King Kone

king kone

 

Madeline Marr6/17/2010

Bag the chopsticks. At King Kone, you eat with your hands.

The spare, modern Alton Road restaurant offers up raw fish in fun-to-eat cones -- sushi crammed into hand rolled nori (or pressed seaweed). If you want to get technical, the Japanese term for this sometimes-messy style of sushi is temaki. Ingredients are brown or white rice with cubes of fish spilling over the top, so it's more fun to nosh than popping traditional roll slices. Think of it as a giant ice cream cone -- minus the licking -- that you can take for a stroll on Lincoln Road.

Go for plain raw, seemingly quite fresh fish -- (tuna, salmon, eel, octopus) or, for the squeamish, cooked tuna, shrimp or soft-shell crab. Three favorites are the No. 9, which pops with perfectly crisp salmon tempura, mayo, scallions and masago (fish roe); the punchy No. 22, packed high with yellowtail and jalapeño; and the stalwart, No. 32, a California with mouth-freshening cucumber, kani (crab stick) and avocado. Can't decide?

The spot -- with a giant flat-screen playing sports while you wait -- serves an assortment of six mini kones in a takeout box that looks like a soft-drink carrier at the movie theater. Mustn't forget the sweet-tooth options. For dessert or a healthy snack, you can order a waffle kone stuffed with strawberry chunks and Nutella or the genius combo of peanut butter and coconut. Who would have thought?