Jimmy “Sushi Jimmi” Sinh introduced his new menu January 7th at his Poke Paradise restaurant at 6343 Summer Avenue, Suite 110.
He’s added more items, including some of his weekly specials. “I’m doing the same thing I always do,” Sinh says. “Fusing my food up a little bit. Asian fusion.”
Sinh plans to add another item in about a week. “We’re a city that loves barbecue, and I have this cool pulled pork sandwich that will be really good for Memphis.”
With influences from Memphis, Asia, and Hawaii, the sandwich will be “the normal jumbo pulled pork sandwich we love here, but the sauce and seasoning will have more of an Asian twist to it.”
The Hawaiian influence is “how the sauce is cooked. The ingredients in the sauce. It will also have a slice of pineapple on it as well as the pulled pork.”
In the coming weeks, Sinh, who has served lunch to patrons who requested it since the restaurant opened, will introduce his official lunch menu featuring smaller portions from the dinner menu. “And we are also offering soups and salads with our lunch menu.”
Sinh also is beefing up his catering business. He plans to do “more than sushi and poke” and to offer a pho bar featuring Vietnamese cuisine.
Sinh’s catering business isn’t limited to corporate events or large venues. “It can be anywhere. If you don’t have a kitchen, no worries. We can bring everything there.”
• Executive chef Nate Henssler has a lot going on in 2025 at Amelia Gene’s Restaurant at 255 South Front Street.
They’re going to take advantage of the success of their special Thursday Tasting Dinner by continuing their thematic approach to the five-course dinners, Henssler says. In homage to the Lunar New Year, which is coming up at the end of January, they’re going to offer a “fun tasting menu” featuring a Chinese-Thailand tasting menu “but using Amelia Gene’s products and Amelia Gene’s presentation.”
The Thursday night tastings are “very popular,” Henssler says. “Every Thursday, we’re seeing between 30 and 45 of these guests coming in for a five-course meal.”
He says, “We’ve also started to put a wine pairing on the tasting menu, and we added a cocktail pairing. We’re continuing to evolve that. We’re going to expand our spirit-free cocktails as well.”
Henssler adds, “Our guests have really enjoyed discovering our expansive wine list, thanks to our general manager Jessica [Henssler].”
Henssler plans to offer rare or special wines by the glass or half glass, like the popular 2015 Dom Perignon champagne they served during the holidays. “On weekends we will open a special bottle. And we’ll let people know.”
Diners will be able to enjoy this wine by purchasing a glass instead of the whole bottle.
Amelia Gene’s, which does two menus a year, will launch the new one in the latter part of January.
They’re working on getting some live lobsters in and, instead of shrimp and grits, maybe doing a lobster and grits dish using a whole live Maine lobster.
They are currently offering a special hamburger at the bar. Henssler is thinking about offering a “New England-style lobster roll” instead of the burger for a limited time. “Something for the guests that they can only get at the bar.”
“I’ll be sourcing live lobsters from New Bedford, Massachusetts. I’m from New Hampshire, so that’s mother’s milk to me.”
During the holidays, they turned their cheese cart into a dessert trolley for a couple of weeks. It was “wildly popular,” he says. He’s planning to do more limited-time dessert carts. Their dessert chef Jessi Derenburger is “super creative.”
In short, Henssler says, “For 2025, we want to keep pushing creativity. We want to show our guests that fine dining can be very fun. Quirky dishes. And that starts on the Thursday tasting menu.”
His goal is to “just keep pushing forward. We’re got an amazing team. I truly believe we have the best team in Memphis. And we’re just going to keep getting better.”
• Carlee McCullough is looking west during 2025. Not as in cowboy hats and boots, but sunsets.
McCullough is the owner of Mahogany River Terrace, which arguably has the best view of sunsets on the Mississippi River. It’s the ideal place to sip wine or a cocktail and dine on an elegant meal while viewing the waning sun.
“Sunset and Champagne” is slated to launch in the middle of January at the restaurant at 280 Island Drive, McCullough says. “Basically, what we’ll do every day is we’ll check and see when the sunset is expected,” she says. “We’ll be posting on social media.”
They will feature discounted rates on champagne and appetizers.
They’re currently focusing on their prix fixe dinners, which they will feature on Valentine’s Day at Mahogany River Terrace as well as McCullough’s other restaurant, Mahogany Memphis at 3092 Poplar Avenue, Suite 11, in Chickasaw Oaks mall. They always have steak options at both restaurants, but for Valentine’s Day they will offer a rib eye and lobster pairing at Mahogany Memphis and a tomahawk steak and lobster pairing with crab cakes at Mahogany River Terrace, where the fare is more seafood-oriented.
McCullough also is getting ready for the warm weather. “In summertime we are poised to be very popular because of the patio.”
They will feature food specials. And, she says, “We’re going to be very big on champagne.”
She’s partnered with a distributor to offer Veuve Clicquot champagne. “We’ve talked about ‘Veuve Clicquot Wednesdays.’”
That will include appetizers and live music, she says. And, of course, “There’s not a bad seat in the house.”
As for Mahogany Memphis, McCullough wants people to know that the restaurant hasn’t closed just because she opened Mahogany River Terrace. The restaurant is “still going strong,” she says. “We’ve still got fabulous food.”
Chickasaw Oaks is “such a quaint mall,” McCullough says. “You don’t even know you’re in Memphis when you’re in that mall.”
• The dining room is open again at SideStreet Burgers at 9199 MS-178 in Olive Branch, Mississippi.
“It closed for Covid, obviously, a long time ago now,” says owner Jonathan Mah. Customers picked up their orders outside. Mah used the dining room area for storage and as a prep area. “Since then we made room for the storage and prep area. And we renovated the dining room with some tile floors.”
They opened up the dining room last August to make room for more tables. It now seats 20 people.
Mah plans to get a vent hood for the stove. “So, we can do grilled burgers. And possibly add a fryer.”
They’ve never sold grilled hamburgers, he says. “We’ve always baked our burgers in a convection oven, which is very unorthodox in a burger joint. We started 13 years ago and that’s all the money we had. So, we just kind of stuck with it. That’s what we had to use, so we had to be more creative with how we season our burgers.”
Baking the meat “keeps them juicy, for sure.” But a griddle would help sear the outside of the meat and keep the juices in, he says.
They want a fryer so they can start selling French fries, which they’ve never offered. They use roasted potatoes instead, which they will continue to offer as well as the fries.
In addition to hamburgers, Mah says, “We want to completely revamp our menu and put some more fun stuff on the menu. Maybe Philly cheesesteaks or Cubans. Or bring back some sandwiches like the bánh mì, a Vietnamese sandwich. You normally would have pâté on there, but we would do some sort of Vietnamese marinated pork, pickled cucumbers, jalapeños, pickled carrots, and cilantro.”
Mah adds, “The economy is so tough you have to be creative to draw in more customers and new customers.”
As for his other restaurant, OB Pizza Company at 9215 MS-178, Mah says, “In addition to our pizza and our wings and pizza by the slice, we’re hoping to add some gelato up there.”
