Plenty of options in Vegas for fans of Asian food

Max Jacobson

Wednesday, March 12, 2003 | 8:20 a.m.

An amazing array of packaged and imported Asian products are available at large outlets, such as 99 Ranch Market and International Marketplace. But ready- made foods, from an ever- increasing variety of Asian cultures and cuisines, are sold in various local markets and restaurants in convenient deli sections.

Here is a small cross-section of ready-to-eat Asian foods available in Vegas.

Nakata Market of Japan

2350 S. Rainbow Blvd.

A friendly couple from Japan, Koji and Kumiko Nakata opened this full-service Japanese market on Dec. 14. Koji-san is from Osaka, and he prepares a variety of Japanese dishes that are ready to eat, including Osaka-style sushi, a recipe where the sushi rice is formed into rectangles and topped with thin strips of fish.

The foods are kept in a special refrigerated case and include sushi, sashimi and various snack foods. One such food is onigiri, a triangular snack consisting of cooked rice wrapped in crunchy nori seaweed that is filled with ume, Japanese salted plums, and tiny bits of smoked salmon. At 99 cents apiece, onigiri makes a delicious and portable snack.

Koji-san makes a variety of sushi, such as a salmon-and-avocado roll cut into eight pieces, for $3.25; the fat, egg-wrapped sushi known as inari, $1.80 for four pieces; and his delicious Osaka-style sushi, usually anago, sea eel, saba, Spanish mackerel or hamachi, yellowtail, all $4.99 for six pieces.

This is also the place to buy thinly sliced beef for sukiyaki or the Japanese hot pot called shabu-shabu, high grade, nicely marbled beef that sells for $6.59 and $6.99 per pound, respectively. And two times a week sashimi comes in fresh from Los Angeles, high-grade butterfish or tuna belly, which the market sells for $26 per pound.

Complementing these delicacies is a wonderful array of rice crackers, chocolates and specialty foods, as well as free-range eggs from vegetarian hens, which many Japanese mix raw into hot rice.

BBQ Noodle World

4711 W. Spring Mountain Road

This spotless new Chinese food emporium is a deli and restaurant, though there is no market per se. The specialty is take-out Chinese barbecue, plus a number of cold dishes sold by weight, to go with several hot items that are dished up from a steam table.

The roast duck is especially good. The skin is crisp, much of the fat has been dripped away, and the meat and bones are redolent of five-spice powder and other barbecue secrets. A half duck, chopped to go, is $6.50, and a whole one is $12.95.

One of the better bargains is soy sauce chicken, a whole chicken simply marinated in soy sauce. The skin is flaccid and unappealing, but the meat is moist and juicy, and the chickens are only $2.75 per pound.

Delicious barbecued chicken legs are $1.50 apiece; six fully cooked duck wings are $1.25.

Cold dishes are packed in bubble-top plastic and include preserved radish, pig's trotters, and a vinegary cucumber, carrot and jicama salad. Among the hot dishes are seafood-stuffed tofu, braised baby bok choy, and braised eggplant.

B.M. Pampagna's Best

6235 S. Pecos Road

For those unfamiliar with the foods of the Philippines, the best and most economical local place in which to taste them is this well-stocked, busy Filipino market. Hot foods are served from a steam table, and many snacks and desserts are made on the premises and sold in plastic, bubble-top packages.

The hot foods come from a back kitchen at around 11 a.m. daily and include dishes such as tocino, a type of smoked, grilled pork; lumpia, Filipino-style egg rolls; menudo, a tripe soup; and caledereta, Filipino beef stew. The store sells enormously portioned two-item combos for $3.99 and three-item combos for $4.89.

There are also tilapia, fresh fried fish, which range in price from $2-$2.50 per whole fish; galunggong, or Spanish mackerel; and the well-loved bangus, or milkfish, which vary slightly in price. Delicious skewers of barbecued chicken or pork, blackened with a sweet glaze, are only $1.25 per skewer.

One of the specialties is chicharon, deep-fried pork rinds or chicken skin. They range from $4.50-$6 per half pound.

It would be a shame to bypass these homemade sweets. Suman malangkot are cigar-shaped banana leaves filled with sweet rice and cooked in coconut milk, while the dessert known as sapin sapin is a tray of assorted rice flour, egg and coconut milk sweets in different shapes and sizes. These, and many other desserts, sell for $3.50.

India Market

5006 S. Maryland Parkway

This newly expanded market has an ever-increasing variety of snacks and sweets, most of which are trucked in from Indian bakeries and sweet shops in Southern California. There are the savory potato and spiced pea-filled pastry triangles called samosas, and a nice assortment of exotic Indian sweets.

Most of these sweets, which come in a rainbow of colors and shapes, are made from heavily reduced milk and sugar, to which nuts, fruits and spices are added. Jalebis, for instance, crisp, orange-colored coiled pastries soaked in sugar syrup, are $2.99 for a 1-pound box, and habshi halwa, dense, fudgelike squares of nuts, fruits, and condensed milk, are $4.99 a box.

This is also a good place to shop for unusual vegetables used in Indian cooking, such as fuzzy squash, bitter melon and guar beans. In addition, vegetarian foods that can be heated in the microwave abound, including a line of imported products sold in aseptic packages.