Sushi Loca

VERDICT: Shove it in your face hole - Xtreme Sushi for the eternally hip that don't have time to be bothered with anything that doesn't come with a warning.

My first problem with Sushi Loca is the name.  It sounds like Mexican Sushi, right?  For some reason, all I can imagine is a California roll deep fried and smothered in cheese and enchilada sauce.  Luckily, that isn't on the menu, however, it was a hindrance in getting in the door.  Greg also refused to eat at a place with such misleading name.  I had to agree with him.  I long ago set the rule that I never eat Japanese food from a restaurant that has Chinese food for the simple reason that Chinese people can't cook Japanese food well.  I am pleased to announce that there isn't a taquito roll on the menu.  There are some spicy rolls and perhaps that is the association with the name "Loca". 

The atmosphere is slick, red, bright, and ultra-modern.  The music is a soundtrack of dance songs that have annoyed me throughout time.  All the way from "Kung Fu Fighting" to "Everybody Dance Now" to the Black Eyed Peas song that seemed to be written solely to get played at every Bar Mitzvah from now 'til eternity.  Way to corner the Jewish market, Black Eyed Peas!  These songs are blasted, too.  To the point that Greg could not hear me very well and he's got super hearing.  So, he ended up devolving into a go-go boy that had to bop to the beat, which can be quite distressing for me to watch.

We got the Jackpot roll and the Megabucks roll.  The Jackpot roll was OK, but Greg thought it was too spicy.  The Megabucks roll was cold, like it just came out the freezer.  I'm used to sushi being room temperature and I didn't care for the icebox sushi.  So, I don't recommend their "fancy" rolls.  I had every intention in "going cheap" and only ordering traditional rolls, but I always get sucked into trying house rolls.  As far as house rolls go, there are a lot of them, but there isn't much variation in them.  They all appear to be various combinations of salmon and cream cheese or crab and avocado smothered with different sauces.  I really should have just gotten the good ol' staples.  The California roll I got was delicious.  Greg said that I should be ashamed because the California roll seems like such an insult to Japanese food (compared to the Megabucks roll?!?  Ha!).  Anyway, if you are going to order sushi in this dance club of a Mexican/Japanese restaurant than I suggest keeping is simple: tuna roll, California roll, tamago...etc.

Greg also got the tonkatsu.  They did not provide karashi, but they did put the tonkatsu sauce on the side.  Since Greg doesn't like karashi, it wasn't a big deal.  I, on the other hand, would have been bummed out.

Osaka - Sahara Location

VERDICT: The most authentic Japanese restaurant in Las Vegas.

I lived in Japan for two years and consequently I ate food there.  I grew to love Japanese food even more than before I moved there.  Not just the stuff you are used to eating in generic Japanese restaurants, but also the regular, daily food....the meat and potatoes, if you will.  When I came back to America I was devastated that I could not find any restaurant that prepared it quite the way that I had it in Japan, nor the types of food that I had in Japan.  For example, I did not have teriyaki once in Japan...OK, I had it once at McDonald's of all places.  They had a teriyaki burger, which was absolutely horrible.  Here in America, you would be hard pressed to find a Japanese restaurant that didn't have teriyaki. 

One of my favorite dishes from Japan was tonkatsu, which is a pork cutlet pounded thin, deep fried with panko, and served with shredded cabbage, karashi (Japanese hot mustard), rice and tonkatsu sauce.  It's very simple and delicious.  The combination of flavors is exquisite.  So much so that if I eat tonkatsu without cabbage, I don't like it.  It all goes together magically.  Osaka does tonkatsu right.  I hate it when I go to a Japanese restaurant and order tonkatsu and they dribble the sauce over the pork rather than serve it on the side.  It just isn't right and it lacks the right flavor.  The other thing that I hate is when you ask the waiter for hot mustard (or karashi) and they act like you're absolutely insane.  At least, where I lived, on Hokkaido, karashi was always served.

They also have various donburi, which is a staple in Japan.  Their oyakodon is exactly Japanese style.  Oyakodon means family bowl.  While that sounds like it is food for the whole family, it is called that because you are eating the whole family, chicken and egg, cute and morbid, very Japanese.

They have a teppanyaki room as well (think Benihana), and a sushi bar.  I prefer to eat my tonkatsu in the tatami mat rooms though.  They also have shabu-shabu, which is a boiling pot that you cook food in at the table.  Greg doesn't like shabu-shabu, because who wants to cook when they go out.  He does have a point.  I don't like Osaka's shabu-shabu because they don't bring the best assortment of boilable vegetables and noodles. 

They even have onigiri, another daily Japanese food (you have to ask for it, not on the menu).  Onigiri is a rice ball and it seems like you can make it yourself, but it never turns out right for me.  They make it perfectly.

Their sushi is good, but expensive.  I usually get one roll, the Oh-My-God roll.  I don't know what is on it, but it will make your eyes roll back in your head from deliciousness. 

Cici's Pizza

VERDICT:  The place should be called Cici's Lightly-Flavored Cooked Dough.

I love pizza.  I mean I love pizza so much that it is part of my identity.  A pizza has to be really bad for me not to like it.  So, I was excited to see Cici's Pizza open up so close to me.  A pizza buffet for $4.99!!!  How could I not love it?  And the ads on TV, where the lady gets a salad and then piles on pizza...a salad bar, too?  I'm there.

There's just one problem though.  No one would go with me.  I couldn't go with myself.  I have this thing that I don't like to go to a place with a lot of kids by myself, because I think that it makes me look like a pedophile.  I bet I'm the first restaurant review to include the word, "pedophile"...another great first!!  Anyway, Greg said, "There's a reason that it is only $4.99.  It's crap!"  I then read other reviews that said that the taco pizza is great.  I whined at Greg stating how long it has been since I've had taco pizza and he caved.

Joy, oh joy!  I get to step foot in the promised land that is Cici's Pizza.  We get the the parking lot and Greg is starting to white-knuckle it.  I pry him out of the car and ignore his protests as I enter the restaurant.  First, there is no salad bar.  Rather there are two pre-made salads.  It turns out that the one salad that we did eat was really good, even for having Italian dressing.  That, as it turns out, is the only nice thing I have to say about Cici's pizza.

They basically serve cooked dough here.  The sauce is a mere suggestion of a sauce.  I'm thinking that they use a flavorless red food coloring.  The cheese is spotty and well they have perfected the technique of using no cheese and making it look like some cheese.  What we end up having then is bread with various illusions of toppings.  Yes Virginia, there is such a thing as bad pizza.  My taco pizza....a myth.  They never put any out, but I doubt it would have been of any different flavor.

That being said, kids are dumb and will love it.  So, it is a good cheap place to take the dumb children that you might be raising.

Gordon Biersch - Boca Park

VERDICT:  I don't get the appeal of this place, but everyone else seems to love it.

It's hard to believe that I've only recently gone to Gordon Biersch.  This place is very popular.  Actually, I've heard reports that Gordon Biersch near the strip is actually a bit of a meat market.  Watching the mating habits of straight, young hipsters is actually pretty disgusting to me, so I've always avoided the place.

So, how did I end up there?  The Poo-Poo game™!  The Poo-Poo game™ is the smartest thing that I ever invented, although I think I need to rethink the name.  The Poo-Poo game™ is used whenever two or more people want to go out to eat (it can work for eating at home too though).  It used to be that when Greg and I had to choose a place to eat, we would end up in endless repeating cycles of saying "I don't know.  Where do you want to eat?"  Greg then would expect me to rattle off restaurants until I named one that pleased him.  The problem was that I could go through the entire phone book, showering him with the name of every restaurant and still he wouldn't hear anything that he liked.  What a princess?!?

The Poo-Poo game™ is easy to implement and take care of all that BS.  It's as simple as making a suggestion and when the other person disagrees with or "poo-poo's" that selection, you say "You poo-poo'ed, now you choose."  Greg hates this, because I'm no longer showering him with choices.  It makes him come up with suggestions, too.  If I don't like his suggestion, I also have the option of poo-poo'ing him.  It goes back and forth until no one poo-poo's.  Of course, one of the rules of the Poo-Poo game™ is that you can't repeat the same restaurant twice.  As an added bonus, if the other person names a restaurant that they know no one likes and it is not poo-poo'ed, it becomes a game of chicken.  Who is going to cave and admit that they want to poo-poo it and come up with another suggestion?  This really is the most democratic way of restaurant choosing.

Anyway, it was the Poo-Poo game™ that made us end up at Gordon Biersch.  It was Greg's suggestion and I've secretly always wanted to try it and see what the fuss was about.  OK, first, I have to admit that I thought it was a German restaurant...it isn't.  It has German beer and that is the extent of the German-ness.  That's not a bad thing.  I'm not a big fan of bland sausage with soured cabbage followed by a flavorless, sugar-dusted, dry pastry for dessert.  Instead they have an assortment of pub food and some restaurant items bordering on Applebee's territory.

I confess, I didn't have a restaurant item, which might have been delicious, but I didn't want to spend a lot of money and while they were not that expensive, I just wasn't even in the mood for moderately priced food.  I ended up have the Kobe Beef Burger.  I have had Kobe beef before, in steak form.  I actually had it in Japan and it was amazing, tender and flavorful.  I couldn't imagine what Kobe hamburger would taste like.  The hamburger that I got was dry and flavorless.  I've read elsewhere that their burgers are notoriously dry.  Greg got the corned beef sandwich which was good, but you could get better at a pub for less.

Their notorious garlic fries were unremarkable in my eyes, but they take great pride in them.

I'm sure the restaurant food is better, but for good pub food, find a local pub!

Firefly* Tapas Kitchen and Lounge on Paradise

UPDATE:  This place moves and gets closed down a lot.  I'm not sure what current locations are open now.  It is a Las Vegas favorite despite a list of health violations longer than a Tolstoy novel.  Seriously though, it's worth the risk to your health.

VERDICT:  There is something for everyone here.  However, it just might be a little too trendy to go to on a Saturday night.

Tapas is/are....hey is tapas plural or singular?  Tapas are small dishes traditionally served with alcoholic beverages.  Basically, does anyone remember "grazing"?  It was a so-called fad in the 80's of going to a restaurant and only having a bunch of appetizers.  Well, this is grazing Spanish style.  I love it.  I always want to go grazing, but Greg thinks that every meal has to have a main course.  This way, Greg doesn't know what hit him.  He doesn't know he is grazing.  It's great, you get to try a bunch of different food.  Some of the dishes we tried included the bacon wrapped stuffed dates, which came highly recommended.  They were good and caused Greg to sound like a food critic when he said, "They ended with a lovely sweet note."  OK, OK, I added the word "lovely", but he really said "sweet note".  He's becoming a regular .... um, I now realize that I don't know the name of a single food critic.

We also had the ham and cheese croquettas.  Wow, they look like something you would get at Arby's but they taste like something that you would get in heaven.  The mushroom tart was also good, ending with a hearty note (I say stuff like that too.)  We also had some of someone's paella, which I loved, but Greg didn't because he couldn't really identify everything in it.  Some sort of fish threw him off I think, but it didn't taste fishy at all.

The problem with this place was that it is super trendy and we went on a Saturday night.  Crowded is all right, but I don't like restaurants that are designed to reverberate noise.  The place was loud.  I don't really like shouting at people just because they are sitting across the table.  I enjoy quieter atmospheres.  Perhaps the one downtown at the Plaza has a quieter design, I'll have to check it out.

Firefly* Tapas Kitchen and Lounge on Urbanspoon

Garduño's at the Fiesta Casino

 VERDICT: Bland Mexican food that your ancestors from 1800's Ireland would enjoy.
Update: I've changed my mind.  Read the updated post here.

This place is consistently voted as best Mexican food in Las Vegas.  I'll admit it.  I don't know what makes real authentic Mexican food, but if this is it than I don't like it.  This is the blandest Mexican food that you can find.  Perhaps that is the secret.  I think spicy food scares a lot of gringos.  This is certainly non-threatening food in that the only spice they apparently know how to use is salt.

Greg's mother, who thinks that steamed carrots are spicy enough, loves the place.  She, by the way, once referred to a bell pepper as very spicy and refers to mild salsa as "burny hot".

I seemed to remember something made with ground beef reminding me of McCormick taco seasoning mix, the same mix my mother used to use in the 70's when Mexican food was still considered exotic, rather than a staple.

 If the thought of eating a jalapeño terrifies you, than this is the Mexican restaurant for you.  Eat there with this in mind:  There is a lot of flavor in spicy food.  You must train yourself to tolerate spicier foods, but the reward is delicious...well that and possible digestive ailments.

Revisited: check it out here.

Pizza Hut - Lunch Buffet

UPDATE:  RIP Pizza Hut pizza buffet.  Out of business.  I guess I'll have to travel to the 80's to try you again.
VERDICT: An genuine 80's experience right down to the price.

If you are looking for a review of Pizza Hut, you are an idiot.  Everyone knows what Pizza Hut has and tastes like by now.  If you have bad service or experience at a Pizza Hut chances are that in a month it will be different anyway because of turnover.  I guess you can critique management style.  All in all, I find that most Pizza Huts are the same and if they aren't they become the same eventually.

I'm here to talk about their lunch buffet at this particular pizza hut.

You have a small window during the week to get to this Pizza Hut to experience the Pizza Hut lunch buffet.  These were a lot more popular in the 80's when almost all the Pizza Huts were more than just a take out counter, but they all had dining rooms as well.  In fact, I recommend dressing in your best 80's attire when visiting this Pizza Hut.  The atmosphere is a shining example of the pinnacle of conservative 80's decorating.  They have green glass lanterns hanging from plain gold colored chains.  Fake spider plants and fake ivy are scattered throughout and the tables are the traditional particleboard with obvious fake wood grain laminated on top of it.  They even have a clock that says time for pizza and the second hand zooms quickly around  every 5 seconds.  Of course, the actual time on the clock is wrong.  I'd say this is the perfect place to bring someone that has romantic notions about the 80's.  This is what it was really like, not tubular, not awesome, but rather a restaurant's attempt of recreating the atmosphere of someone's poorly decorated study.  Heck, take the kids for a history lesson.

It is $6 without drink.  The drink is where they get ya!  It comes with a salad bar and a pizza bar with pasta and breadsticks.  They are pretty good about getting pizza out, but you got to fight the other people to get to the fresh stuff.  They're pretty greedy there.  Greg saw a lady take six pieces of a fresh pizza.  What the???  I think I had three pieces max with a salad and I felt stuffed.  I managed to cram one more piece in though because of the buffet mentality.

7000 W Charleston Blvd
Las Vegas NV 89117

(702)363-3612

Hours posted above