Sushi Mido keeps rolling with plenty of options

When I think of all-you-can-eat restaurant specials, crab legs, chicken wings, pasta and sprawling buffets come to mind.

So when I saw the “all you can eat” sign outside Sushi Mido in Shawnee, I was a little confused. How many sushi rolls can one person consume?

Turns out, quite a few.

“We have a couple customers who come in and knock out 10 rolls,” says manager John Dallaire. “But 95 percent of our clientele eat a healthy amount and don’t overdo it.”

Sushi Mido’s all-you-can-eat special costs $21.99 per person. If you typically order three or four rolls that cost $8, it’s a good deal — especially because the meal comes with crab rangoon or edamame, plus soup or salad.

There are a few stipulations: Appetizers and sashimi pieces are not included in the all-you-can-eat special, but they are half price. You can’t take home leftovers, and the restaurant discourages over-ordering (and wasting food) by charging 50 cents per leftover piece.

When I dined at Sushi Mido recently, I was hungry, but not all-you-can-eat hungry. I split salad, soup, an appetizer and two specialty rolls with my husband.

The meal was brought to our tidy table in courses by a friendly server who gave excellent recommendations.

First came our salads — chilled bowls of crisp romaine drizzled liberally with bright orange ginger dressing. If I had known that you can order the made-from-scratch dressing to go in a 16-ounce container for $4, I would have bought three.

After the cold salads, we slurped down warm bowls of freshly made miso soup and devoured the beautifully plated Hawaiian Tuna Ahi Poki ($9.95) with our chopsticks. The elegant appetizer is a tower of raw tuna, cucumber, avocado and pineapple topped with black and red masago (tiny fish eggs).

Then came the main event: The sushi rolls. After scouring the lengthy menu, we ordered the Long Beach roll ($9.79) and the lobster roll ($11.95). The Long Beach, Dallaire’s favorite, has crunchy shrimp tempura, cucumber and cream cheese inside. The filling roll is topped with imitation crab meat, seaweed salad, house-made spicy mayo and sesame seeds. The Long Beach roll is as delicious as it is beautiful — and because it has no raw ingredients, it’s a good pick for sushi beginners.

Same goes for the lobster roll, stuffed with large hunks of tempura lobster and drizzled with kiwi sauce. The buttery texture of the lobster, the lightly sweet kiwi sauce and Sushi Mido’s extra-spicy wasabi paste made the lobster roll one of the best I’ve ever had.

Sushi purists who crave raw fish also have plenty of options at this popular Shawnee restaurant, which is consistently packed on weekends. Sushi chef Raymond Chen flies in fresh whole fish daily. The fish are descaled, deboned and filleted in-house, which cuts down on costs. Chen’s team of chefs, trained for 10 to 18 months, make the sauces, soups, crab rangoon and that addictive ginger dressing from scratch.

I wasn’t surprised to find out that the dressing is extremely popular with repeat customers and the Sushi Mido staff. “It’s actually one of the reasons I work here,” Dallaire says.

This story was originally published September 30, 2014 at 4:43 PM with the headline "Sushi Mido keeps rolling with plenty of options."