Summary

Astoria has a lot of Mediterranean restaurants and is seldom appealing for its Asian food. However, in the last few months prior the pandemic, there have been several Korean and Chinese/Taiwanese restaurants that were opening, so it’s starting to make a presence. We’ve walked by this neighborhood Japanese sushi joint several times and were surprised about how low key it is. After looking at the menu, we decided to give it a try.

The miso soup and salad are pretty much how you think it should taste. The salad has that dressing that is a mixture of soy sauce and orange citrus.

The sashimi came with 12 pieces of assorted sashimi including the typical tuna, salmon, and yellowtail. The fish was very acceptable quality for what you’re paying for. It’s comparable to other sushi restaurants around the area, so it’s a win.

We ordered 2 additional hand rolls: eel and salmon skin. It’s pretty much what you are probably expecting.

The spicy tuna don was actually pretty tasty. I’m a sucker for spicy tuna bowls, and this one was pretty good. It came with spicy tuna, avocado, tamago (egg), slices of cucumber, and ginger. They also gave a small serving spout with low sodium soy sauce and wasabi.

They also had yellowtail collar (hamachi collar on the menu). Surprisingly, this was a really large cut compared to other places. Yellowtail collar is one of those hidden gems where the bone is very thin, and there is a lot of meat around each crack and crevice. Despite all the meat, I wasn’t too fond of the cooking style. The fish seemed to have been steamed and dressed with hot oil and soy sauce (i.e. Chinese steamed fish), and it came across a little oily. I really wished it was grilled and came with ponzu instead.

The service was fast and friendly, and the restaurant was very COVID friendly. Note, this was 2 days before NYC indoor dining was shutdown, but we are glad we tried this restaurant out for our casual sushi cravings.

Final Verdict

For a local sushi restaurant around our neighborhood, this place met our expectations, and we would love try again for our sushi cravings when indoor dining comes back.

Yelp Jabs

The place is small and the food is very Americanized despite the fact Japanese people run the place

Sometimes you have to ask yourself what are these elitists thinking? In what world would a neighborhood sushi restaurant in a very non-Japanese neighborhood not be “Americanized”?

The waitress came over, basically kicked us out and told us they needed the table. Then she had the nerve to walk us to the door and thank us for being cooperative. RUDE. There were people drinking tea next to our table who didn’t get kicked out. I have never in my life been asked to leave an establishment whilst still having drinks. I am never coming back here. If people want quality Japanese food, go somewhere else. The food wasn’t even anything special.

People should not come to this restaurant for quality Japanese food because frankly that’s not really its value proposition. However with every one of these ranting reviews, it would be interesting to hear the restaurant’s take on this.