Sushi

If you can’t stand the heat, stay out of the classroom.   The twist on that old cliche rang true for eight Newport Harbor High School culinary students, who packed, cut and rolled sushi next to professional sushi chefs at Fashion Island last week. Culinary arts teacher Janet Dukes instructs more than 100 students a year at Newport Harbor, but only the handful who seem truly interested in the profession and do good work get to receive a lesson directly from the pros at Roy’s restaurant.

With the seriousness and precision of a surgeon, master chef Takashi Abe carefully slices a Japanese snapper and pidan -- a preserved duck egg with a mahogany-colored shell. This is the start of the special salad-of-the-day creation at Bluefin, a new upscale restaurant at Crystal Cove Promenade in Newport Beach. Abe is able to turn virtually every slice of sushi he touches into an edible work of art. It's a skill that has brought the 48-year-old a string of successes in the restaurant business, including his namesake sushi bar on the Balboa Peninsula that he recently sold.

Deirdre Newman Nestled between a car lot and a psychic palm reader is an unassuming building that packs a lot of flavor into little pieces of sushi. Ahhh ... Wasabi, which opened on Harbor Boulevard three months ago, offers tantalizing selections such as a caterpillar roll, which is avocado on an eel roll snaking around the plate, and a special cucumber roll, which contains tuna, white fish, salmon, crab meat and avocado. As you soon as you walk through the front door, which is painted a bold red, the bustling cacophony of traffic on Harbor Boulevard subsides, giving way to soft jazz and the soothing sound of gently lapping water from an artificial pond inhabited by goldfish.

Greer Wylder When Oosio opened 28 years ago, it stood out as one of the first restaurants to introduce Japanese cuisine to Costa Mesa. Now that sushi is about as ubiquitous here as it is in Tokyo, Ooiso is no longer a novelty. Yet it still stands out as a favorite neighborhood restaurant that specializes in fresh Japanese foods. Ooiso has a loyal group of regulars, who rely on its quality seafood and the expertly crafted dishes by Juro Miyazaki, a 25-year veteran sushi chef.

There are places I know I have no right going to. I’m just not hip enough or part of the “in crowd,” and I gladly accept that verdict. Tentation Ultra Lounge is such a place. It is a South Beach-inspired nightclub that is part of Ten Asian Bistro and on Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights swarms of “in people” descend to have a little sushi and do a lot of dancing. Just because I am not cool enough to be at the club, doesn’t mean I should get shut out of some of the most interesting sushi in Orange County, so my equally un-hip friend, Andre, and I ventured over during the day. Eating during the day has its advantages, and I certainly feel that way about Ten Asian Bistro.

Kathy Mader When you introduce a food lover to a new buffet -- a good buffet -- it is like Christmas all over again. But a truly good buffet is pretty hard to find, and the mere mention of buffet tends to strike terror in the hearts of some. Any food mass-produced has the potential to be sacrificed in either presentation, preparation, quality and cleanliness -- or all four. Sumo Sushi and Seafood on the corner of MacArthur and Plaza, one block north of Bristol Street, manages all four variables quite nicely.

Chamber to host April mixer The Glendale Chamber of Commerce will hold its April mixer at 5:30 p.m. Wednesday at Professional Business Bank, 250 N. Orange St., Glendale. The event will feature networking, refreshments, prizes and a chance to meet the city's newest business members. Parking will be available on the street or with validation at the Orange Street garage. For more information, call (818) 240-7870. New Chinese restaurant opens Wok Talk, a new Chinese and sushi roll restaurant, has opened at 932 E. Colorado St. between Adams Street and Glendale Avenue.

Story by Jennifer Kho; photos by Greg Fry HE IS Reaching people's hearts through their stomachs FROM CARS TO COD While he cuts vegetables into thin, delicate slices and prepares sauces and fish, Gen Sakamoto is easily the center of attention at Ooiso Restaurant. Sakamoto, who followed his girlfriend -- now his wife -- from Tokyo to California in 1994, has been a sushi chef at the 20-year-old restaurant for four years. He has learned most of what he knows about sushi through his experience at Ooiso.

The number of sushi places in the Newport Beach-Costa Mesa area is fairly astounding to me because it makes me wonder how they all stay in business. One bite of a piece of yellowtail and I instantly knew how Maru Sushi has been around for as long as it has. The restaurant is self-categorized as upscale, and the decor of the dining room reflected that. I liked the expansiveness of the main room that seemed to be far away from the sushi bar itself. Most places are smaller, and trying to talk above the patrons at the sushi bar can be difficult, but here conversations were certainly possible.

Premiere Entertainment, the producers of this year's biggest Hollywood event to hit Orange County, "The Sex and the City" movie premiere party, will be hosting another star studded event for New Year's Eve. On Wednesday, December 31, 2008, Premiere Entertainment will partner up with OCafterdark.com and Tentation ultra lounge to host a Celebrity VIP Party hosted by Grammy Award Winning Artist and Producer, Sleepy Brown . Sleepy is well known for being the Mastermind behind Outkast, TLC, The Black Eyed Peas and also for being a highly talented music artist.

Former Newport Beach Mayor Tod Ridgeway confirmed Wednesday he owns the building that houses a popular sushi restaurant police allege is operating as an illegal nightclub. Police claim the restaurant Fury Rok & Rol Sushi Lounge, 4221 Dolphin Striker Way, generates a high number of drunk driving arrests in the neighborhood and that its parking lot is a haven for illicit activity including the possible use of illegal drugs. Ridgeway said he expected the clash between the city and his tenant to be resolved soon, but declined to comment further.

The Newport Beach Planning Commission postponed a hearing over whether to revoke a use permit for a popular sushi restaurant after undercover police officer reportedly saw patrons drinking and using drugs in the restaurant’s parking lot. The sushi lounge is licensed as a restaurant, but a police investigation found evidence the establishment has been promoting itself as a nightclub, Planning Commission documents show. Attorney Stephen Jamieson, acting on the restaurant’s behalf, requested the commission postpone the hearing late Thursday night because it did not have enough time to respond to police allegations of illicit activity in connection to Fury.

The Newport Beach Planning Commission will discuss today whether to revoke the use permit for a sushi restaurant after undercover police officers reportedly observed patrons drinking and using drugs in the parking lot of the restaurant. Fury Rok & Rol Sushi Lounge, 4221 Dolphin Striker Way, is licensed as a restaurant and not a night club, which could raise legal issues for the restaurant, Planning Commissioner Michael Toerge said. “Land use requirements for a nightclub and a restaurant are radically different,” Toerge said.