In Business Las Vegas, August 10th, 2007
A new way to eat food lies within Swish Restaurant.
Owner
Phillip
Lee and Jay
Shin
set up the "Japanese Hot Pot" style of dining, which means guests cook their food by leaning over a bar and dipping bits into either a stir-fry sauce or a seaweed-based broth.
It makes for a fun experience, whether the diners order plates of seafood, mushrooms or even Kobe beef.
"It's trendy, healthy and it's really fun,"
Lee
said. "In
Japan
, you don't have it as often except for on holidays or special occasions. But it's pretty popular in
New York
and
California
."
The partners picked a heavily trafficked intersection, Sahara Avenue and Buffalo Drive. The restaurant opened in May 2005.
"A lot of people like to try new things,"
Lee
said. "We've had a lot of people approach us about investing. We definitely want to expand in
Las Vegas
first and take it step by step."
Swish is the partners' first restaurant. Neither is Japanese —
Lee
is from
Korea
and
Shin
has lived in
Korea
and
Indonesia
— and neither was living in
Las Vegas
when they decided to open a restaurant here. But the size of the town and the community attracted them.
At Swish, servers turn on the skillets and pour in sauces, refreshing the liquid when it gets low. Diners are given chopsticks and some instructions on the menu for how to proceed.
Items range in price from the inexpensive Vegetarian Delight ($8.95) to the larger portion of Kobe Beef ($55.95). Ingredients are often exotic, like those in the $13.95 Mushroom Party, which includes shitake, enoki, shimeiji, oyster, king oyster, woodear and white mushrooms.
Diners can request a raw egg to eat with beef, too. Though most Americans shy away from this,
Lee
said, the thin layer of egg is actually cooked around the hot beef before it is eaten.
"About half of the people love it, half of the people won't try it," he said.
Traditional appetizers are available, including edamame ($2.45) and kimchee ($1.95). The dessert menu features regular and mochi ice cream (up to $3) and homemade Japanese steamed cheesecake ($5.95).
Swish Restaurant
Address: 7875 W. Sahara Ave., #105
Phone: 870-7947
Web:
www.swishlv.com.
Hours: 11 a.m. to 11 p.m., every day
Prices:
$12-$70
