Kabuto

I don't eat sushi as much as I would like to in San Francisco because the quality of sushi there is really upsetting.  I can probably name about five restaurants in the Bay Area that serves good sushi.  That being said, I do try to eat my fair share of sushi when I'm in the LA area, but surprisingly I've found that Las Vegas has better sushi than San Francisco.  Out of all my food lineups on this Las Vegas trip, Kabuto was the one I was most excited about.  They offer 3 choices of omakase  - $45, $85, $120.  All three come with a mixture of sushi and cooked dishes.  This ended up being one of my favorite meals of the trip and some of the best omakase I've had in a long time.  Had I not had a full food lineup going on, I would have loved to try the $120 omakase.   

To start off the $85 omakase, a small glass of Fuji apple sake mixed with crushed iced was given.  I've never had sake so juicy.  It replicated the taste of a sweet, juicy apple almost exactly.  Refreshing and fruity.

Chunks of super red blue fin tuna and slices of Japanese cucumber and seaweed were the amuse bouche.  After visiting Japan, I rarely eat tuna because I've found the taste to be more watery and bland, but the tuna here was superb.  Fresh and full of flavor plus the texture was meaty and not mushy. 

From left; clockwise: blue fin tuna, ocean trout, oyster, and clam.  Every piece of seafood was super fresh.  Delicious.

Left to right:  Striped pig (a whitefish) topped with a sweet miso, kobe beef with yuzu, and grilled snapper.

Japanese sea bass.

Blue fin tuna.

Oki aji.

chu toro (medium fat).  Although the omakase comes with the chef's choice of sushi, you can opt to add more sushi after its completed.

Minced blue fin tuna atop lightly seasoned rice.  I adore the amount of wasabi they use for all their sushi.  While it doesn't seem like much, its just the perfect amount to compliment the fish.

Ikura is another sushi item that doesn't get me very excited.  I usually find the saltiness of the salmon roe to be to overpowering when it comes to most ikura sushi.  However, this small shot glass sized container filled with rice and topped with ikura was so well put together I couldn't help, but gobble it up.  The ikura to rice ratio was so balance that even the last spoonful had the perfect amount of ikura and rice.

super custardy smooth and fresh uni.

Its rare for me to see tamago (egg) made in house so when I do see it I have to gawk at it for a bit to appreciate this sweet eggy delicacy. 

A handroll (temaki) or a maki (roll) signals the end of the omakase is coming.  Here its a tuna handroll.  This simplistic roll is not to be taken lightly.  The sophisticated flavors of the rich tasting tuna, perfectly seasoned rice and the roasted seaweed makes it one of the best and most memorable dishes of the omakase.

The soup course has a choice between a fish miso or a mushroom miso.  A lot of focus goes into eating the fish miso soup since the white fish has a bunch of tiny bones.

November is the season of mushrooms so its no surprise that one of the miso soup choices is a mushroom miso.  Small button shaped mushrooms and wakame (seaweed) float through the subtly soothing miso soup.

Housemade salted caramel vanilla ice cream.  The flavor of this ice cream was much different than any other salted caramel ice cream I've had.  It was much more vanilla tasting than salted caramel.

The green tea tiramisu was light and airy.  A subtle sweet way to end an omakase.

Address:                      Kabuto
                                     5040 Spring Mountain Rd.
                                     Las Vegas, NV
   

Type:                            Japanese

Popular chomps:         omakase
 

Chomp worthy:            omakase