All-you-can-eat sushi on Long Island: What you need to know

There are few sadder sights in our world than supermarket sushi, and few sadder instances of it than the $5.99 California roll. Its pieces, inhumanely crammed together and suffocating under plastic lids, cry out for rescue..

On the other end of the spectrum: second-mortgage sushi, the kind one sees at eateries with 10 stools, two seatings and a three-month waiting list. There, fatty bluefin is flown in daily so it might melt in your mouth, no toro is safe from caviar and everything is somehow better with shaved summer truffles. A fine evening of terrific sushi can be yours — or your entire family can spend a week snorkeling in Aruba for the same price.

The rise in popularity of sushi restaurants turned all-you-can-eateries is something of a response to the genre’s extremes, along with consumers’ timely, inflation-fueled desire for decent sushi (i.e., not awesome, not awful) at a decent price (i.e., not cheap, not bankruptive). You can consume as much sushi as you want for a set price (usually $20-$30), although asterisks abound.

• There are time limits (usually 2 hours max).
• Sharing is forbidden.
• Doggy bags are forbidden.
• Surcharges may be imposed for not eating all you order.

To wit: Don’t even think about passing sashimi under the table, pocketing maki you’ve stuffed into a napkin, or discarding uneaten nigiri in the pot of an artificial palm. Diners have been caught doing all these things.

But unlimited sushi can make for an enjoyable, satisfying meal out. It can, especially if you keep your expectations in check and consult the following six-point plan for ensuring a happy experience:

ORDERING

Prepare for your adventure not by starving yourself beforehand (a mistake, say veterans, as this will only shrink your stomach), but by deciding what all-you-can-eat (AYCE) success looks like. Maybe a pleasant meal with a modest, no-surprises bill is what you’re looking for (if so, watch the alcohol, which is not included and often pricey). Or maybe you’re an eating machine, a voracious gorge monster determined to beat the house and score a bargain meal. In either case, it pays to pick a place where the ordering process is smooth and swift, and nowhere is this truer than at Umami ($19.99-$31.99 for adults, $10.99-$15.99 ages 7-10, $7.99-$11.99 ages 3-6). The AYCE sushi world, you should know, is a Luddite one in which checklists, pencil and paper are still the norm, so this Centereach spot stands out for deploying iPad-esque tablets to every table, ensuring a meal both efficient and gamified. Simply tab over to your favorite category, click on a few photos, hit send, and minutes later, your plates arrive. No need to flag down a server if, say, a single piece of salmon sashimi is all you’re after, and no judgment if your party wants 10 times that. And while most AYCE eateries espouse a functional get-em-in-get-em-out aesthetic and a restaurant-patron relationship that tends toward the combative, Umami aims for a cool and dignified vibe — exposed ceiling, attractive fixtures, a low-lit dining room and privacy-maximizing booths. (Or as cool and dignified as a place can be when you’ve got a sign on the door warning that “all leftovers and unfinished foods will be charged for $10 per pound” in big red letters.)

Rolls of note: Umami (spicy crab and shrimp tempura with mango inside and out), salmon avocado hand roll

TIME MANAGEMENT

When it comes to AYCE sushi, what time you go can matter as much as where. For one thing, lunch prices can be more than $10 cheaper than dinner. Also, kitchen staff tend to be less harried by day, making service quicker and more responsive. And then there’s the issue of time restrictions on tables.  Management will sometimes waive them at sushi places, particularly during midafternoon slow times. At 3 p.m. on a recent Saturday, for instance, the cheerful hostess at Sushi Republic in New Hyde Park ($29.95 for adults, includes one drink; price is 1.5 times a child’s age for those under 13) explicitly instructed us to take the “two hours limited” warning on the menu with a grain of salt. Not feeling rushed at an AYCE eatery was a welcome change, as was the Zen-like atmosphere at that hour in the Republic’s mostly empty dining room, which offers several semiprivate dining nooks, each framed by a pergola covered in artificial ivy.

Roles of note: Sushi Republic (avocado-wrapped shrimp tempura and eel and cucumber), Salmon Lovers (salmon wrapped around spicy salmon and avocado)

WATCH THE APPS

Much more than sushi is included in the AYCE price, although a cynic might contend that such offerings are less about providing a well-rounded eating experience than getting diners to fill up on starters — especially cheap, heavy and fried ones — before the sushi even arrives. Be that as it may, some restaurants proudly serve a wide selection of starters hot and cold — soups, salads, dumplings and more — like Nova Asian Bistro ($31.95-$33.95 adults; $20.99 younger than 10). The restaurant, also in New Hyde Park, maintains over 40 apps in its AYCE arsenal, including nine smallish salads (some in name only: calamari salad=fried squid over a few lettuce leaves with dressing); five soups to include a Tom Yum with a good amount of shrimp and crunchy enoki mushrooms; and starter standards like gyoza, edamame, spring rolls and shumai. Nova’s nice-sized dining room, meanwhile, and its adjacent large bar area have been called Vegas-like, for better or worse, although the beaded curtains and purplish lighting also recall black light bedrooms circa 1977.

Roles of note: American Dream (shrimp tempura topped with eel and avocado), Dancing Dragon (crab tempura, grilled eel, all wrapped in shrimp)

SUSHI: FIRST ROUND

Having survived the apps with one’s appetite intact, it’s time to move on to the main event, but even here it pays to proceed cautiously. Don’t begin with rolls, where things like tempura and rice will only fill you up, but nigiri and sashimi, small bites that allow you to gauge early on which fish an establishment sources best. Watawa in Bethpage ($23.95-$29.95 adults, $13.95 children under 48" ) offers a good assortment of both — from striped bass to “white tuna” (actually escolar), red clam to red snapper — and a rather good fish-rice ratio in its nigiri. Service is fast and efficient despite the pencil-paper ordering system, and Watawa’s dining room, somewhat unusual for an AYCE spot, is large, light-filled and tasteful, excepting its bright yellow trellis-gone-wild room divider and, on one wall, cartoon giraffe presiding over a height chart. The latter, a fanciful touch that might have been airlifted from a pediatrician’s office, here provides vivid proof of the restaurant’s intent to enforce what a posted sign declares, that “children over 48 inches must be charged full adult prices.”

Rolls of note: Volcano (spicy tuna, avocado, sesame seeds), Sexy (lobster salad and eel sauce over shrimp tempura)

SUSHI: ROUNDS TWO THROUGH INFINITY

At last we arrive at the marquee attraction, the so-called special rolls. Comparing a restaurant’s a la carte and AYCE menus, you’ll notice that some of the former are not offered on the latter (usually the ones most expensive and/or containing lobster). And then there are places like New Sushi Palace ($19.95-$29.95 adults, $11.95 children under 48” tall), where 11 of the AYCE menu’s 18 special rolls are also on the main menu, some going for $14 a pop. The chefs’ creations at this Centereach spot are usually tasty, and invariably fresh and attractive, although — it must be said — the same is not true of the Palace itself, a ramshackle roadhouse set far back from the street, with a sad, dried-up koi pond near the entrance, and a dining room that, aside from a few tatami-inspired booths up front, teeters between forlorn and forgotten.

Rolls of note: KenGor (slabs of peppery tuna outside, soft-shell crab meat and avocado inside), New Butterfly (crab, mango and avocado wrapped in a pink soy paper topped with mango sauce).

DESSERT? REALLY?

For most, the answer will be no, as even the most calculating diner will be stuffed by sweets time. That’s especially the case at Kira ($20.99-$29.99 adults, $17.99 ages 5-12), whose AYCE menu in Lake Ronkonkoma includes 16 varieties of sashimi, 30-plus special rolls, hot entrees like teriyaki and udon, a host of Chinese greatest hits of the General Tso’s variety, and — for those who do make it through dinner — a selection of eight desserts to include fried bananas, several flavors of ice cream, doughnuts and fried Oreos, because if there’s anything that sounds good after a big sushi meal it’s fried Oreos. Kira’s eclectic menu pairs perfectly with its everything-and-more décor: dozens of noren-style flags flutter above the sidewalk outside, tropical fish cavort in an aquarium in the vestibule, strings of twinkie lights swoop through the dining room, and gold Japanese lucky cats wave at you from every direction.

Rolls of note: Snow White (tempura shrimp and “white tuna” topped with flakes of coconut, eel sauce and strawberry sauce), Rocket (deep-fried crab meat and white fish hand roll topped with mayo and hot sauce)

By Scott Vogel

scott.vogel@newsday.com

Newsday writer and restaurant critic Scott Vogel aims for a refreshing, gimlet-eyed take on the Long Island food scene, often while drinking a refreshing gimlet.