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Continuing our Restaurant Week theme, this morning we’ll discuss sushi. Not just any sushi, mind you, but the superior stuff served at Bar Masa, Masa Takayama’s outpost in Aria, where the delicately scented, barely warm, and barely-held-together rice provides the foundation for the freshest toro, hirame, hamachi, and akamutsu (snapper) this side of Tokyo Bay.
Normally, this exquisite fish is priced by the piece — usually between $5-$10 per. This represents roughly double the cost of your sushi at a neighborhood joint, since there you get two slices for the same money. In something of a price concession, the restaurant now offers a slight discount if you order three slices (e.g., six bucks for one piece of terrific tai (sea bream), or sixteen for three).
But we’re not here to celebrate our arithmetic skills , we’re here to highlight one of the best deals during Restaurant Week — ending March 4th — featuring a ten-slice tray of melt-in-your-mouth raw fish that sets a standard for swimmers few can equal. Before you get to them, you’ll be swooning over three small-but-mighty skewers of Wagyu beef schmeared with a spicy yuzu dressing that makes your mouth sit up and take notice. Finish with a cooling, vivid yuzu sorbet (more of a granité actually) that is so acutely tart (in a deep, haunting sort of way), it tastes like a citrus fruit from another planet.
You’re not going to fill up on this food — we supplemented our dinner for one with a soy mushroom yakisoba and Peking duck and foie gras tacos — but you’re not going to find better sushi at a better price anywhere in America for the next two days, and anyone who tells you Bar Masa isn’t worth it doesn’t know what they’re talking about.
Our meal for one came to $130 including a $22 tip and no booze.
BAR MASA
In the Aria Hotel and Casino
3730 Las Vegas Blvd. south
Las Vegas, NV 89109
702.590.8580
And you don’t have to pay extra for the radiation.
The truffled maitaki are one of the best things I’ve eaten in Vegas. And they don’t swim!