Akino

At Akino Sushi in Elmhurst, you won’t feel like you have to “beat the restaurant” in order to get your money’s worth on their AYCE deal. You can try, but they aren’t deploying any of the countermeasures you’ll find at similar places, like overloading nigiri with a ball of rice the size of a 12-gauge shotgun shell. A small restaurant with brick walls, Akino just serves well-made, simple sushi for a reasonable price. Weekdays are $26 for lunch and $41 for dinner, while weekends are $43 all day, and you get two hours to order as much as you want. This is one of the few AYCE sushi spots that doesn’t cater to a rowdier crowd, because they don’t offer an all-you-can-drink option. But bottles of beer are also nicely priced at $5.

photo credit: Will Hartman