Wednesday, Nov. 29, 2000 | 9:09 a.m.
Sushi, clumped rice dampened with a touch of rice vinegar and then either topped or stuffed, has become a household word in American food culture.
Many people automatically associate sushi with raw fish, the thought of which makes a fair number of people queasy. In fact, this is not necessarily the case. Sushi can be made with vegetables, cooked fish and even raw or cooked meat, since the only essential component is the rice.
In Japan, sushi is eaten mostly as a snack, rarely the main component of a meal as it is in the U.S. Raw fish alone is sashimi, and a major part of deluxe, multicourse dinners. Those are the nightmarishly priced Japanese dinners you hear about, where the bill is around $500 per person. Top-quality raw fish is pricey, which makes what is discussed below seem like a real deal.
Las Vegas has many places to eat sushi, but lately, all-you-can-eat sushi restaurants have come to the fore. The following three places have their own styles, all three offering the all-you-can-eat format. Hopefully this description will make it easier for you to decide which one suits you best:
Makino, 3965 S. Decatur Blvd.
Makino began life in Torrance, Calif., as Todai and then became a successful chain of Japanese buffets. Makino is the family name of the founding chef, who sold his interest in the Todai chain to Korean investors.
Two years ago Makino himself opened this bright, cheerful restaurant, which is decorated with paper dolphins and painted in upbeat, nautically themed colors. He hopes it will serve as a prototype for more Makino restaurants in Las Vegas.
Sushi is only part of this buffet, a dazzling array of foods arranged along a meandering buffet line. It features composed salads, cooked dishes, around a dozen tiny, desserts and an eye-popping 40-odd varieties of sushi, most of which are replenished before your very eyes by a team of busy sushi men.
The quality is excellent, in large part because Makino's high volume operation means that the fish and, in fact, all the components, are very fresh indeed. Here you can choose from an array of nigiri sushi, the classic version where a topping, most often raw fish, is stuck to a clump of rice, or cut rolls, sushi rice that rings a wide variety of fillings.
Among nigiri sushi, the buttery, delicious hamachi, or yellowtail, is especially good, as is the good quality salmon and tuna. Makino says that his California rolls - imitation crab meat and avocado - and his eel rolls - sea eel brushed with an unctuous teriyaki sauce - are among his most popular. He also has a wide variety of crunchy rolls that have an outside crust of the smelt eggs called masago.
If you crave a cooked dish or two, don't miss broiled whole shrimp in the shell, a seafood-laced fried rice and Crab Boy, small crab shells stuffed with pure crab meat and spiced, then baked. The superb dessert station features an excellent creme brulee and finger-sized French pastries.
Open for lunch 11:30 a.m.-2:30 p.m. Monday-Thursday, 11:30 a.m.-3 p.m. Friday-Sunday, buffet $12.95; dinner 5:30-9 p.m. Monday-Thursday, Friday-Saturday, 5:30-10 p.m., Sunday 5:30-9:30 p.m. Sunday; buffet $20.95. (ass $1 to buffet price on Friday, Saturday and Sunday). Call 889-4477.
Sushi House Manda, 230 W. Sahara Ave.
This dark little house is located just west of the Strip. You get one hour to take advantage of the all-you-can-eat format. The restaurant's rather poetic Japanese name means "1,000 rice paddies."
Your sushi will be made to order by a sushi man situated behind the restaurant's tiny sushi bar. You'll have to sit at the sushi bar and not at one of the restaurant's tables, to be allowed to experience the all-you-can-eat sushi menu.
The nice thing about Sushi House Manda's menu is that you may order nigiri sushi, hand rolls or house special rolls, which gives you a lot of leeway in terms of variety. You might start, for instance, with a plate of mixed nigiri; a delicate, sweet omelet, tai, intensely flavored red snapper or, say, shiro maguro, clean-tasting albacore tuna.
Then you can progress to the more filling hand rolls. This is one of the few places in town serving natto, the notoriously smelly fermented soybeans eaten mainly in Tokyo. Here, it comes in a hand roll. Eat it at your peril.
Also excellent are salmon skin roll, made with toasted salmon skin and smelt eggs, and the very simple tuna roll. You'll have no trouble eating your fill in one hour here, and the restaurant is a good deal for those who don't mind the drab setting.
Open for dinner daily, 5-9:30 p.m. All-you-can-eat sushi, $22.95. Call 382-6006.
Sushi On Summerlin, 7450 W. Cheyenne Ave.
Here you can sit at the long, U-shaped sushi bar, or at a table when you order the all-you-can-eat service, but the time limit is also one hour. This restaurant is a bit tired looking, but it is certainly clean. The waiters wear black T-shirts. On the sushi bar, there is a large porcelain cat, perched very near piles of cut raw fish.
The food is good here and there are about 20 cooked dishes you can order in addition to the unlimited sushi, including the Japanese pot stickers called gyoza, and one of the best curry rice bowls in the city.
The sushi is creative and varied. These good nigiri include inari, rice wrapped in fried tofu skin, and the expensive unagi, freshwater eel which is cooked and brushed with a thick teriyaki sauce before serving. Spicy tuna roll is excellent, and you can have any roll either as a hand roll or as a cut roll, cut into six pieces.
Buffalo California roll is a baked California roll smeared with a spicy mayonnaise, one of the richest dishes the restaurant serves. One caveat is a house rule posted on the wall which reads, "You will be charged for a sashimi order if accompanying rice is not eaten."
The management here can't afford to have you fill up on the fish and throw away the rice.
Open daily from 11:30 a.m.-10 p.m. All-you-can-eat sushi, $24.95. Call 396-9760.
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