Sushi done properly is an art, and Big Bear’s Picasso when it comes to fresh fish is Pong Neatherlin.

    She used to teach sushi in her previous life but found that she missed cooking too much to stay out of the kitchen. Yet it seems that life has come full circle and is now imitating art at Pong’s Oriental Delights, where the owner arrives each morning to get the kitchen going but then heads into what else...sushi!

    Every roll is made fresh as guests order it at Pong’s, where sushi has almost overtaken her regular Tokyo-Bangkok cuisine in popularity. No wonder either; sashimi, sushi, hand rolls and even special deep fried rolls all have one thing in common—they’re extremely fresh and flavorful, made by hand on the spot.

    Pong can be seen hand-slicing whole avocados, chopping carrots and delicately carving shrimp and other seafood as if she was painting a tapestry. “Everything is made fresh as they order,” she said. “It takes a little longer sometimes but many customers like to come stand and watch what I put in. People love sushi and we have the best.”

    Delicacies like salmon, tuna, yellow tail, eel, crab and other delights come to life at Pong’s. “Do you smell fish?” she asks while cutting into a slab of albacore. The answer is a resounding no. “That’s because it’s so fresh. If you go into a sushi place and smell fish it means the fish is not so fresh. Albacore is very fishy and it it’s not fresh you couldn’t eat it.”

    Since everything is prepared by Pong herself, the quality is always high on everything she serves—astronomical, really. Rolls are crunchy and flavorful with perfect texture and taste, a far cry from pre-made rolls that sit for hours or even days in grocery store containers. The difference is noticeable as soon as you bite into one.

    There’s a lot of rolls to choose from, a couple dozen at least, plus fresh sashimi and sushi too. Most popular roll is the Maui with spicy crab and shrimp tempura inside, wrapped amidst spicy tuna, green onions and sweet sauce outside. Just $9.99 buys a whole roll with several pieces.

    Another favorite is the Rainbow roll, featuring crab, white fish, tuna, salmon and shrimp. “A lot of places charge $15 for Rainbow,” Pong said. Her price? $9.99. “Because I do all the work myself I don’t have the overhead,” she said.

    Naturally there’s the California roll (crab meat, avocado, cucumber and sesame seeds), a traditional favorite priced at $7. So too is the Philly (salmon and cream cheese), and vegetarian (tofu, cucumber, carrot, spinach, asparagus and avocado). Yet there’s an array of specialty rolls like a spicy crab version of the California, Caterpillar (eel, avocado and eel sauce), Big Bear roll (chicken, shrimp, avocado, green onions, carrot and sesame seed) and Dragon roll (shrimp tempura inside with eel, avocado and eel sauce out), all $9.99. A customer ordered the Dragon as we arrived and it proved a monstrous meal.

    Throw in hand rolls prepared right in front of you like an ice cream cone filled with seafood, sashimi with tuna, albacore, salmon and yellow tail, and almost a dozen sushi offerings, and it can be kind of hard to decide just what to have. So Pong offers a “Love Boat” for two that serves a lot of everything for $29.99, and that’s what wife Sandy and I opted for.

    First choose one of the dozen rolls to choose from—we went with the Maui and it was excellent. Then select two pieces of sushi, shrimp and tuna in our case, plus three pieces of sushi (albacore, salmon and yellowtail), two hand rolls (spicy tuna and yellowtail) and top it off with two pieces of chicken or shrimp tempura.

    The Love Boat arrives titanic-sized in an attractive display overflowing with food. Wasabi, ginger, sprouts, it’s all here. Rolls were crunchy and fish melted in our mouths as we sank the Love Boat...

    —by Marcus Dietz

    Pong’s is at 42104 Big Bear Blvd. Open daily except Tuesday. Call (909) 866-4400.