Born in a cloud kitchen at the end of the pandemic, Doanburi has settled into its permanent home. For three years, chef Jae Doan racked up a solid following as she toiled away in a compact 200-square-foot ghost kitchen in the northwest valley packing
high-quality, takeout sushi orders, called Treasure Boxes. With popularity spiking, Doan and co-owner Katie Ray decided it was time to find the Japanese takeout business a brick-and-mortar location. Doanburi opened in the Spring Valley neighborhood January 26.
“Our goal is to bring the Strip experience to the neighborhood,” Doan says. “We wanted to build something comfortable and elevated — a place where families can come share a meal.”
The idea for Doanburi hatched more than 15 years ago when Doan and Ray met at a sushi school in California and forged a friendship. The restaurant name is a clever mash-up combining chef Doan’s surname with “donburi” — a classic Japanese rice bowl dish where fish, meat and vegetables are simmered together and served over rice. Doan arrived in Vegas from Vietnam at the age of 10 and learned how to speak English watching the Food Network, specifically Iron Chef. One contestant caught her attention. Intrigued by his fusion techniques, precision and speed around the kitchen, she gravitated toward Masaharu Morimoto. Years later, not only would Doan meet Morimoto, she would help open his restaurant at MGM Grand. “He inspired me to become a chef,” she says, referencing the show. “I speak with cooking. That’s my language.”
Following her stint at Morimoto, she moved to Mizumi at Wynn before stepping out on her own. Doan recalls how those days in the ghost kitchen helped her focus on her attention to detail and how to “think outside the treasure box.” The result is an immaculate 50-seat restaurant with a sushi bar where everything from freshly grated wasabi to low-sodium soy sauce gets made in house, and a majority of ingredients are imported from Japan. Dishes arrive at the table resembling art pieces: Some get dotted with sauces or gold leaf. Others have heaps of caviar or have been punctuated with bright edible flowers. “For me, plating makes everything beautiful. The eye eats first,” Doan explains.
But Doanburi exists as more than just eye-catching presentations and stunning omakase sushi boxes. Doan carefully sources fresh fish from around the world: She uses Hokkaido uni atop a lightly toasted brioche. The halibut gets shipped live from Korea in a water tank. And instead of using the more oily king salmon, her crispy short-grain sushi rice is topped with less fatty New Zealand alpine salmon brushed with a sweet soy glaze. Her choice of tuna seems most critical. Doan says she prefers using premium cuts of Japanese tuna even though it runs double the price of alternatives. Growing to only 10 pounds, the tuna’s size, she says, make them more flavorful. “When tuna get too large, the texture is gone and the flavor isn’t there anymore.”
Beyond the signature rolls and stellar nigiri and sashimi, even the simplest dishes receive special treatment. The zest of fresh yuzu combined with a light Japanese vinegar brings acidic brightness to the cucumber salad, while the Wagyu tartare gets cubed and quickly seared to bring out the flavor of the beef, then mixed with a ginger, garlic, and a soy reduction before finished with pear and sesame seeds for crunch. It’s served with crispy nori chips, ideal for scooping it all up into a single flavorful bite.
Diners should make it a point to not miss the Brussels sprouts, where the petals are removed, flash fried and sprinkled with shiso salt and a touch of sugar. “A lot of places like to quarter them. We hand pull them, petal by petal and fry them so they’re more like a potato chip,” Doan explains with a smile. “I just wanted to do something fun and different.”
In recent years there has been a gradual culinary shift with chefs leaving the Strip to open their own restaurants in neighborhoods like Summerlin and Spring Valley, where Doanburi lives. Bringing these high-quality restaurants into the neighborhoods has been applauded by locals who now have the opportunity to enjoy a high-quality meal that’s more affordable and less hectic than traveling to the famous tourist corridor.
“If you love something, you have to be good at it all the time,” Doan says. “It was time for me to take the next step and go out on my own.”
