Daddy Ninja

The first thing one sees when entering Daddy Ninja is a sushi bar, where an affable man known as “Chinito” wields a knife and calls out orders in Spanish. Though “Chinito” is a diminutive for “Chinese,” Toshiyuki Nishio is actually of Japanese and Dominican heritage.

And the sushi he and his father are famous for has been remixed with the flavors and ingredients of the Dominican Republic.

The Dominican-style rolls are called sushi aplatanao, for the sweet plantains that find their way into most of them. The Cibao Roll, named for a region in the country’s north, is filled with salami, fried cheese, and sweet plantains. The Kissimmee Roll is filled with shrimp tempura, cream cheese, and plantains, and topped with guacamole and crab salad. A roll of chicken tempura, mozzarella cheese, and plantains that is covered in Doritos and deep fried before being topped with guacamole and ropa vieja (stewed, shredded beef) has an appropriately menacing name: El Chapo.

Chinito’s paternal grandparents immigrated from Japan to the Dominican town of Costanza. That’s where Chinito’s father, Mitsuhisa Nishio, also known as “El Ninja,” grew up. As a young man, El Ninja spent a few years in Japan before moving to the United States. In New York, he got an opportunity to cook in a high-end SoHo restaurant called Room 18. On the big day, he won over his employers by mixing his mother’s recipes with Dominican flavors, kicking off a career of Dominican-Japanese fusion.

Since then, he’s pioneered Dominican sushi, and his particular brand of hybrid cuisine, at restaurants around the United States. Before opening Daddy Ninja, he and his son held pop-up events around the United States. “The one place that we noticed showed the most amount of love was over here in Florida, especially in the Kissimmee and Orlando area,” Chinito says, attributing the warm welcome in part to a thriving Latin American community. In July of 2023, El Ninja opened up Daddy Ninja restaurant in Kissimmee, the first restaurant he founded on his own.

The menu is full of hits far beyond sushi aplatanao. The Yola, a sweet plantain boat stuffed with shrimp and topped with ninja sauce, the restaurant’s signature sweet-savory condiment, is a fan favorite. So is the Asian chicharrón, a version of the ubiquitous fried pork belly glazed in a sweet chili sauce.

The restaurant serves traditional sushi, too. “We make sushi for people who traditionally don't eat sushi,” Chinito said. He’s seen picky diners start with Dominican rolls, then make their way over to classic sushi. All of Daddy Ninja’s rolls come served with spicy mayo and a homemade passionfruit sauce.

As El Ninja’s culinary career has grown, he and his son have become social-media celebrities, fueled by skits where they talk trash and tell jokes. A recurring gag on El Ninja’s Instagram reels involves Chinito excitedly making an announcement, then El Ninja slapping him across the face and taking over. “We've always been big personalities,” says Chinito.

Their influencer status draws eaters from all over Florida, the United States, and the world. “People have come from Germany,” Chinito said. “‘Oh, we came for Disney, but we also, like, had this on our bucket list.’”

In the beginning of 2025, the restaurant moved to a larger space with an outdoor patio. On any given night, one can sit down for sushi in the sleek restaurant, listen to music bumping out of speakers in English and Spanish, and catch a glimpse of Chinito and perhaps his father, hard at work on a cuisine that bridges two worlds.