Las Vegas: Hikari Sushi Bar

To be honest, I'm sick of the buffets in Vegas. Except for the recent addition of Wicked Spoon in Cosmopolitan, buffets... just aren't that fun anymore. It's always the same items. However, Leonard knew of an AYCE Japanese spot about 5 miles away from the strip so before we left Vegas (went beginning of June), decided to check out Hikari for some AYCE sashimi!

Hikari Japanese Steakhouse & Sushi Bar

4175 S Buffalo Dr

Las Vegas, NV 89147

Neighborhood: Spring Valley

Hikari, located about 5 miles away from the Strip.

Some of the items that you can get off the AYCE menu!

Started off with salmon skin salad. The dressing was sorta like... a sweet teriyaki dressing. LOTS of salmon skin.

Sashimi sampler. Came with tuna, salmon and hamachi.

Fried soft shell crab! Whole pieces of fried crab. Yum :]

You can even get raw oysters! It's Japanese style oysters, but really it is just oysters with a little of tabasco and some vinegar. Still not a huge fan of oysters and these big ones freaked me out even more, but it was pretty good! I only ate two though hahah. Some people ordered by the plates. Ridiculous.

Negi hama. Very simple roll with hamachi and green onion. The only roll we ordered, since we wanted to focus on the items that were worth more!

Hama kama! Yellowtail fish collar. As many as you want!

Rather than ordering more sashimi sampler or nigiri, you can actually order just sashimi. Hikari is the only AYCE places I've been to that let you do it! We definitely took advantage of that, and started off with salmon.

Tuna. Yes, you can sorta tell all the fishes were frozen, since it lost a little bit of its sheen, but still good!

Seared albacore. Just a little bit of kick.

Hamachi! Yellowtail still the best!

White fatty tuna. Not really that fatty but it is an item that you can't find at many Japanese AYCE!

Unagi :] I think I ate 2 orders just by myself haha.

Shrimp tempura. ONLY shrimp. Hikari is awesome.

Shrimp fried rice. Nicely done, with the rice fluffly.

Uni. And no, I didn't eat one. Like I said from the last post... still gotta learn to like it hahah. I wanted to more of the other stuff anyways :P

Ended the night with fried scallops! I could probably do without the aioli and eat it with katsu sauce instead, but man, fried scallop must just be my new seafood obsession.

Hikari is definitely a great find and props to Leonard for showing us the place. I'm still amazed how you can just order whatever you want and they won't even raise a fuss. The service was great too, and the people working at the restaurant are actually Japanese, so that's always a plus. Midori in LA is more about the rolls, while Hikari focuses on the simpler stuff. Can't wait to go back!

Vegas: Hash House A Go Go

If you're from SD, you've most likely tried Hash House A Go Go already and know that they have ridiculous portions, and extremely extremely unhealthy food but really there is no better way to eat a truly hearty breakfast than at Hash House.

I went to cheer for a high school friend of mine who recently placed at the World Series of Poker and since it was somewhat spontaneous, we all stayed at the Imperial Palace and inside Imperial, is Hash House! Half of us all went to school at UCSD so it was a good time to pay Hash House a visit.

Hash House A Go Go

Imperial Palace

3535 Las Vegas Blvd S

Las Vegas, NV 89146

www.hashhouseagogo.com

Main dining hall of Hash House. You get there by taking this ghetto elevator inside the casino to the 2nd floor haha.

Logo.

Had to sit at the bar since it was so packed with tourists. Well I guess we're tourists too.. Bloody Mary anybody?

The brunch menu! What to get...

Two of us ended up getting the Sage Fried Chicken & Bacon Waffles :]] Fried chicken and waffles then topped with hot maple caramel reduction and fried leeks. Sage gives it such a different flavor and what better way to start the day than with fried chicken??

The thick thick bacon waffles.

See that bacon integrated so well in there? Yea. Awesome.

The maple reduction and fried leeks are so good just by itself. I can drink a gallon of the maple reduction and just eat a salad made of fried leeks.

The other two went for the Sage fried chicken benedict. Fried... chicken... benedict!

With fresh spinach, hardwood smoked bacon, market tomato, griddled mozzarella, chipotle cream and scrambled eggs. What a healthy way to start the day huh? Just look at that savory heart clogging hollandaise sauce :P

Of course, they give you some fruits to try to rescue your body from eating all that craziness haha.

Hash House's specialty is what it markets itself as: twisted farm food. It's nothing gourmet and definitely not the best breakfast food around but it's fun, delicious, savory, and a once in a awhile sort of place.

Taiwanese food in Vegas Chinatown

The last time I went to the Chinatown in Vegas must be when I was... 7, 8 which means I don't really remember what it looks like. I've been to Vegas so many times too (just 7-8 times last year alone) but I've never ventured off the strip. So this one weekend in December (12/18-12/20), Leonard and Mikol graciously accompanied me to Vegas and I got to visit Vegas Chinatown for the first time since I was a kid and checked out some of the Taiwanese food spots.

Yup the entrance to that famous plaza. Got here around 11am, and the parking lot was already packed with people doing grocery shopping at 99Ranch and eating dim sum.

Since we didn't eat yet, we decided to grab some Taiwanese breakfast. It seems like the "Yonghe" in Vegas in actually located inside a spotty Szechuan Chinese restaurant called "Emperor's Garden."

Emperor's Garden

4215 Spring Mountain Rd#B203

Las Vegas, NV 89102

There's a sign that says "Yonghe DouJiang" which generally means that there is Taiwanese-style breakfast here.

Beef Roll. I gotta say... this was interesting. Being a Szechuan restaurant, naturally they would have a lot of spicy food. Pretty much it was different cuts of beef marinated in chili oil that's usually a cold appetizer and then stick it in the middle of a 燒餅 shaobing (Taiwanese-style bread). Kinda of a lazy way of doing things. I guess it is smart, using the same ingredients for 2 different dishes haha. Not really authentic. Of course there is the 油條 right behind it. Kinda hard to mess THAT up!

Their other offerings were fairly pedestrian so I didn't bother taking pictures. This place isn't.. that great but I guess it gets the job done.

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Immediately afterwards, we walked around Chinatown for a bit then we decided to go to a different plaza for some more legit Taiwanese food. After spending like 30 minutes deciding between Tea Station and Ay-Chung, we opted for the latter.

Ay-Chung Noodles

5115 W Spring Mountain Rd# 103

Las Vegas, NV 89146

There's also an Ay-Chung in LA, located in Focus Plaza in San Gabriel. I never liked it that much since I've had Ay-Chung in Taiwan and you can't really compare them. Both locations are owned by mainland Chinese and the San Gabriel location's quality just isn't there so I was crossing my fingers when I came here.

Mikol decided to order their special, Ay-Chung noodles. It was good! Way much better than the location in San Gabriel. The broth/soup base is much more flavorful.

Good ol' popcorn chicken :] When a place fries the chicken with basil, you know it can't be bad.

Leonard picked the oyster pancake. I actually liked it here. A little too much cornstarch but the sauce was good.

Stinky tofu. Wow they actually have the big pieces here. Most place in the states serve these small bite size stinky tofu and they're just not as good. I was surprised when they had the bigger ones. It's just much more enjoyable than eating the tiny cubes of stinky tofu.

Of course can't be eating Taiwanese food without some sort of milk tea or drink! I liked their jasmine milk tea a lot.

This Ay-Chung is definitely better than the one in SG in my opinion. In fact, I came here the day after New Year's just 2 weeks later when I was in Vegas again haha.

I think from now on when I go to Vegas, I'll check out more spots off the strip since just around Chinatown there's a few restaurants that seemed like it's worth a try!