Long Island Restaurants

Suki Zuki of the Hamptons

With its zany name and quasi-Eastern ambience, Suki Zuki of the Hamptons marries Eastern cuisine with East End casual cool. The space, once home to a local burger pub, has been redecorated in a somewhat Japanese mode, complete with sushi bar and "robata" (Japanese open fire) grill. The menu focuses on small dishes- appetizers, sushi-bar creations and skewered grill items.

Begin with a rousing spicy tuna roll or a delicate rainbow roll. From the grill, try the terrific tsukune, skewered ground chicken patties. Grilled black cod is best when it doesn't stay too long on the fire. More impressive are grilled scallops, served in their shells with sake butter, and the negima, skewered pieces of duck with scallions.

A novel composition is the soba roll, made of soba noodle salad wrapped in seaweed and served maki-roll style. A lively appetizer called "shrimp o'dynamite" features lots of lightly sauteed crustaceans in a piquant barbecue sauce. Panko-fried snapper-two generous sticks of whitefish in a crunchy batter-are grand, especially when dipped in the accompanying wasabi tartar sauce. A deliciously smoky grilled whole flounder is handily reduced to a mere skeleton.

A real knockout is the "tuna sandwich," a triangular-cut sushi roll containing, along with spicy tuna, tobiko, scallion and tempura flakes, and an elusive hint of citrus. You'll be blown away by the volcano roll-chopped clams, cucumber, tobiko and a California roll topped with a mayonnaise-based spicy sauce studded with bits of octopus. Do try the seviche, an exhilarating combo of whitefish, lime and cilantro.

After all that sparkle, entrees fizzles. Steak saikoro, with a spicy red dipping sauce, translates into cubes of overdone beef served in an intimidatingly large white bowl. A special of grilled mahi mahi, with yellow corn, shiitake mushrooms and a lemon butter, features fish that may be near-incinerated atop a mushy melange of vegetables. Hope that the gingery grilled pork is not grilled to leather.

You might end with tempura banana with fresh strawberries or red bean ice cream topped with a rather mealy red bean sauce, but you'd probably be happier sipping green tea.

Think of Suki Zuki of the Hamptons as a fine destination for sharing sushi bar specialties and appetizers. Order a sake, beer or wine, and make an evening of sampling a large variety of small dishes with big flavors.

Joan Reminick. STAFF WRITER

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