Minado

[randomness]

bedfull_o_books mentioned to me she'd gone to this all you can eat sushi place with happyfunpaul and friends. So I picked a weekday lunchtime and tried it out.

Minado
1282 Worcester Road (Rt. 9 East, in the Sherwood Plaza, across from Natick Mall)
Natick, MA 01760
tel: +1.508.647.0495
http://www.minado.com
lunch: M-F 1130-1430, Sa-Su 1130-1500
dinner: M-Th 1800-2200, F-Sa: 1730-2200, Su 1700-2100
(last seating 30 minutes before closing)

(Other locations: Little Ferry, NJ; Carle Place, NY; Manhattan; and Parsippany, NJ.)

Minado is one of a growing number of these big Japanese seafood buffet places. It's not much for ambience, and the selection at lunch is pretty much just okay, but the high turnover means that the fish is pretty fresh. I'm told they do handrolls to order, also.

The cafeteria-like setup includes a wide and changing variety of salads as well as hot and cold Japanese and Asian dishes, including gyoza, shumai, yakisoba, and fried rice. But you came here for the sushi.

The usual favorites are there: tuna, salmon, red snapper, though I was surprised not to see any yellowtail on my visit. The fish is reasonably fresh. There are also a variety of gunkan sushi, like seaweed salad and spicy tuna. As I said, not bad, considering it's lunch.

I would like to try the dinner selection sometime but it'd better be a lot wider for the extra $10.

Weekday lunch is $13.95, weekend lunch is $15.95. Dinner is $23.95 on weekdays and $25.95 on weekends.