SUSHISAMBA Happy Hour. The Strip

SUSHISAMBA occupies a flashy corner of the Grand Canal Shoppes at The Venetian, easy to reach from the casino or the Palazzo garage. The 3pm happy hour start makes it a strong late-lunch or early-evening stop before the room fills with the dressed-up dinner crowd.

The kitchen blends Japanese, Brazilian, and Peruvian cooking, and the happy hour menu is a low-commitment way to sample that mix. It runs Sunday through Friday, 3 to 6pm, with no Saturday. Sushi lands at $10-12 and the broader eats run $7-19, so you can build a spread from yellowtail with jalapeno, rock shrimp tempura, and the anticucho skewers without ordering a full dinner. The specialty rolls are more interesting than the standards here.

Drinks are $8 beer, wine at $7-10, and cocktails at $10-14. The cocktail list leans tropical, built on cachaca, pisco, and sake, and that's where the fun is. A plain vodka soda misses what the bar does well.

Know what you're walking into: bold design, an open kitchen, music turned up, and a crowd that came to be seen. It's not a quiet neighborhood joint. Prices stay on the higher side even during happy hour, so the value is in trying creative food and drinks you won't find at a standard sushi counter. Sunday through Friday gives you plenty of weekday chances to catch it.