Wednesday, September 1, 2010

Minado

2917 Swede Road
Norristown, PA 19401-1335
(610) 277-7375
Website

Apparently, Minado stands for "heaven" in Japanese, because that's about how it felt when I arrived there. Now I have been to MANY all you can eat sushi places, but this one topped them all, in both variety of sushi, and the cornucopia of other food available. Like an Asian Fogo de Chao, with specialty sushi rolls thrown in for good measure.



It's in a shopping mall, and next to a liquor store (they serve alcohol but apparently you can bring your own if you want, but they also serve alcohol?) and looks like a supermarket from the outside. Once you walk inside, you will realize it is much more of a casino feel, than a supermarket.


Its seriously crazy how many items are on the menu. Everything from specialty sushi rolls, to a long bar of different cold sides, sweet snow crab, raw oysters, and on to the hot bar. After that you can make your way over to the made to order hibachi and crepe area. To finish it off, a large bar of desserts, cut into small squares because they know that you have eaten well over your threshold of calories for the week (at least if you are me). You will then begin to gorge on these delicacies, and eat so, so, so much food. When I was finished, I ate another round of sushi before waddling over to the dessert bar for some green tea cheesecake. Below you will get an idea of a small portion of the Japanese delights available. Sashimi, steamed pork buns, fried oysters, teriayki beef, calamri skewers, raw oysters, shumai dumplings and coconut shrimp. Seriously. This was one of about eight plates I ate (literally).


I caught the crepe guy by surprise.


Get in line and have your every culinary desire (as long as it's Asian) granted.

The specialty rolls are made as fast as the sushi guys can crank them out, but they still took great care to make them well. The turnover is so fast due to the shear size of this place that everything was fresh. I recommend going on a weekend night, as it's easy to get a table as the place is huge, and they will be keeping all of the offerings fresh with the volume turnover. It runs $30 for dinner per person, but they were having a special where it was $25 for each of us. It's also quite fun to go with a group, as it's easy to split the checks up and you can compete for the strongest person (aka biggest pig) at the table. I handily strolled over the finish line before I even got my final plate of sushi.



The place is seriously so big inside that you burn some of the calories you take in by walking back to the buffet, or so I like to think.


As another dessert, I asked them for a handroll, after seeing the sign above the sushi area. They make them to order, and really hooked up the fish.



The hibachi and crepes like the hand rolls are made to order, with a variety of options. This place is so awesome, too bad it's in Norristown. We were all expecting them to come and say that it was a joke and we actually all owed $100 a piece. No such thing happened. Bottom line, I am not saying it's the best sushi I have ever had, but it's just as good as most of the sushi in the city, and you have SO MANY other options that it's just about perfect. I can't wait to go back.


1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I was here once -- when I attempted to go to Bluefin without a reservation haha. I agree that it's good (especially for the price) but not great. I ate waaaayyyy too much and felt sick after but due to volume not bad quality haha. Their spread is ridic.