AYCE sushi at M's Jayde Fuzion - don't bother, go elsewhere

I received an email from M Resort today saying that Jayde Fuzion has started offering an All You Can Eat sushi at the sushi bar. For $24.95 per person, you have unlimited access to all the nigiri and rolls (which can also be made into hand rolls) on the menu. Each guest also receives complimentary sake. It seemed like a good deal and the perfect opportunity to try this restaurant.

In short, don't bother. I knew it was a big risk and the rolls could easily become some dumbed-down version of sushi, but I figured the nigiri would be a safe bet. Somehow, they managed to mess that up as well.

The sushi bar seats 11 and is the only place you can order the AYCE. There looked to be an extra six-top that was assigned to the bar where a group was eating sushi. The environment is excellent and I had high (but cautious) hopes for the meal. We were given bowls of miso soup, which had slices of mushroom in it. That was the omen of a bad meal to come. I hate it when restaurants decide to add mushroom to a miso soup. It drastically changes the flavor and you lose the essence of dashi and miso, resulting in essentially a mushroom soup. Mushrooms in miso is something I associate with Asian buffets (and Bellagio's buffet, where they throw in whole button mushrooms).

There were 10 choices of nigiri and I ordered nine of them (each order is two pieces), skipping the Ebi (shrimp). The first plate arrived with my two pieces of hamachi. Immediately, I realized it may have been a mistake to order nine orders of nigiri. Each piece was HUGE. Each nigiri was easily 2-3x the size of a normal nigiri. Imagine a golfball-sized clump of rice with a gigantic slice of fish placed over it and then awkwardly squished to form a nigiri. Now imagine the rice is actually chilled, which brings out the flavor of the vinegar even more. And imagine the fish on top is thick, poorly cut, and also served chilled. What you end up with is a strangely sour piece of sushi that also tastes fishy, and the whole piece is cold. Every single fish tasted the same. Every piece was just a cold mess. No amount of dipping in soy sauce and wasabi could have saved the nigiri. With fish of that size, they'd have to actually sprinkle some finishing salt on top to make it palatable. Each piece was so large that my starting order was already too much.

Of the nine orders, I received the salmon twice and the salmon roe was forgotten. After everything else had arrived, the sushi chef informed me that the Bluefin tuna and the Toro was not in stock so he couldn't make them. Out of the 16 pieces I received, I left 7 untouched. My friend ordered 2 orders of Hamachi and 1 order of salmon and was given double of everything. He ate 4 pieces of nigiri before calling it a night (so 8 pieces were left untouched).

We also shared two rolls. The spider roll (soft-shelled crab) was passable. The crab was well-fried, but again, the rice was chilled and overly vinegared. The sauces added to the top were lacking in flavor. It didn't help that the roll was wrapped in flavorless rice paper rather than nori. We also got the signature Jayde Roll. No flavor at all. The only nice part was the crunchy bits on top.

Sushi is meant to be bite-sized. Whatever is made for you is meant to be picked up and eaten as one bite. This is impossible at Jayde Fuzion. I don't know what their thought process was, but maybe the initial Food Network winner wanted very large sushi and nobody jumped at the chance to correct it after her departure.

I feel bad that I dragged my friend to try this place. The terrible name, the association with Food Network's horrible reality show, the "chef" with no prior professional experience (who left a few months after opening)...many things have kept my friends and me away from Jayde Fuzion. I thought the AYCE would be a good way to at least see the inside. I figured with the Food Network winner gone, they would have hired a real chef who knew how to run a restaurant. How could they mess up sushi, especially nigiri? Well, they found a way. And they took my $33. I should have just put $33 on black at the roulette table.

Those who read my reviews know that I usually write nice things and note places for improvement. My advice would be to just go to Goyamon or Sushi Mon where, for $2 more, you can get a good meal. If I had to say something nice about the place, I would say that their uni is pretty fresh, although wasted on a huge bed of bad rice. That's pretty much the only compliment I can give. I can't rate the actual seated dining part of the restaurant, but the menu and the dishes I saw go out seemed less than stellar. I'll never know though, because nobody is willing to go try it with me.

 

I took only one picture and it's really bad quality due to the sunset shining directly onto our plate (and the default Samsung Galaxy camera not being able to compensate wel), but it shows the size of the sushi. The chopsticks are there for scale. The nigiri are essentially half the length of the chopsticks. On the left are my friend's two orders of hamachi (which somehow was repeated and he received two more orders of hamachi on top of that).

 

Who was the original chef? From next food network star?

 

It was Seonkyoung Longest, the winner of Restaurant Express. I happened to catch the first episode and it was a bunch of chefs put on a bus and they'd stop at cities along their cross-country bus trip to cook. Each episode, someone left the bus. From what I remember, she came to America and watched cooking shows on TV to learn to cook and then she blogged about her dishes. No prior professional cooking experience. When I heard that, I remember thinking that she would probably win, since Food Network's mantra now is showing that everyday people can cook. So this home cook with a food blog beat out all the chefs on the show. She lasted a couple months after the grand opening and then decided she wanted to go home.

I assume she was allowed to come up with the initial concept and then was teamed up with a consulting team that has experience opening restaurants. And I also assume they hired a Head Chef who has experience running a kitchen and expediting.

In any case, I usually like going to new restaurants when they open, but I could not get anyone to go with me. The name of the restaurant was the first nail in the coffin. The next was the association with the Food Network show. And the final nail was the concept of combining Japanese/Chinese/Korean flavors (which is not actually done...they simply offer dishes from each of the three cultures).

 

So, the Food Network winner, isn't the chef anymore? She went home??

Been by Jayde Fusion several times since it opened.........and hardly ever saw anyone in there.
Looked doomed from the start.
M is just Not a busy casino/hotel to handle a niche restaurant. They have a really good buffet, and a couple other places
that mostly locals visit, and that's about it.

 

Yea, the chef is no longer in any way associated with Jayde Fuzion. She lasted about two months and, supposedly, decided to quit and go home. At least that's the reason that was reported.

The place is definitely doomed. I doubt it'll survive past end of the year. It's not enough of any one thing to really appeal to anyone. It's "fusion", but there is no creative fusion of cuisines... It's simply a menu containing dishes from multiple cuisines, none of them done particularly well. Why would people go there instead of just going to the buffet?

I think turning the sushi bar into AYCE is a last ditch effort to be relevant. Too bad it's terrible sushi.

What M should do is close the place down and see about opening up a Ping Pang Pong #2 or a location of the dim sum place at Rio. Locals would love a closer place to get authentic Asian food and dim sum.