Hmm.. where do I begin. I am originally from Manteca, but moved to go to college near San Francisco four years ago and since then I have become very critical of Japanese food. Where to begin? I basically heard from my sister that Shomis is supposedly the best in the area, but that isn't saying much. If you have never ventured out of the 209 area code then yes, it's a good Japanese place. However, personally I think it has terrible food.
1) Food - I ordered a hand roll, a couple rolls, and amaebi. The materials are decent, especially the raw fish, however rolls lack creativity and skill. I've eaten at many other places, and by far Shomi food looks ugly at best. The tempura shrimp in my special roll was overcooked to the point of being burned to a crisp. The sauce for it.... a mixture of mayonnaise/mustard. Are you kidding me? That taste like crap.. if anything there should be a spicy miso sauce used instead. I also ordered the lion king roll and to my surprise that didn't taste very good either. There was barely even any salmon on there and the CORRECT way to bake a lion king roll is to have a slight amount of rawness in the middle of the fish... NOT BAKE TILL 100% WELL DONE. Doing so ends up with an overcooked chewy fish.
2) Service - My waitress was very nice and I got a lot of attention.... maybe too much attention. She came by to ask me something every 3 minutes which is way too often. The sushi chefs? I don't know who taught them, but it seems like they only spent a 3 hours trying to learn to make sushi. They can't even make any sushi rolls that have a circular cross section.. most of the stuff they create looks like this long trapezoid (and for 8-10 dollars a roll you should expect better effort)
3) Decor - This isn't a place you take a nice date to. It looks a bit run down, but I forgive that since this place was probably established a long time ago and I personally don't put much emphasis on decorations.
All in all, I am yet again disappointed by the lack of a good Japanese restaurant in the Stockton and Modesto area. At best this place is mediocre, and there are far worse restaurants than this. If anything, Japanese restaurant owners should take a hint and try to increase their standards by taking their cuisines more seriously.
The only thing that saves this place from getting a one star rating is that its better than a lot of terrible restaurants in Stockton and Modesto.
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