My Review of "Sumo Salad"

A few weeks ago when I was at work Tim suggested that I review the first Sumo Salad outlet to open in South Australia. I dismissed the idea out of hand, primarily because I didn't come up with it and I'm reasonably egotistical.

Then, when today was teetering on the brink of lunchtime I was asked by co-workers if I would be attending the company BBQ across the river. I was taken aback as I hadn't heard anything about a free BBQ. It turned out that I was still being ignored by the Level 9 mailing list. Then, when I asked if they thought there would be wholemeal bread at the BBQ in an attempt at Friday banter I was laughed at for being a diet girl and at this stage I decided I didn't need them or their stupid BBQ or mailing list. I scoffed that I was going off for salad, left them and headed off to Myer Centre, Rundle Mall for a review of Sumo Salad and a guaranteed comment from Tim when I was done.

The first great thing I noticed about Sumo Salad was its location, squat over where "Spuds" had been before it went out of business, probably because the woman there that looked like a potato ate them into debt.

Sumo Salad advertises themselves with the slogan "Eat Big, Stay Thin" and, being an unashamed diet girl I was please to finally note a place in the food court that was serving healthy food and that wasn't jealously guarded by a giant sandwich. Predictably all the fat people were at the KFC and McDonalds on either side of it, leaving just me and thin girls getting salads. I thought that one girl was fat but she was just up the duff.

I chose the Thai Beef salad, which was advertised as having the least fat of all the Sumo Salads. According to the nutritional information which is provided for all of them it was 3.2g of Fat (50% saturated) for the 450g salad. It also came with three kinds of lettuce which I figured would shove it up all my meat loving co-workers who were probably literally plumping in the sun at this time on carcinogen-rich burnt sausages.

The salad was denser than it appeared, which was good because what seemed to be just a box of lettuce gave the impression it would provide just enough carbohydrates for the energy needed to open and eat it. Deeper in though there was cucumber, capsicum, red onions, other stuff and beef. All drizzled with a tangy zest, slightly less bitter than I was today. Based on this my main complaint was that it could have been tossed more, half because all the lettuce was at the top and half because I liked the idea of going back up to the servertress and asking her to toss my salad. I think she liked me, she smiled when I ordered and gave me a complimentary bread roll which I choose to take literally.

While it tasted good, the meal cost $8.95 for what was really Wok in a Box left uncooked. So as I left I set my timer to count just how long I would actually remain satisfied. I was cynically prepared, but I did stay unhungry for three hours which is my standard after lunch. So I was pretty much left with nothing to complain about to Tim, except for the disappointing lack of actual sumo present. I saw only three.