Ta Ta Asian Bistro

It seems like restaurant staffs are getting younger all the time, but this was the most extreme example yet.

Promptly after we walked into Ta Ta Asian Bistro, we were greeted warmly by a young woman wearing an attractive (and modest) party-type dress. First, she asked if we were ordering food to go, no doubt because we'd snatched up a takeout menu and were looking it over. Told that we'd like to be seated, she asked if we preferred a booth or a table. And after seating us and handing over regular menus and a sushi list, she said she'd be back soon to get our beverage orders (although, as it turned out, our server materialized immediately and took care of just that).

I don't want to insult her here by mis-estimating her age in either direction, but I'd guess she was about 8 or 9 years old. And here she was, not just cute but delivering a level of service that would put her silicone sisters on the Strip to shame.

So yes, we were charmed even before we were seated at Ta Ta, although that would've quickly dissolved if things had fallen apart. But as it turned out, our young hostess' professional demeanor (and careful training, probably on the part of a parent) was obvious in every other aspect of our experience there.

Like an increasing percentage of Asian restaurants in town -- and certainly those that label themselves with the pan-Asian label, followed by "bistro" -- Ta Ta serves sushi, teppanyaki and other styles of Japanese food, as well as a selection of Chinese for those who'd feel more comfortable with orange chicken than octopus nigiri sushi. Those sort of places tend to be a boon for us, in that they enable us to combine styles. Thus we'd have sushi and teriyaki.

First, the sushi: From the respectable nigiri list, we chose the sweet-egg tamago ($1.75), a tame choice that at the same time can be a barometer of a kitchen staff's skills. They acquitted themselves nicely here, with the egg just sweet enough and just moist enough, balanced on its platform of sushi rice with a sash of nori.

Rolls have gotten pretty interesting in recent years, as sushi spots have reached for broader audiences with an ever-widening variety of innovative ingredients and combinations (generally inauthentic, but who really cares?), often accompanied by catchy names that can tend toward the R-rated. Nothing too racy here (and we thought of our little hostess and the obviously family-friendly nature of the place as we considered that), but we did find some creativity -- the Paradise ($12), for example, which combined coconut shrimp with avocado, flakes of coconut, a dab of cream cheese and some spicy yum sauce, topped with thin slices of salmon.

The Monkey Special Roll ($14) was based on sections of banana tempura topped with spicy crab and tuna, pea sprouts and spicy yum and eel sauces.

In a somewhat similar border-bending vein was one of our starters, the jalapeno puffs ($7.50), in which the peppers were stuffed with spicy tuna and a small amount of cream cheese, battered and deep fried. They were hot-tempered and addictive -- a takeoff on bar food, but taken to much greater heights.

And potstickers ($5), which we tried mainly to see how they'd execute a mundane menu item. Pretty well, as it turned out, with a well-balanced blend of pork and vegetables tucked into their wontonlike skins and fried very, very slightly, which was a good thing.

We also were pleasantly surprised by the rib-eye beef teriyaki dinner ($12.95). The large slices of beef were impossibly tender and gently cooked, and the teriyaki sauce had some character instead of resembling the overly sweetened soy sauces into which so many have devolved. The miso soup served with it was smoky and hot, the salad fine, but we did have one quibble: White or brown rice is offered, and when we forgot to specify the latter, we were served the former. But that is just a quibble.

We actually happened upon Ta Ta Asian Bistro by happenstance, and we sure were glad we did. It's the kind of very good, interesting, individually owned restaurant that Henderson has in woefully short supply.

Las Vegas Review-Journal reviews are done anonymously at Review-Journal expense. Contact Heidi Knapp Rinella at 383-0474 or e-mail her at hrinella@reviewjournal.com.