Crazy Sumo Ellsworth — Restaurant in Ellsworth

A couple months ago I came to crazy sumo and was impressed. A few things weren't great but other things were awesome, so over all, a good experience.

I have been there twice since that first time and have not had an awesome experience since.

Habachi chicken has been over cooked both times I've had it.

We dined on the table side tonight and it was the worst experience we've had thus far, bad enough that I doubt we'll be back.

We went to dinner with my cousins, 2 groups of 3 with separate checks.

First of all, ordering was confusing and difficult as our waitress kept telling us conflicting things.

My cousin has a dairy allergy. The waitress communicated that to the chef and then came back to tell my cousin she couldn't have the tempura or noodles she had ordered. Clearly they didn't understand the difference between gluten and dairy. We tried to explain but finally gave up and my cousin changed her order.

We literally told the waitress NOT to bring our son more soda. Twice she brought him more soda.

We all ordered bento boxes and they messed up my husband and my cousin's husbands side orders. We just switched the sushi ourselves. Then my cousin's husband noticed he didn't have the right dumpling when he bit into it. Turned out they had switched his and my husband's again. The waitress came by so we mentioned it. We were gonna switch them but she offered to have it remade and since fried food is best fresh, we agreed. Well, they brought my husband's pork dumpling but not my cousin's shrimp. So we mentioned it and they argued with us. Then when they did bring it out they only brought 3 pieces when the bento box came with 6!

My son ordered a steak medium and it came well done.

I ordered beef negmaki and it came with cheese in it? My husband's chicken was dry. None of us finished our meals, the food really wasn't very good.

We tried to communicate with staff but with our waitress giving out incorrect info, the chef not understanding the allergy info and the other lady the waitress brought to our table arguing with us over the shrimp, we gave up. Then she added a service charge because we were a group of 6, though there were only 3 on our check. I work in a restaurant, I wouldn't have stiffed her. But to have a tip demanded after a bad experience was quite...

Crazy sumo... you have to be crazy to like this place. I have no idea how they are still open with abysmal attendance, and absolutely disgusting food!! We came back for a second try and decided to try none hibachi!! We started bao that was like wet bread and even at that i still believe it was frozen and heated not homemade!! As well as wings there was a small amount of sauce drizzled on the overcooked wings that was OKAY... easy bottled sauce. I got a sirloin bento box the steak was cut up into cat food and tasted about the same with some unidentifiable brown sauce to cover how bland it was... just gross also asked how I wanted it cooked I said rare and it was well!! I took two bites I asked what the little umi looking things in the box were i said I can't have shellfish to our server to which she told me no you're fine it's shrimp? In my world that's shellfish very dangerous! I asked for fried rice amd got... I don't even know it's difficult to make fried rice gross but they did it was sushi rice cooked with what I assume was soy sauce to change the color with nothing but maybe half a piece of fried egg it was horrible... and I love most fried rice so that really shows how poor the food is And finally the sushi if you want to call it that pathetic fish cuts the nori was so old you could smell it through the sushi another thing I would not eat... my wife got ramen noodles and she said it was okayish... I called over our server and said I couldn't eat any of it could I have Ramen as well she did go get it for me... which was lackluster as well neither of us finished it I have never seen peppers in Raman or onion especially that many onions just odd the whole menu is just odd the food is beyond gross and I normally wouldn't be so harsh but at the end of the meal she tried to charge me for the bento... I asked if she was really going yo charge me for that? She did take it off call it a deal since my old fashioned had huge ice cubes and no fruit. So even the drinks don't hit the mark..I was hopeful for this place so we might have somewhere good to eat in ellsworth but I guess we all will continue to go to bangor or bar harbor for food....

I have a suspicious mind (okay, I'm at least somewhat paranoid, but these days who isn't?) and I wrote a previous review in which I aired my suspicion that this restaurant was an information farm. I need to mostly apologize for that. The owner took the time to reply to me, in depth, and I have to concede that rather than directly being an information farm, it's probably more that they, like most businesses these days, are roped into information farming by their much larger software developers.

Or, tl;dr, they are peripherally involved in an "everybody does it" sort of way, and they even take some steps to help out for those of us who put more of a premium on privacy.

So I feel wrong for having singled them out and for being so directly suspicious of their practices, and this new review (well, after this little bit of crow-eating) is entirely about my dining experiences there.

Which have been great. None of my issues were ever about the food or the customer service.

The food is high-class, tasty, and leaves me feeling good afterward, and the hostesses and servers have been unfailingly polite and understanding, even when I've been difficult (in particular, the one time they asked for my phone number.) The decor is good, but starting to show signs of wear and may need maintenance soon, but the place is clean as a whistle and the food is all I could smell.

I even came near closing one time and saw how they cleaned it; they really go to town on the hibachi grills. If there was a category for cleanliness they'd get five stars in that too.

Well, I'll feel too awkward to come back for a long time, and I hope that if they've figured out who wrote these, they forget them by the time I show my face here again. But that's my own fault. Here's hoping this one at least makes...