Tomo • Tuesday, April 29, 2014

TOMO

7411 N Keystone Ave. Indianapolis, IN 46240

We tried Tomo a few months ago and thought it was worth a second visit when we were craving hibachi recently. Tomo serves hibachi and sushi as well as other traditional Japanese food like teriyaki, tempura, katsu, pad thai and various noodles. On both of our visits we chose the hibachi, so this well be one of our shorter posts. We will have to try some other items on our next visit.

Clean Soup (included)

Soup/Salad

Ginger Salad (included)

All habachi entrées include what they call ‘clean soup’ and a small salad with ginger dressing. If you’ve ever eaten hibachi, you know this is pretty standard. The soup is simple—clear broth with mushrooms, scallions and fried onions. The broth wasn’t too flavorful other than salt, but the mushrooms, scallions and fried onions are a good combination for this plain broth. We would have liked more fried onions and for them not to be soggy, but we weren’t looking for fine dining here. The house salad was fresh, cold and crisp, and the ginger dressing was one of the better ones we’ve had.

Entrées

Hibachi Combo ($22.95)

Sean and I both ordered the same thing—the Hibachi Combo ($22.95), which allows you to chose any two options between chicken, steak, shrimp, scallop, salmon or calamari. We both chose the chicken and steak. On our first visit, Sean ordered the shrimp and steak, but he noticed that they include two pieces of shrimp in every combo order, so he got the chicken this time. This dish also comes with vegetables (onions, carrots, broccoli and zucchini) and fried rice. Everything here is as you would expect from a hibachi meal. All the ingredients are cooked table-side in oil, soy sauce, salt and butter. The steaks are never cooked below medium well since they cut a thin steak into small pieces. The chicken has some lemon added to it and is topped with sesame seeds. The shrimp were good and the four (I gave him my two) were enough to satisfy his shrimp craving. They provide two sauces on the side, one white and one ginger-type sauce. Like a lot of people familiar with hibachi, Sean gets two sides of the white sauce because he likes it so much. It’s a very large and filling meal, so you won’t be going home hungry.

 

Overall

We tried to avoid going to a chain restaurant for our hibachi craving and we were happy with our choice. Both times we have gone here our chefs haven’t been the most engaging or entertaining with the typical jokes or tricks, but the meal has always been good. This kind of meal is dependable, meaning it will likely taste the same, if not extremely similar, every time you visit. There’s no variation or experimenting, but you know what to expect. We look forward to trying another hibachi place and being able to compare the two, but as it stands, we will be returning.

Rundown:

Food: 4/5
Service: 4.5/5
Price: $$
Location: Northeast (Keystone)
Cuisine: Japanese/Sushi/Steakhouse
Dress Code: Casual