Blue Bamboo Sushi

Blue Bamboo is a nice new sushi bar and Asian fusion restaurant sitting in an odd little shopping center along N. Florida Avenue, just south of Bearss Avenue. You’ll find Blue Bamboo in the Action Plaza shopping center which has a large Coast Dental facility, an assortment of unusual storefronts, and my personal favorite — Ravens & Rockers. (According to the signs out front, Ravens & Rockers offers a wide variety of Gothic, Cyber, Metal, Punk, Vampire, Industrial, Rockabilly, Hardcore, Steampunk, Fetish, Pin Up, and Rocker amazing affordable fashions for stage, street and club.)
Thankfully, inside the front door of Blue Bamboo the atmosphere is serene and peaceful with lots of blues and whites in the décor including white tables and chairs, and a large wall mural of the famous Japanese wood-​block painting known as The Great Wave of Kanagawa. Soft New Age jazz is piped in to the dining room to mask any of the road noise outside,
Blue Bamboo’s menu is a great combination of Asian appetizers, soups, salads, Noodle bowls, Rice bowls, sushi, sashimi, and rolls. They have a Happy Hour special every weeknight from 5 — 7pm when most of the very basic rolls are available for $ 3 each. That would include California rolls, Spicy Tuna rolls, veggie rolls, and so on.
In addition to Miso soup, Blue Bamboo offers Vietnamese phở soup, and Udon soup with its thick wheat noodles. You can order the traditional ginger salad served over lettuce, Wakame seaweed salad tossed with strawberries & mango, and garnished with smelt roe, or an interesting Spicy Salmon and Avocado Salad served over mixed greens.
Within their list of signature sushi rolls I spotted the Hamachi Bomb which was made with spicy tuna tartar and asparagus, topped with seared yellowtail sashimi, tempura flakes, smelt roe, jalapeño, 7 spice aioli & sweet soy. I also ordered the Softshell BLT which was made with soft-​shell crab, grape tomatoes, lettuce and, bacon, which was wrapped in soy paper with spicy mayo & sweet soy. Both rolls were unique and very delicious.
Blue Bamboo has a nice selection of affordably-​priced sushi and Asian cuisine, and it is well worth the drive to find this place.

Went with a friend last night for the first time — I had to twist my friends arm because he said he did not like sushi — WELL — he quickly changed his mind. The service was great, the food was better and WE will be back!

A flawless meal. Not an overwhelming menu and each roll seemed carefully thought out making it really hard to decide on one. Some menus are so extensive you lose track of the really good stuff, this wasn’t like that.
My husband got the yellowtail roll and the Fat Geisha, both of which he said tasted fresh.
I got the noodle bowl with sautéed veggies instead of meat (not on the menu but they accommodated me which earns extra points).
Our server was excellent and super friendly.
The restaurant itself is in a pretty strange location, just South of the Bearss/​Florida intersection. It is nice though and seemed clean.
A great find!

Stopped into here yesterday for lunch. The first thing I noticed was the décor — a very modern vibe with white tables and artistic paintings on the walls. My favorite Japanese painting, The Great Wave of Kanagawa: a painting of Japanese people caught in a tsunami, is painted on one of the walls here and that definitely caught my eye… Now if only a restaurant in Tampa had the Starry Night by Van Gogh on their wall.
We arrived for a late lunch at around 3PM so the lunch crowd wasn’t around and grabbed a seat at the sushi bar with the chef. The secret to any sushi place is to always sit at the sushi bar and talk to the sushi chef — just like conversing with your bartender is the key to great drinks. The chef, Mike, told us he has been a sushi chef for quite some time and worked at numerous restaurants around Tampa, such as Zen Bistro, Sushi Alive, and Jackson’s (years back). The chef knew plenty about the local food scene and it was fun conversing with him about that.
The prices on the menu are very reasonable, a California Roll is only $ 4 — I tend to use that roll as a gauge for menu pricing, and many of the special rolls were under $ 10. They have a happy hour daily from 5−7PM with $ 3 rolls which is certainly a deal, and a lunch special with 2 rolls and a side I believe for $ 10?
People who love general Vietnamese cuisine will be able to see Phở and Spring Rolls on the menu, options you normally wouldn’t find on a menu at a sushi restaurant.
I ordered the Geso Calamari ($ 6) and the Sunshine Roll ($ 8) which contains shrimp, cucumber, topped with salmon sashimi slices with rice-​wine vinaigrette, roe, and scallions.
The flash-​fried calamari had just right the right crunch and wasn’t too chewy even though it was lightly fried. I’ve had this dish at another sushi restaurat in the past and didn’t enjoy it, but it was great at Bamboo. The Sunshine Roll had just the right amount of ingredients, all complementing each other. It wasn’t too acidic or sour and the taste of the salmon was excellent.
I left with a happy stomach and will definitely be back soon.

I was craving sushi and this place opened up recently down the road, so I decided to see if it could be a new favorite sushi place of mine. It totally won me over. The décor is adorable, a blue and white color scheme with little white candles on each table. The menu was impressive for a new little place like this. To start I tried the edamame and ginger salad. (pretty standard but good nonetheless) The rolls were outstanding.
Negima roll– yellowtail & scallion. we added chopped jalapeño, amazing!
Tempura Philadelphia– salmon, cream cheese, fried. spicy mayo (yum!)
Jalapeño popper– a specialty roll. my personal favorite
Everything was very reasonably priced and the service was friendly… they are a family ran buisness and seem very passionate about their new endeavor. I will definitely come back and give them more of my business.

Ate at Blue Bamboo Sushi this evening. Everything was delicious. The server was courteous, helping us with our selections. We had the Phở Soup, Vegetable Roll, the Surf and Turf, the Mexican roll and the California Roll. All was superb. I heard a couple behind us complain about the service. What do you expect when everyone gets individual attention and the food is fresh made to order? I would give this place 5 stars out of 5. If any one doesn’t want to wait, then move on! Great Place in North Tampa.

I am honored to be the first Unilocaler to review this new Carrollwood sushi restaurant! I ordered dinner from them via DoorStep Delivery and I cannot comment on the service or ambiance, but the food:
WOW. I was nervous to order sushi from somewhere SO cheap ($ 5 rolls? $ 4 crab rangoons? $ 7 tuna tataki?) and was so pleasantly surprised! The only two negatives were they didn’t include my tempura philly roll and they don’t include a dipping sauce for the tuna tataki. Here is what we had:
Tuna Tataki– was just ok — flavor was off and there was no dipping sauce
Ginger Salad — was good, standard, dressing was good
Miso Soup – was standard miso
Krab Rangoon-​delicious, and for $ 4 we got 5 pieces!
Volcano Roll-​So, so good… one of my new favorite rolls
Dragon Roll-​also amazing, another new favorite
Mochi Ice Cream-​WOW for $ 5 we got 3 pieces-​vanilla, green tea and strawberry! They were large and tasty – a great cherry on top of the meal
Overall the price was way, way low for Tampa sushi and it was delicious sushi. The only reason they got ⁴⁄₅ stars was the fact that we paid for a roll we didn’t get and the weird tuna tataki. Will definitely go back soon!