Seeking Sushi in My Home Town Finding a Sushi Buffet

My husband is a sushi zealot and I am at least an enthusiast.  As such, we have ventured to  several of the sushi restaurants in our immediate home town and beyond -- one,   in Towles Plaza in Punta Gorda,  is very good and probably the best closest to us -- Amimoto. More on Amimoto soon.  -- a smallish place with a few tables and a bar that seats about 8-10, Amimoto serves up large and luscious swatches of fish on tasty rice morsels, the rolls are good too.  Amimoto has excellent cooked food as well. 

We have also been to a very good restaurant and the favorite of sushi  connoisseurs living in or closer to upper Port Charlotte -- Asuka.   Again large pieces of fish, interesting rolls, and fish which has always been fresh.  They also specialize in teppanyaki with its knife throwers and circus-style food entertaining. We took kids here and they thoroughly enjoyed it.

But last night we braved where few sushi-lovers dare to tread -- the sushi buffet.  Two reasons sushi buffs avoid such places.  One, they are seldom any good.  Two, even if they are not, sushi nuts will still pig out and regret it later.  So it was with great trepidation that we entered the halls of the Sakura Buffet on Tamiami Trail in Port Charlotte.  Face it, times are tough!  

And for $15.95 for all-you-can-eat sushi plus a full Asian Buffet, it was hard to be a snob.  Plus, they took an extra 10% off that night for a reason we know not.  And it was decent sushi.  Was it the sushi like the top restaurants in New York that we have left $200 or more poorer -- no.  But it was good, on the smallish side, but good.  And the variety was impressive -- all the standard nigiri and hand rolls plus they even had a Philadelphia roll.  They also offered a wide assortment of special rolls, some familiar like dragon rolls and rainbow rolls, others I hadn't experienced before, but liked -- the dancing crab meat, the flying crab and one with mango. One other speciality that was interesting was fried sushi -- all of our company went back for seconds on that one.

The non- sushi bar area of Sakura includes some delicious tidbits as well that our non-sushi loving friends enjoyed --- including chicken yakatori, egg rolls,  several chinese-style dishes, and more.  

Location: Port Charlotte, FL