Restaurants in Lansing

The resident chefs at Nicky's Grill & Yogurt Oasis have been flipping charbroiled burgers and slow-cooking house-made italian beef since 1997, mingling sandwiches and hot wings with ice-cream and YoCream frozen-yogurt treats on their Chicago-style menu. The casual Beverly eatery serves a roster of deep-fried sides to round out meals, including onion rings and breaded mozzarella sticks. An on-site ice-cream and yogurt parlor proffers cups, cones, and industrial vats of creamy desserts, including 16 flavors of milkshakes.

Sesame Inn’s mouth-watering menu whisks guests on culinary journeys through China, Japan, and Thailand. Seventeen stir-fried dishes, including spicy sichuan green beans and kung pao chicken with crunchy peanuts and water chestnuts, spring from traditional Chinese recipes like gold nuggets spring from fortune cookies. Chefs tuck chicken, beef, or shrimp into beds of pineapple fried rice or pad thai’s nest of egg-laced rice noodles. If diners prefer their entrees uncooked, the Kama Kaze maki showcases two types of tuna, and the vegetable maki arrives rolled with spinach, cucumber, gourd, pickles, and asparagus.

The hamburger builders at Burger Bar adorn 14 signature bunned sandwiches in eclectic ingredients to form innovative takes on the American favorite. The M burger, a customer favorite, is topped with thousand island dressing and grilled onions, and the salmon burger is drenched in rémoulade tartar sauce and evokes fantasies of swimming up a stream with thousands of friends and colleagues. Crispy helpings of sweet-potato fries and fried okra accompany meals as whole-wheat and white buns hug the beef, turkey, and veggie protein disks.

The chefs at Turkey Time celebrate their namesake bird with comfort fare made only from unprocessed, premium turkey. Standing in for fatty pork and beef, this healthy lean poultry finds a home in dishes such as barbecue turkey tips, turkey meatloaf, and smothered turkey chops. The bird lovers slow roast turkey legs until they’re fall-off-the-bone tender and smoke their own turkey breasts for salads and sandwiches. Sides of homestyle mac 'n' cheese, collard greens, and candied yams fill gaps in the plate, while house-made desserts, such as banana-custard pudding, seal in meals and protect sensitive skin from sunburn.

Live jazz music swirls throughout Flavor Restaurant on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday evenings each week, blending with the sweet and spicy aromas of Southern breakfast and dinner specialties. The restaurant conjures made-from-scratch dishes from family recipes, and specialties include Grandma Haywood's blackened catfish and eggs, pecan-stuffed chicken, and sweet-potato pancakes with mandarin-orange butter. Breakfast triumphs over the sun on select jazz nights, when diners can conclude their evenings with menu items typically reserved for sunrise. The dessert menu punctuates meals with Southern classics including New Orleans bread pudding, and adds Southern kicks such as peach cobbler.

A metallic blur passes over the sizzling grill top, lifting briefly to send a single scallop arcing through the air and landing neatly on a plate. The hibachi chefs at Tokyo Japanese Steakhouse and Sushi Bar shape artful cuisine with panache, charming diners with dexterous knife work as they sear morsels of seafood, steak, and chicken at tableside grills. A selection of sushi and sashimi includes specialty maki, such as the chicago roll, which encloses shrimp, egg, and avocado in a layer of sushi rice, providing a culinary alternative to the city's signature hot dogs topped with celery salt and boiled Air Jordans.