Sumo Sushi Bar - Henderson, NV

Sumo Sushi Bar
2861 N Green Valley Pkwy
Henderson, NV 89014
(702) 451-7866
Type: Japanese food / sushi / restaurant
Map



Second day in Vegas and you know I gotta have some sushi. I tried calling my good friend who lives there to see what's some good spots, but he didn't answer his phone. So I had to take matters into my own hands and use the slow ass internet on my slow ass phone. After some researching and debating, I decide the family should go to Sumo. It's in a city called Henderson which is next to Vegas. I think the drive was maybe 10 to 15 miles from the strip. This better be worth it.



I read that this place was where many of the locals go. If that's the case, it should be decent. Sumo is located in a shopping plaza with a Stater Bros. or some kind of large grocery store. It looks like any run of the mill sushi bar in a strip mall. For those in the know though, there's a little bit more to it than that.

The inside of the place has a little bit of a Japanese theme to it. Japanese partitions and those lights with the Japanese characters are scattered here and there. Actually, I might just be imagining things cuz I'm not totally sure how the place was decorated. I know there was an aquarium for sure.

Their menu is what I remember. This place is a sushi roll lover's dream. There's soooo many special rolls that I just took pictures of some of the menu items instead of having to describe them. Fortunately and unfortunately, I didn't pay so I don't know the prices of the items. They didn't have them on the picture menus. I'm not gonna go into too much detail about the food we ordered. All I'm gonna say is that 95% of the stuff we got was really good.

The Cherry Blossom was good. There was crunchy soft shell crab inside the ball of avocados. I probably wouldn't order it again though. I thought it was a roll, but it's one of those special appetizers.



Cherry Blossom


This next item looks like a rainbow roll with a ponzu sauce or something. I think it was good too.

rainbow roll?


My sister ordered the Tuna Karai sashimi. This was really good. It's like the hawaiian poke, but this one's spicy. My sister liked it so much that she ordered another one.

Tuna Karai sashimi(2)


This looks like a volcano roll. Sorry. I was just too busy grubbing that I didn't even want to take notes. I took notes at the end after I was full and sleepy from all the bomb food.

Volcano Roll?




I don't think we ordered this


this one was eh


I think this last one was the stuffed tomato. It's raw salmon wrapped around some crab meat and scallops. It was spicy but very good. It was one of the first things to arrive at the table, and the first to be finished. We couldn't help it.

stuffed tomato without the tomato




we ordered this, but it never came. all good. we were full anyways


My mom also got the teriyaki salmon meal cuz she's not really into all these rolls. I tried some of the dish, and it was good fish. I was also hungry at the time. After all the food arrived and I started getting full, the food was still tasty. That's when you know something is really good. If you don't need anymore but it still "forces" you to keep eating. Holy crap. I just realized how much stuff we ordered, but we didn't need any doggy bags. Fat asses!

The next time I'm in Vegas, I'm likely to hit up this spot if we can't think of anything else. Sumo, in my humble opinion was a very great find. We got lucky and hit gold here. I wish I had that luck at the Bingo games we went to. Oh shut up. Bingo is cheap gambling, okay.

Todai - Daly City

Todai
1901 Junipero Serra Blvd # A
Daly City, CA 94014
(650) 997-0882
Type: Japanese food / buffet / sushi
Website
Map



I go all the way up north to the Bay Area-- known for it's diverse culture and restaurants, and I eat at this place. Todai. Not only can I eat at this place down here, but I heard so many people hate this place. I've eaten here before when I was younger, and I also didn't have such a great time. The reason we went here was cuz I wanted Japanese food, but we were real hungry and my mom had a gift card to this place. F*#k it. Let's go.

For those that don't know, Todai is a Japanese buffet serving various sushi, sushi rolls, and regular Japanese cuisine. I don't remember exactly how much it was for each adult, but I'm guessing more than $15 for lunch on the weekends.

After getting our seat, I head over to the sushi bar cuz I'm a sushi master now. haha. I was actually surprised at the amount of stuff they had. I got salmon sushi, some regular California rolls, tempura rolls with the sweet eel sauce on top, deep fried rolls, poke salad which is raw tuna with other stuff, and some miso soup. It was actually not that bad. *gasp!* Yeah I said it. It-was-not-that-bad. (please don't stop reading my blog) :)

stuff from the sushi bar


My next plate I decided to head over to the regular food. Horrible. The choices they had sucked so bad. Even everybody else in my family thought so. All I got was some fried rice, deep fried shrimp, tempura shrimp, and I don't know what those other things are. Wackness son.

unmemorable plate...


My third plate was more sushi, but I got tired of it too.

Todai. Todai. Todai. What am I gonna do with you? I probably won't see you again unless it's free or a birthday or something (I need to make a word for this kind of restaurant). Sorry. Your sushi was cool at first, but I'd rather pay more for a real all-you-can-eat sushi bar. My bad.

Sushi On Fire - Huntington Beach

Sushi On Fire
301 Main St # 103
Huntington Beach, CA 92648
(714) 374-8885
Type: Japanese food / sushi restaurant
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I've been to Sushi On Fire twice already. Both times were during their afternoon sushi Happy Hour. You'll get 20% off sushi and rolls if you come here between 3pm and 5pm. It's not a super bargain but I think it's worth it. If you're a baked/special roll kind of person like me, this is a great spot for you. They have so many rolls to choose from that it might take long to decide which one you want. The regular prices are a little bit higher than many places, but Happy Hour evens things out a bit.

The prices I state here are before the 20% discount.

To start off, we got the spicy scallop hand roll ($5.50). It's just a regular hand roll with raw scallops. I don't usually like scallops that much, but this roll wasn't bad at all.

spicy scallop hand roll


I'm always ordering some sushi nowadays. For me, it helps neutralize all the different tastes from the baked rolls. It's a tasty way to reset your palette. We ordered just the basics: salmon suushi, albacore sushi, and yellowtail sushi--all $4.95. I had no complaints about the sushi.

salmon, albacore, and yellowtail sushi


Luckily we knew one of the waiters there. He told us try some sauce which really went well with the sushis. It's some green sauce that's a little spicy and sour. I don't know what it's called.

The Green Sauce


I ordered the Main St. roll ($12.75). I forgot what was in it, but I remember it was just okay. It wasn't bad, but I wouldn't get that again with all the other options Sushi On Fire offers.

Main St. Roll


The White Roll on the other hand was really good. The name makes it sound pretty plain, but I assure you, you won't regret trying this. The rolls are baked with a batter on the outside, and there's two different sauces on top. In the middle there's a pile of spicy tuna that you can eat with it. To top everything off it the whole dish comes with 10 individual rolls.



Like I said before... If you like specialty rolls, you'll love Sushi On Fire. I can't really vouch for the sushi even though I thought it was good, but I don't think you'll be disappointed either way.

Kura Sushi - Costa Mesa

Kura Sushi
212 E 17th St
Costa Mesa, CA 92627
(949) 631-3200
Type: Japanese food / sushi / restaurant
Website
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I heard about Kura Sushi while searching for a sushi place in Newport Beach. I always frequent the Monster Munching blog to get ideas and inspiration for new restaurants to try. He pretty much said that it was a good place to peep out. He also gave a breakdown of the different prices of the plates. I liked.

Kura is unique in that it's a revolving sushi restaurant. The whole restaurant doesn't revolve like the one in Sleepless in Seattle. The food is put on plates and the plates are put on a conveyor belt that goes around to all the seats and tables. The plates are different colors so you know how much each one is. See the Monster Munching blog for the breakdown of the prices cuz I forgot.



There's just too many items to list that we got just between two people. I like this place for several reasons. One is that the amounts of sushi/rolls/food is small enough so you can try other things. It's also small enough in price to try other things as well. I like the conveyor belt thing because you can get the food when you feel like it instead of ordering it all at once. One thing to note though: If you want a lot of food available on the assembly line, you should probably go during peak hours. When we went, we had to order most of the good stuff, cuz not much was coming around. You should also ask about things not on the menu they give you. We saw some other people ordering things and were like, "Damn. We shoulda ordered that." So ask.

Edamame, albacore (ponzu sauce too tangy for me), cajun salmon sushi, and regular salmon sushi. I liked the two salmons although not the greatest.


don't remember


Rainbow roll and Crunchy roll. I liked the crunchy roll. I think it was less than $3 per order.


umm... Spider roll?


More rolls with tangy ponzu sauce


Candy roll?


Good ol' California roll ordered just to take up space in my stomach so I don't order too much


I had no complaints about the place. My girlfriend didn't really like it that much. I guess she knows her sushi more, but maybe I'm the lucky one for being ignorant still. I'll go here again, but I'll check out other places in Newport/Costa Mesa first.

A glimpse of what we're capable of...

I Love Sushi - Costa Mesa

I Love Sushi
2340 Harbor Blvd.
Costa Mesa, California 92626
714-540-6195
Type: Japanese food / sushi / restaurant
Website
Map



Yup. Another sushi restaurant. And there's more coming....

"I Love Sushi." I really do. Well, mostly the baked rolls, but after Sushi Roku I've been easing into the uncooked territories more often. I found out about this unusually-named sushi restaurant when I was looking for good sushi bars in the O.C. I saw all the great reviews about the place, and I believe it was ranked in the top ten best sushi places by AOL Citysearch. I had to see for myself. Plus, people said the prices were decent. So that was a big decision-helper.

So let's see. Did I love the sushi at "I Love Sushi?" It was okay. The fried oysters ($5.95) were good.

Fried Oysters (I think it came with maybe 6 pieces)


The salmon sashimi was cool.... for the price ($9.95). My girlfriend said it wasn't that great. The crunchy roll ($7.65) was pretty cheap, but I don't recommend it for avid crunchy roll consumers. One word.... wack.

Wack Roll... I mean Crunchy Roll (back) and salmon sashimi (front)


I'd say that the Toyota Cut Roll ($8.95) was the best thing we had. I ordered that cuz some other reviewer said it was good. Thank you reviewer. The fujiyama ($7.95) was ok, but the cooked fish that it came with was not good. I didn't like the salmon sushi ($3.95) only because they put wasabi in between the fish and the rice. I don't get why they have to do that. If you want wasabi, there's some on the side. I heard that's some traditional way of preparing it, but I'm good on that.

From left to right: Toyota Cut Roll, 2 pcs. salmon sushi, and 2 pcs. fujiyama.


So does this place deserve to be in the top ten in the OC for sushi bars? To me, that's a no. If it does, I feel sorry for Orange County. Maybe I came at the wrong time, cuz most of the people who reviewed the place on Citysearch gave it really good reviews. So maybe you shouldn't take my word for it. After all, I don't consider myself a sushi connoisseur. I just know my taste buds weren't agreeing with everybody else.

Sushi Roku - Santa Monica

Sushi Roku
1401 Ocean Ave
Santa Monica, CA 90401
(310) 458-4771
Type: Japanese food / sushi / restaurant
Website
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So it was my girl and I's 1 year anniversary on New Years' Day. Thanks for the best year of my life honey ;) We had to figure out what we wanted first, and then find out if it was open. What do the both of us love to eat almost any time of the day? Sushi and sushi rolls of course. So we Googled what was the best sushi place around. Pasadena had a few. L.A. had a few. And Santa Monica had a few. After literally about an hour or more of deciding we came to the conclusion that Sushi Roku in Santa Monica was the one. I think it was rated one of the top ten on AOL's Citysearch so we weren't too worried. The people who own Sushi Roku also own other upscale restaurants as Katana, Boa, and Robota Bar.

We didn't make reservations so we had to wait about 15-20 minutes for a table. The place is dark inside so I'm sorry for the horrible pictures. I don't like turning the flash on at restaurants. The items here are the most expensive I've seen so far, but it was for a special occasion. This place doesn't have many of the special baked rolls that I really like, so I had to force myself to eat more of the raw stuff..... and I'm glad I did.

The Chef's Sashimi Plate ($20.00) was very good. It was a small amount of the basic sashimi, but it came with 4 different sauces for you to dip with. Man that was real tasty.

Chef's Sashimi Plate... the bombest sashimi I've had


We got salmon sushi ($5.50) which was good. I ordered miso soup ($4.00) which sucked for the price. It should've come free with all the money you're spending. The toro and jalapeno roll (about $9?) was cool. I don't remember that too much.

Toro and Jalapeno Roll?


We also got the baked lobster roll ($19.00) which I also don't remember too much about. The katana roll ($17.00) was good though.

Katana or Baked Lobster roll?


I think this might be the Katana Roll


The crab dynamite had to be the most expensive appetizer I've eaten at $24.00. It was good and my girlfriend liked it alot. It had a distinctive taste.

This appetizer costs more than many meals (for two) I've eaten


So we drove all the way to Santa Monica from West Covina just to eat. It was late already by the time we were done and everything was closed. Was it worth the drive? I had no complaints. I really liked the sushi at Sushi Roku. I wouldn't come here expecting to get rolls unless you like the basic stuff mostly. The sashimi is where it's at here. After eating at this place, I've been ordering sushi more often. Too bad nothing has come close to it yet, but I'm not a picky sushi eater. I'd come here again, but not any time soon. The total bill for this place was $123 including tax and tip so for sure I can't come here yet. Gotta work overtime now.