good deal if you enjoy mediocrity. The salad is better than the soup. The tuna and salmon roll are literally just that. Tuna and rice. They give you spicy mayo on the side. I’ll eat it if it’s in the roll, but I can’t in good conscience add it myself.
Bonus points for good service and great saki bombs. Can you mess up a Saki bomb?
Let’s be honest — do enough saki bombs and the food becomes irrelevant. You’re really just eating to give your body a fighting chance of not blacking out.
The win goes to the waitress that told me that the soy sauce was both low sodium and high sodium. I suppose it’s whatever you want it to be. Just use it for much needed flavor.

My boyfriend and I ordered the tuna summer roll app, yukaejang, a kiwi roll, and the spicy lobster roll. The tuna summer rolls came out 5 minutes later than the rest off the food and the server made the excuse that there was a new chef in the kitchen… there was no cooking involved for this appetizer so it didn’t make any sense that this new chef finished making our entrees first. I honestly think the server just forgot to put it in. Additionally, when they finally did come out, the taste was off and they were poorly wrapped. The rice paper was floppy and falling apart. On to the yukaejang. The amount of beef in this soup is laughable! I only found a couple small pieces of shredded beef amongst what was approximately 90% ferns. The kiwi roll actually looked half decent and was somewhat refreshing. It was an interesting twist on sushi. The spicy lobster roll however was very unappealing. The avocado and shrimp on top were starting to fall off. I believe part of enjoying sushi is the amount of work the chefs put into their presentations but this roll just looked sad. Also, service was pretty terrible. Not once did the waitress come to check on our table to see if we needed anything. We ended up running out of water and while we were waiting on our check we could see her just playing on her phone. We came in around 3:30 so it wasn’t even busy. Overall, I wouldn’t recommend this place and I won’t be coming back.

As a former restaurant manager it pains me to write this review but the behavior of the owner of this «establishment» during our dining experience was inexcusable. We had a larger party and made sure to explain to the server that we would be needing separate checks. She was a newer server but she was attentive and did the best she could given the circumstances. We sat down at our table around 8:30 with orders being placed around 9 (with a large party it took us a while to get ourselves ready to order). I watched our server head straight to the computer after taking our order and the wait began. 20 minutes, 30, an hour, an hour and a half goes by. At this point its 10:30, we’re starving and clearly getting agitated. Keep in mind there was only one other table in the entire restaurant at this time! About halfway through our wait for sushi, hot dishes for certain members of our table arrived and were eaten long before the sushi showed up. There was only one person working at the sushi counter and he was clearly in no rush to complete orders in a timely manner.
During this waiting period we mentioned to our server that we wished to cancel our orders. We were told that her boss would garnish her wages for this (even though the food clearly hadn’t been plated yet) and begged for patience which we attempted to oblige. Again, our server was very nice – this was clearly a back of the house issue.
After nearly two hours, two of our three rolls arrived, sloppily constructed with too much rice. Clearly the rolls we received were made with low quality preparation as a cheap way to make money off of Americanized style sushi. We told our server again that we didn’t want the last part of our order and another member of our party went to find the manager. Lo and behold, the manager was the «sushi chef» (using that term VERY loosely) and said he’d come see us in a minute. Ten minutes go by and he shows up at our table with the first words out of his mouth being, «don’t worry, she’s fired. I know your server was slow and terrible but she won’t be working here anymore.» Our retort about watching him slowly fulfill tickets with over an hour wait time left him speechless and he got up from the table and walked away! Blaming your piss poor management and ability to staff on a novice server is a low down dirty way to cover your tracks. After speaking with our server we paid our tab and told her that we appreciated her hard work despite the abhorrent management environment. We will NEVER return to this disgusting excuse for a sushi bar.
PS* watched this «manager» practically grope a female friend customer from another table. Highly unprofessional! Don’t waste your money on this hellhole.

Tatu has very good food. I always get the Salmon Tempera roll. It’s a decent size. During the week, they also have lunch specials. The lighting is dark with multiple TVs available. They have punch cards available too where you can receive a free sushi roll after spending greater than $ 10 for about 10 visits. It’s also conveniently close to campus. The price could be cheaper, but still acceptable. Parking can be quite busy and towing does occur. Some nights sororities come in big groups doing Sake bombs, being loud, and creating a large mess.
The biggest problem with Tatu is their SLOW service. No matter if it’s packed or mostly empty, their service is ridiculously slow. So be prepared to wait FOREVER! But then the food is good. Just rating the food and the price, this is the one I highly recommend for Japanese cuisine. I don’t recommend this restaurant for the first few dates, unless you want to test your patience.

I LOVE Tatu! In fact, I’ve loved Tatu for years while in living in Gainesville and even when visiting! I made a reservation a couple hours before going on a Friday night. I was surprised that they were not very crowded at 7:30pm when we went but it was full when we left. They have all kinds of Japanese dishes as well as sushi. They have salads, noodles, and chicken (katsu aka fried) etc.
We started with the Ginger side salad and homemade pork dumplings. I’ve never had their homemade pork dumplings and it was recommended to us by the server. Apparently the other dumplings, for $ 1 less, are frozen and smaller so we tried the homemade ones. We were not disappointed because they were delicious! Every time I come here, I like to try different Signature Sushi rolls. This time we tried the Spicy Lobster roll and the Head Hunter roll. Both rolls were fresh, large, and delicious! I would probably choose the Head Hunter roll over the Spicy Lobster because I’m not a fan of sweet wasabi sauce.
It’s a great place for people of all ages but not necessarily good for extremely large parties. This establishment fills up quick! I definitely recommend it if you’re in the area!

The food was so delicious! It’s somewhat worth the wait! The food and price match! I would so recommend this place to my friends. I found out they are super local as well that’s a bonus point for me! Support the local economy! The place plays great music and has a really great vibe! :)

The food is amazing but the wait takes 15 minutes to an hour and the servers are nice overall I would highly recommend this if you are in the mood for sushi or stir fry

My experience was terrible. Something I always look forward to at a sushi restaurant is a salad with ginger dressing. The ginger dressing was so terrible I couldn’t even finish it. I was extremely let down with the sushi my family and I had. From someone who works full time at a sushi restaurant, they definitely need to redo the menu and reconsider how they prepare their food. Worst sushi I’ve ever had!

Don’t try to dine here if you don’t like to wait toooooo long, it will takes you forever to serve the food especially the noddles. And plus it’s kinda waste of time When waiting for the food. Plus, the AC seems doesn’t work well. And talking about their food, I like noddles, but I think I won’t came here again because of the timing issue.

Went on a date. The menu looked promising, but it wasn’t that great. The teriyaki was tasty but nothing to write home about. My date had been there before and complained that the miso soup, which she had had before, was pretty bland.

I feel pretty ambivalent about this place.
The lunch specials are really tight — you get ALOT of food for a reasonable price. I also do love their flavored sake. Some of their dishes are pretty good! I ‘m all about their fried tofu.
The food and the service are just. average. I never have a bad meal there but I don’t rush to post a picture of my food on taste-​spotting like I would at Dragonfly or Chopstix. The servers are never around and seem annoyed/​confused half the time (which is understandable because working at midtown is god awful).
Plus if you go there at night you’ll be stuck next to an entire sorority pledge class. They will all get sake bombs and they will spend your entire meal — which will take forever because their big party has taken up half the restaurant — screeching SAKE SAKE and banging the tables with their manicured claws.
If you’re on campus or near the midtown area, it’s good spot to grab lunch.

My other review dates from way back in 2009, so it’s time for an update considering that I ate here tonight (20 June 2012). They’ve improved – I will say that up front. The sushi was overall better than I’d remembered and the annoying fratboy party-​lite music (Dave Matthews et al) were gone and they had a good combination of hip-​hop and dance on instead. Still, not as sound a choice as some J-​pop, but ok. I mean, you don’t spend a fortune on nice, modern, sleek, decoration for your interior then play Dave Matthews – and at a sushi bar, at that. The waitress was prompt and friendly, too.
Now, the problem. While most of my sushi was fine, the smoked salmon nigiri was more like lox – a very salty, strong, salmon. The waitress asked me how everything was, so I told her it was at best. .. atypical. .. for salmon nigiri. Since I was sitting up at the sushi bar, she directed me to speak with the sushi chef – who is also the owner – about this issue. What I’d tried to communicate with her since she’d asked how everything was, in fact, was that I disliked the smoke salmon and would rather have a replacement for it of some other nigiri. However, the sushi chef attempted to explain to me why he’d chosen to use this type of smoked salmon: it has a stronger flavor (I agree on that) and thus cuts through the other flavors of rolls it’s used in like the Bagel Roll better than traditional smoked salmon. That’s fine, but in the case of the nigiri, it’s just this strong fish and some rice, so it doesn’t work out too well. He never offered to sub out something else for it and over the noise of the sushi bar and aforementioned music it was hard really to even carry on a conversation with him though I tried to simply to be polite since he kept on talking to me about his whole philosophy on sushi, what people like, why he opened the restaurant, what sushi bars in Florida were like twenty years ago. .. you get the picture. When I requested another nigiri (fresh, not smoked, salmon for this one) he did at least cut me a very nice piece of salmon however the original smoked salmon stayed on the bill. I never requested it to be removed, but I did express rather clearly that I disliked it. People, don’t ask your patrons if they like their food if you’re not looking for an honest response and prepared to make it right.
So I’m of mixed views on Tatu: it’s still not outstanding and not even really in some respects running as smoothly as a sit-​down establishment that has been open since around 2007 should run, but the extended monologue of the chef/​owner about sushi demonstrated his obvious love for what he does and for his restaurant, and that won me over to an extent. I will try it again I think, but still it’s not where I’d hope it would be at this point in its career.

It pains me to downgrade Tatu as it has been the one place very close to campus I used to love getting lunch.
Service is still decent, although there’s one waitress you should avoid. The atmosphere is alright, but their music choice is not always the best.
The sushi is not as good as it used to be, certainly you can find better in Gainesville. Many of the dishes on the menu seem overpriced.
I love the lunch special, for $ 8 bucks its a pretty good lunch. The drinks have gone up in price (something I’m very disappointed about). The service has gone down and while its still decent, I think its average now.
Recently we got some terrible dry, overcooked teriyaki chicken and the waitress was not nice about this at all. She didn’t so much as apologize.
Although I do appreciate the espn on flat screens, I just don’t think Tatu is as good as it was when it first opened.

Horrible place, the health department shutting it down would not surprise me.
I’ve been here twice, both with friends, and both times each group decided the food was not very good. It ranges from bland, over-​salted, to down right disgusting.
I made the mistake one time of ordering sashimi at Tatu that arrived late and smelling rancid. I took a bite just to confirm my nose and then immediately sent it back. Yes it was rancid. The rest of my party ate their bland/​over-​salted meals while I just sat there. 20 minutes later the waitress brought us all our checks and the chef/​manager came out to argue with me about my dish, not apologize.
Avoid this rat hole or if you dare make sure you have plenty of antibiotics on hand…