I have another trip to Southern California coming up, so for my last nice meal in Las Vegas before heading out, I decided to go to Naked Fish’s Sushi & Grill in Spring Valley, an unincorporated town in Clark County, Nevada.

They didn’t have any all-you-can-eat options, but upon browsing their menu, I found a seven-course dinner that I thought would be nice to try out. I expected the dishes to arrive omakase style, but they delivered five of the courses all at once and fairly quickly after ordering.

First was yuzu salmon. This was prepared as rolls of salmon belly sashimi topped with some garnish. The fish quality was incredible, the salmon fat had a powerful flavor, and the texture was some of the smoothest salmon belly I’ve ever had. The cuts of salmon were fairly thin, but because they were rolled into cylinders, it gave the effect of falling apart in your mouth but still having enough depth to it that it was satisfying.

Next was my choice of sushi roll. I picked a tiger roll, but my other options were a Lisa Lisa roll and Japanese lasagna. The tiger roll I received was a little bit different than what I’m used to getting at other sushi restaurants, but it was for the better—it had plenty of fish and a good balance of all ingredients such that no single flavor was overpowering.

Following the roll was six pieces of nigiri: bluefin tuna belly, tuna, salmon belly, yellowtail, scallop, and eel. Every single piece of nigiri was made with very high quality cuts of fish, and the ratio of fish to rice was perfect.

For sushi of this grade, I am used to the chef having already added a small smear of wasabi between the fish and rice so that they can control the potency; these pieces of nigiri did not have that, so I added in the wasabi myself (which obviously is not an issue, but I think is still worth mentioning, considering that the restaurant might want to raise the class of service and account for small luxuries to match the quality of the fish).

After having a lot of rich, fatty sushi, I was able to balance out my taste buds with some miso soup and tempura.

There were seven pieces of tempura: three shrimp, two different kinds of potato, one mushroom, and one onion.

For my final dish, which came out after I was close to finishing the prior five courses, I received grilled salmon collar. I usually think collar is overrated because of how difficult it is to eat and how little meat you get relative to the pricepoint at most restaurants, but this was the best salmon collar I’ve ever had. There was basically an entire salmon filet still attached to it that was perfectly cooked rare with a nice, crispy sear on the outside. This was also an extremely fatty cut, which made me happy that I was eating plenty of omega-3 fatty acids and improving my heart health.

For dessert, I got two pieces of mochi, one mango and one strawberry. This was very generic mochi and tasted about the same as the mochi you get from pretty much every other sushi restaurant.

There were a few other parties seated while I was eating, but I managed to snap a photo of the vibe of the restaurant between guests. Unfortunately, because of how dim it was, all of them ended up somewhat blurry, so this is the best shot I have.

High-end, multi-course dinners usually have portion sizes designed for the average person. I eat a lot, and this was actually my first meal of the day, so I was pretty hungry. Even then, after getting through all seven courses, I was pretty full up to the point where I probably wouldn’t have been able to finish the salmon collar if it wasn’t so delicious.

The tiger roll was pretty big and packed, there was a lot of tempura, and the filet attached to the salmon collar was large enough that someone with a small stomach might be able to eat just the salmon col­lar with a side of rice and call it a meal. Someone who only eats a normal and reasonable amount of food per meal will almost certainly take some of this to-go.

The service I received was very good. When I finished each course and pushed the empty dish to the edge of the table, it was always removed within a few minutes. When I set my empty water glass by the edge of the table, it was refilled within a few minutes or less. Occasionally throughout the meal, I had various different people checking in on me and making sure I didn’t want to order anything else or put in any special requests.

If you plan on going to this restaurant and trying out the seven-course dinner, I highly recommend letting your server know first so you can be seated at the bar to better emulate an omakase experience. I was fine seated alone at a booth because I had my laptop and I was getting some work done while eating, but this could absolutely act as an entry-level omakase for beginners or for budget-conscious diners who don’t want to spend over $120 for a single dinner.

For my next all-you-can-eat sushi adventure, I decided to try out Sushi-Mon on West Sahara Avenue in Las Vegas. I like going to restaurants by myself with my laptop so I can eat at a leisurely pace while I get some work done. Upon arrival, because I was alone, I agreed to be seated at the bar so I wouldn’t take up a table that could be used by a group, and so I could watch the chefs prepare sushi.

All-you-can-eat menus usually have a set of premium items that are limited to one order per person. These are usually the better sashimi items that are more expensive with bigger portions of fish and less rice. I put in my first round of dishes by picking their tuna poke salad, spicy seafood salad, and scream­ing orgasm. All of these were great—the cuts of fish were nice and thick, so the texture was very satisfying to bite through.

Next up were two appetizers, soft shell crab and two fresh oysters. The soft shell crab was about average and what you’d expect from soft shell crab. I’d say the oysters were a little above average; they were nice and refreshing, and the garnishments weren’t overpowering so they complemented the flavor of the oysters well.

The third round consisted of three different types of carpaccio: yellowtail, salmon, and seared pepper tuna. The yellowtail carpaccio was my favorite—the fish quality was good, and it had a nice smooth zest to it from the yuzu.

With the premium sashimi dishes done, I went on to order some nigiri. Each order comes with two pieces; I ordered one each of yellowtail, salmon, sweet shrimp, scallop, and escolar. The ratio of rice to fish was a little on the high side, but still within reason. Again, like the sashimi, the fish quality was great. The scallop was particularly noticeably more tender than average.

The grand finale was sea urchin gunkan. Sea urchin is my favorite type of sushi, so if a restaurant has it, I will almost always order it. The sea urchin at Sushi-Mon was decent, but unfortunately, the seaweed that wrapped the sea urchin and rice was unusually pungent and detracted from the flavor of the sea urchin.

To close out my meal, I got two desserts—one mango mochi and one scoop of green tea ice cream. The mochi tasted the same as the mochi you get from pretty much every sushi restaurant, but the green tea ice cream was better (though “better” is subjective here—I think it might have just been extra sweet, so it blocked a lot of the subtle bitter undertones you usually get from tea-flavored ice cream).

Compared to other all-you-can-eat spots I’ve been to in the Las Vegas Valley at this price point, I’d say Sushi-Mon is the winner so far.

The service was stellar. Both the server and the chef regularly checked in on me to ask if there was any­thing else I wanted to order. Many all-you-can-eat restaurants will intentionally delay checking in on you in hopes that you get full while waiting and order less, but Sushi-Mon did not do that. I usually only see this level of service at AYCE spots if it was almost empty, but Sushi-Mon maintained that level of ser­vice even though there were a bunch of other parties at the tables.

The fish quality was comparable to a more high-end sushi restaurant. The fish tasted fresher, the flavors were stronger, and the sauces and garnishments were made in a way that they let the fish speak for itself (as opposed to making it stronger as to cover up any flavor imperfections in the fish).

The environment was also pleasant. There were TVs playing in the background, the vibe was cozy, and all the staff members were friendly. I was doing some corporate law work while I was eating, and my waitress asked me about it, mentioning that she had previously studied law—a much more mean­ing­ful and interesting conversation than the usual small talk with other servers. Even the background music was to my preference—they were play­ing pop and pop-punk hits from a decade or two ago.

Usually I will recommend restaurants on an if-then basis, i.e., if you like a specific thing or don’t mind about a certain thing, then then restaurant is worth a visit. However, if you like sushi in general and want an all-you-can-eat sushi experience, Sushi-Mon is an unconditional recommendation for everyone from me.

To be clear, you can obviously get better sushi from a high-end omakase experience. However, for under $50, I think you’re going to have a very tough time finding something better.

While I had some extra free time because of the holidays, I met up with a lot of friends. One of our visits together was to Viva Mooo in Henderson of the Las Vegas Valley.

This spot was formerly known as one of the two locations of Kang’s Kitchen Korean BBQ (or 강식당), with the other one being at the Rio Hotel & Ca­si­no. I wasn’t able to confirm this for sure, but due to the abundance of Kang’s branding still in the restaurant, as well as the new owner out on the din­ing floor interacting with customers, I am guessing that the restaurant was recently sold to new management.

We ordered the premium all-you-can-eat dinner. While our raw meats were being brought out, we ordered some pre-cooked Korean fried chicken to keep our mouths occupied.

Usually, at all-you-can-eat spots, they’ll bring out the meats very slowly in hopes that you’ll get full during the wait time. Because of this, there is a cer­tain strategy you have to employ where you have to leave meats permanently in the queue and put in replacement orders prior to the previous round ful­ly being served. It gets annoying, but it is the reality of AYCE business practices.

Something I loved about Viva Mooo is that they were not at all like other AYCE restaurants. All our orders came out quickly, suddenly, and all at once. We ordered beef brisket, ribeye, seasoned rib, beef tongue, and seasoned short rib; not long after, our table was drowning in raw meat. It’s possible that this was because the restaurant didn’t look too busy while we were there, but it was definitely a refreshing experience.

The portion sizes at Viva Mooo were also very satisfying—the cuts were much larger and thicker than what you’d expect from an AYCE restaurant.

I completely understand why other AYCE restaurants do what they do—not everyone goes to restaurants like this often and not everyone knows what they’re doing, so there are probably a lot of wasted leftovers of diners accidentally ordering too much or ordering something they don’t like and not fin­ish­ing it. Regardless, it is still a much better ex­pe­ri­ence when you chew down on the meat and there is actually something there, rather than just fall­ing apart as stringy strips because the cut was way too thin.

Last was the “grand finale” and the signature dish of the restaurant—the “B3ST Burger.” The owner of the restaurant, who is named Victor if I remember correctly, came over to chat with us during our meal. He let us know that he was hoping to get a Michelin star on this burger, and he shared his story of his past restaurant experiences and how he got to this point with this particular burger dish.

The presentation, as you can clearly see from the photograph below, was an absolute disaster. I don’t know if it just suffered from a casual magnitude-7 earthquake while being carried from the kitchen to our table, but the burger skewer was inserted sideways for goodness’ sake. The lettuce was not shaped or rounded, and the vegetables inside the burger were all over the place. Half the top bun apparently couldn’t get through to the suicide hotline and is about to jump off the edge.

Flavor-wise, the first bite was orgasmic. It had a stronger explosion of flavor than almost any burger I had ever tasted. The sauce was also one-of-a-kind, and something I had never seen on a burger before. It almost tasted like a mixture of jam and sauce—sweeter and tangier than usual, but not fully to the level of pure jam.

The next few bites were very good. I think it could’ve used some more vegetables, and the bun wasn’t special whatsoever, but the meat shone through. I finished half the burger and it was amazing.

Then came the second half. The more I ate, the more my perception of the taste declined. The flavor went from “extremely savory” to “good but a little too rich” to “too heavy.” I went back to hoping that the burger had more vegetables, and I wondered how many weeks’ worth of saturated fat I was con­suming in this single burger. I noticed a thin layer of fattiness coating the entire inside of my mouth. I rotated my tongue around my mouth in hopes that it would scrape off some of that new lining of fat on my inner cheeks, but it didn’t help.

There is a reason extremely fatty cuts of meat are served in moderation—they are great at first, but eating too much at once makes many people’s stom­achs uncomfortable. Most burgers use ground meats ranging from 90-95% lean and 5-10% fat, often called ground sirloin, all the way to 70% lean and 30% fat, the highest ratio of fat content permissible under the U.S. Code of Federal Regulations, Title 9, §319.15. I’ve heard many chefs call 80% lean and 20% fat to be the “magic ratio.”

Because the B3ST Burger is a custom-designed and -made dish at a restaurant that isn’t just pre-packaged ground beef for sale, the aforementioned law does not apply. However, I think restaurants should still use this as a guideline, otherwise the meat will probably be way too fatty, and I suspect that the fat content of this burger at Viva Mooo might have actually been greater than 30%.

Serving something like this will probably have good results for the first few bites as diners get shocked by the unexpected burst of flavor, but it’s not some­thing sustainable throughout an entire burger. People who have more acute taste buds will notice this as an “easy way out” method to make your dish seem better, and I can’t imagine that this burger is close to earning a Michelin star any time soon.

To be clear, I still liked the burger. But, if you go to this restaurant and want to try it out, I recommend only ordering one and sharing it with someone else, at least until the owner makes some adjustments to the formula.

There was also something called a K-Burger Steak on the menu; I ordered this just to try it out, and I think it was basically the same beef patty as the B3ST Burger, but without the sauce and bread. I managed to get through about half of it, simply for the sake of not wasting food, before I was about to feel sick from the fattiness and had to stop.

For dessert, we received a cup of rice punch, called 식혜 in Korean. I’d say this was pretty average taste-wise, but the ice wasn’t blended well, so the bev­er­age wasn’t as smooth and refreshing as it could have been.

In total, I paid $56.72 for my portion of the meal, with $44.88 being the dinner AYCE base price and the rest going towards tax and gratuity. It’s pricier than other AYCE Korean BBQ restaurants, but I think the cost premium is definitely worth it considering the quality of the meats and service.

As a Las Vegas local, it’s always exciting to see new things open up in town. December 5, 2023 was the grand opening of the Durango Casino & Resort, a new hotel, casino, and resort in the Rhodes Ranch community in Spring Valley of the Las Vegas Valley in Nevada. Although I wasn’t in town to attend the grand opening, I managed to find some time a few weeks afterwards around Christmastime to check it out.

After parking in the structure and making my way into the building, I started my journey at Yu-Or-Mi Sushi to grab some food before exploring.

For my entrée, I ordered a chirashi bowl. If you’re not familiar, chirashizushi means “scattered sushi,” which, in practice, translates to strips of sashimi over a bowl of rice. A poke bowl is similar, but the sashimi strips are cut up into smaller cubes. Although poke bowls are technically eligible to be called chirashi bowls by definition, no reasonable restaurant would ever serve a poke bowl and call it a chirashi bowl, because they are just going to disappoint sushi enthusiasts.

Yu-Or-Mi clearly failed here. Not only did they serve a poke bowl in lieu of a real chirashi bowl, but the amount of fish included was so little that it couldn’t have been more than a few strips’ worth (while real chirashi bowls usually contain ten or more decently-sized slices of assorted raw fish). They filled the rest of the volume with pineapple and avocado, and even then, that mixture was only enough to just barely cover, with a thin layer, an astronomical amount of rice.

I can confidently say that this was the absolute worst chirashi bowl I have ever had in my entire life.

My friend got vegetable gyoza with truffle soy sauce and chives.

I like eating meat, and I especially like eating fish. Sushi is my favorite food. I tried one piece of this, and I liked these vegan dumplings better than the chirashi bowl. That should be an indication of how bad the chirashi bowl was.

My friend’s mom got a vegetable tempura roll with asparagus tempura, sweet potato tempura, avocado, and crispy shallots.

At least the menu was fancy, I guess.

After finishing my underwhelming meal, I walked around the resort to explore what else it had to offer.

There was a nice flower arrangement and some Christmas decorations near the entrance (because, as a reminder, I stopped by around Christmastime just over a week ago).

Down the hall, there was a lounge and bar.

Through this lounge, there was access to the outdoor pool area. It was closed to the public at the time, but they said it would reopen soon.

Around the casino area, there was a huge sports viewing area.

There was also an outdoors area called the George Sportsmen’s Lounge.

The George had its own entrance separate from the main casino; I left through that exit and looped back around to the front entrance of the resort.

Here is the view from the parking garage of the western suburbs.

Overall, I thought the Durango was nice, but not particularly special or iconic. I walked through the casino area and noticed that it already has a very unsettling lingering odor of cigarette smoke, which I think heavily detracts from the perceived quality of the resort.

I think the thing that makes the Durango stand out is the fact that it’s out in the suburbs, so it’s much easier for locals to stop by without having to deal with the chaos of the Las Vegas Strip. It also has plenty of free parking—there is a huge lot by the front entrance, and there is a large structure that connects to the northwestern corner of the building.

I don’t actually remember what the name of the lounge near the pool is, and I can’t seem to find it on Google Maps. However, it was nice enough that I would consider stopping by there with my laptop on days when I want to get out of my condo to get some fresh air and have a change of scenery while getting some work done. I assume it would get busy on the weekends, but it seems like a spot that’s preferable over a coffee shop because of how much of a luxurious vibe it gives off.

I’m not sure how much longer I’m going to spend living out in the suburbs, because I am considering the possibility of moving back into a residential high-rise on the Las Vegas Strip like where I used to live a few years ago, but because of its close proximity to the beltway, the Durango is quickly accessible and might still be worth it as a coffee shop substitute, even with the bit of an extra drive.