Billy's place: Chikuri, on Wantagh ave in Leavittown.
We went there for lunch today. $19.95. My local sushi place which has marginally better quality fish than this place did costs me $16.95 for 10 pieces of sashimi, two appetizers, soup and salad so it's not necessarily a bargain, but that said I ate far more than $19.95 worth of sushi just because I could (8 pieces hamachi nigirisushi, 5 pieces maguro, 2 pieces suzuki, 2 pieces hirami, 1 piece aji, plus I think we split at least ten big rolls between us, maybe more)
My opinions regarding all you can eat sushi still stand. You still couldn't pay me to go to one of those all you can eat sushi buffets.
This place had the standard wide variety of rolls, standard fish but nothing like toro or uni. All you can eat included regular rolls and sushi, but not sashimi (poop. sashimi is where it's at). As I suspected, the fish was about the same quality as you get at those bargain sushi places in the city - absolutely fresh of course, but you know that the tuna isn't coming from the tuna that went for $10,000 a fish and was brought in with minimal fight and tossed on dry ice as soon as its blood was drained. Maybe $5,000 :) All of the fish had good flavor but the tuna and yellowtail were both somewhat less than firm (half the appeal of yellowtail is its texture!), while the striped bass was overly firm and stringy (probably from higher up on the belly of a smaller fish). The spanish mackerel was good - it is a very hghly variable fish - it can be quite fishy or quite mild.
Disappointingly in all cases the rice was warm (?!!! What's up with that??!!!!)
The rolls were interesting; I think every sushi joint has their own rolls. We had several rolls that involved tempura and several that involved mayonnnaise, neither of which I'm a fan of in my sushi, although I know lots of other people are. Other rolls invoved lots of avocado, eel, and various cuts of fish - I enjoyed those much more. Rolls tend to be much much more enjoyable at places like this because they don't rely on the texture of the fish to be good, but rather on creative combinations.
I think the moral of the story is just as I would never go to Nobu specifically to order rolls, I would not go to Chikuri specifically to order sushi. However I'll definitely go back on days when I'm very hungry and in the mood for dragon rolls :)
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This message was edited by TooCute on 4-13-03 @ 10:35 PM