RESTAURANT REVIEW: 'New' Sekisui fills the bill

When it opened in west Little Rock in 2000, Sekisui, an offshoot of a Memphis mini-chain, was a Japanese triple-threat hybrid -- Japanese entrees, sushi and teppanyaki grills. And it had the added allure of serving simple nigiri and sushi rolls that customers could snatch from small boats that circled around the sushi bar.

Sekisui is now under new management (Lulu Chi and her family sold their part-ownership). Regulars (and we confess, we're not among them; it's been actual years since we stopped in) tell us it has changed up a bit, but deem it still worth the visit.

Meanwhile, the size and variety of Sekisui's Asian restaurant competition has burgeoned in recent years. The original Chi's was already long established at West Markham and Shackleford when it was built, but since has arisen, some within a literal stone's throw, Tokyo House and Kobe (Japanese), Pho Thanh My (Vietnamese) and P.F. Chang and Fu Lin (Chinese). Just a little farther away, all in the same South Shackleford Road shopping center, there is Samurai (Japanese, which we reviewed last week), Panda Garden (Chinese buffet) and Zangna Thai.

[MORE PHOTOS: Sekisui in west Little Rock]

Sekisui has three things in its favor: one of the area's broadest menus (at the top of the Sushi menu it says "Sekisui Korean and Japanese," though we could not find anything overtly Korean on that or the regular one), the friendliest staff we've encountered at any restaurant in a while, and a lot of food for the money.

The boats now are permanently docked, which is probably a good thing -- unless you got there right as dinner service started and saw the sushi chefs loading them, you never really knew how long that sushi had been afloat.

The decor hasn't changed appreciably, with the sushi bar dominating the center of the large dining room, dividing it into distinct areas -- the bar at the front, the half dozen four-top tables along north windows, four large and three small hibachi grills behind and a set of booths along the back wall.

The area near the front that used to offer a version of traditional Japanese dining (in which shoeless Americans dangle their legs in a sort of pit to imitate Japanese seating without compromising their comfort) is now a lounging area, but you can still dine that way in a couple of side alcoves or in a fairly well-hidden back party room (it has been there all along, but we'd never noticed it before).

Open with the Tuna Tataki ($9), enough generous slices of slightly seared ahi tuna -- each topped with a small jalapeno-looking but not especially fiery pepper, artfully separated by lemon wedges, on a tangy ponzu-sauce bed -- to make a light entree.

We enjoyed the flavor of the Wasabi Shumai ($5.50), steamed dumplings in a green wasabi-infused noodle shell, but they were slightly messy, to the point at which they looked rather like brussels sprouts. They came served in a trapezoidal porcelain dish with a chamber at the "top" full of a slightly weird, very vivid yellow ginger dip that didn't so much complement the dumplings as distract from them. A goodly portion of Edamame ($3.50) served in the same kind of dish was unevenly salted and rather blah.

Sekisui offers, in addition to the standard nigiri (fish on rice) and sashimi (fish not on rice), nearly a dozen and a half "regular" rolls, three baked rolls, nine deep-fried rolls, three rolls that arrive at the table on fire. And about four dozen "special" rolls, some with locally inspired names -- for example, "Mt. Pinnacle," "UALR," "UCA" and "Toad Suck."

The McCain Roll (eight pieces, $12.50) -- named for the North Little Rock boulevard? for the Arizona senator? -- has crab, avocado and cucumber inside, and the odd-seeming combination of seared sirloin, green onion and cheddar cheese on the outside. Nonetheless, it works. We also enjoyed our Crazy Tuna roll (eight pieces, $12.50), spicy tuna "in crunch," topped with tuna and avocado.

Our only problem: the pieces are cut pretty big, so unless you have a pretty big mouth, you may have trouble putting a whole piece in it at one time, which is the way you're supposed to eat it.

The variety on the Sashimi Deluxe plate ($39) is pretty much the same as most everybody else's sashimi plate -- tuna, salmon, yellowtail, red snapper, "crab stick" and escolar (sometimes listed as "white tuna") -- 19 pieces, some sliced thick, some sliced thin, plus a six-piece tuna roll. That's a lot of food. Our sushi chef offered us a little dish of the tart, slightly citric ponzu sauce, which went well with the "redder" fish (tuna and salmon), while the traditional add-wasabi-and-ginger-to-soy-sauce dipping mixture did better for the "whiter" fish.

The sushi menu actually lists add-ons and substitutions. Want soy paper instead of nori (seaweed) as a wrapper? It costs $1.50. Make it spicy? That's 50 cents. Add cream cheese or jalapenos for $1. The menu also very carefully identifies which items are raw and which are cooked, in keeping with the de rigueur warning about the risks of eating undercooked or raw meats, seafood, poultry, shellfish or eggs.

Sekisui's list of Top Dinner Entrees still includes Foiled Salmon ($16), which we remember fondly from our early visits, and with good reason: It's a good-size (6 ounces) chunk of fish, foil-cooked and marinated in sweet sesame soy puree and sake.

If the menu had listed as a component of the Bacon Wrapped Scallops ($17) that light-orange Japanese mayo-like aioli (which also goes under the title "yum yum" sauce, at least at the hibachi tables), scallop-loving but Japanese aioli-hating Intrepid Companion probably would not have ordered it.

It doesn't, and she did.

Compounding that problem was the bacon, which, while not exactly undercooked, was fatty, flabby, chewy and generally unappealing. The green-tea soba noodles, which come on the side with tempura vegetables, were the best thing on the plate.

Most restaurants won't send a teppanyaki chef out to cover just one party at an eight- or nine-seat hibachi table, but apparently, wishing to spare us an extended wait, that's what happened. And unlike at some establishments, we got pretty much the same show as the larger party with several kids at a nearby table -- onion volcano and all.

We were swayed in our ordering by the sheer amount of seafood promised by the Seafood Paradise ($36): lobster tail, scallops, hibachi shrimp and, unusual in our previous teppanyaki experience, calamari. The shrimp, which comes as an appetizer portion on all hibachi meals, was plated all in one pile, but that was OK. The chef grilled the calamari flat; it rolled up when he scooped it off the grill, and surprised us as being the best thing on the plate, more flavorful and tenderer than the lobster, which was just a shade tough.

Hibachi combos come with soup -- we chose miso ($2.50 a la carte), which was rich but rather salty -- and salad (the ginger dressing was tangy and, unlike many places, undiluted by water from the lettuce). We spent $3 for an absolutely monstrous portion of fried rice, which would have fed at least two; we also got an unexpected (and uncharged-for, menu-listed at $4) side of grilled flat noodles. (Our teppanyaki chef said they were udon, but we have our doubts.)

We mentioned that the staff was extraordinarily friendly, from the bus people all the way up to the manager, who offered us little extras (like the ponzu sauce for the sashimi) and generally took good care of across the board.

Weekend on 09/01/2016