Roku Nana is a newly opened sushi and Japanese food joint on Clinton Street. My wife and I came in here to try their sushi, and it was a pretty great deal for the price point.
We started with two rolls; the pink lady and the flamingo.
These were great. I liked the pink lady the best (pink colored roll), and my wife liked the flamingo.
Then, we did their 10-piece premium nigiri dinner, which was $53pp.
It comes with a hand roll as well. The uni was the best, followed by the fatty tuna.
There’s also a speakeasy upstairs serving awesome cocktails.
Sushi Hayashi is one of the “all you can eat” sushi/omakase spots that are trending now in the city. This spot is a pretty good deal. The pieces are all decent, and you get a solid amount of sushi for $98 in the omakase (14 courses). The salmon, shima aji and shrimp were our favorite pieces from the omakase. The wagyu fell short, and there was no uni, but over all this was a worth-while omakase.
Once you’re finished with the 14-course omakase, you get two rounds of “all you can eat” sushi ordering, which is limited to a selection of eel, scallop, lean tuna or fatty tuna. The toppings and garnishes are done away with during this time (just a brush of sauce, and some torching for the fatty tuna), and you’ll be charged $6 per piece for any nigiri that you order but don’t finish. The record is 72 pieces eaten. Insane.
I went with nine extra pieces total during this “all you can eat” portion of the meal; three each of the lean tuna, fatty tuna and scallop.
They really have the system down pat, and they operate like a well-oiled machine.
They’ve created the first fast food style omakase! Highly American! What follows below is a photo dump of all the courses.
Two appetizers:
Ten nigiri pieces:
The roll portion of the omakase:
Round 1 AYCE:
Round 2 AYCE:
Dessert: matcha ice cream.
SUSHI HAYASHI
355 E 50th Street
New York, NY 10022
This spot offers a great 18-course omakase for just $100. I’m just going to dump the photos I snapped for each piece, but our favorites were the following: oyster appetizer, shrimp, red snapper, shima aji, both medium and fatty tuna, uni, salmon, wagyu spoon, and the shrimp and uni hand roll we added at the end. We would definitely come back here again.
This new spot is located on 1st Street near 2nd Avenue. They offer a 14-course omakase for $88. We enjoyed the fatty tuna pieces, the shrimp, the king salmon appetizer, and especially the “New York” salmon piece (with tomato) and the tuna hand roll at the end.
I would definitely go back for seasonal menu changes and specials.
We did the 17-course omakase, which was $125. This was definitely worth the price of admission. Favorites included the oyster and salmon appetizers, as well as the otoro, uni and king crab pieces.
My wife and I came here with another foodie and social media influencer couple to try out some of this new restaurant’s menu. Aqua has both Italian and Japanese menus, so you can have a full-on omakase here, or you can dine a la carte and dig into some pasta or veal Milanese.
We selected eight items from this menu, and then had two versions of their tiramisu (one classic Italian, and one Japanese):
First off, they make some really nice cocktails, which is clutch since they have a gigantic bar (the whole space is pretty massive, actually).
We started with the mushroom and truffle arancini. These were delicious bites.
The lobster bisque pizzette was really unique. I’ve never had something like that. It makes for great table bread to share as a snack.
This red prawn carpaccio was absolutely incredible. This is a must order when you go here.
These little nuggets of fried rock shrimp were really tasty. They don’t look like much, but I was hooked. I could not stop popping them.
The oxtail and truffle mafalde was perfectly cooked and seasoned, and the oxtail was super tender and savory.
Here’s a shot of their 12-piece sashimi omakase, which has all of your favorites, salmon belly being my favorite.
This eight-piece roll had salmon and scallop, which was nice.
And finally, the yuzu shiso marinated lamb chops. These were awesome. After the red prawn carpaccio, this was probably my favorite item.
For dessert, we tried the classic tiramisu and the matcha/green team tiramisu. I think we all agreed that the classic version was better. I didn’t snap any photos of that, so you’ll just have to watch the video to see them!
Wabi Nori is a new sushi hand roll place that just opened near us on the Lower East Side. They have a nice $10 cocktail happy hour, which also offers some reduced price snacks as well. We tried the karaage chicken, the fried calamari, and the soft shell crab. All of these were nice, but I think we liked the chicken and crab the best.
They have pre-set menus for the hand rolls (3, 4, 5 and 6 count). We did the 6-count, and my wife was able to swap the scallop out for a second crab roll since she is allergic. It would have been cool if they let her pick a different protein of equal or lesser value for the swap, rather than making her double up on a roll. For example, the eel roll is $8 a la carte, and so is the scallop. Why not let her replace the scallop with eel instead of making her choose a second crab or tuna? Seemed weird.
Anyway, the tuna and scallop were my favorites, with the lobster close behind.
The salmon, yellowtail and crab were also nice, but nothing was on par with that final piece / hand roll that you get at the end of a nice omakase. Not bad, though, for $38.
This secretive omakase joint in the back of an ice cream shop serves up 14 or 18 course omakase meals with unlimited sake for just $96 or $126, respectively.
My favorite pieces were the snappers, scallop and tuna. But the real stars of the show were the appetizers: cod sperm sack and chawanmushi with uni and crab meat!
Snappers:
Scallop:
Tuna:
I can’t believe I ate cum. And I’ll definitely be back for more, especially the soft serve ice cream (not made from cum).
My wife picked up a Pulsd deal for this joint, which was $99 for two 18-course omakase dinners, including two shots of sake each. That’s not a bad deal!
My favorite pieces were the various jack fish (amberjack, strip jack), the ebi shrimp with tobiko, and the uni. The squid was nice too.
The most unique piece (and really delicious too) was the eel with banana! So different. I really liked that.
Service was a bit wonky, because we got started at a different time than others who were late for their reservations, and one couple was doing a different coursing than the rest of us. As a result there was a little mix up where we received our dessert before the final piece of sushi (uni), and our sushi plate and chopsticks were already cleared. But everyone was really nice, and I think the Pulsd deal was worth it. I might not go otherwise, since the regular price is a bit steep for what you get. Also… there was no shiso served at this restaurant named Shiso.
Kintsugi was offering a nice discounted, pre-paid omakase for restaurant week, so my wife jumped on the deal.
We really enjoyed this spot, but I think the best item of the meal was the add-on uni hand roll that we did at the end of the tasting. It was loaded with really nice uni, but expensive at $30 each. The regular uni piece was pretty good too.
Other than that, I think my favorite pieces were the chopped fatty tuna, the soy marinated tuna, the Alaskan sablefish, and the Faroe Island salmon.
