Before I begin my spiel, I'd like to say that what would have otherwise been a positive dining experience was marred by piss-poor service: 2.5 stars for the food and 0.5 stars for the service.
Came here for dinner early Sunday evening, paying the all-day weekend pricing of $23 pp + tax + tip for AYCE.
1. The food:
A. Sushi menu: the sashimi is definitely more palatable (more room temperature but also more tender) than the colder and freezer-burnt raw fish from Sushi Palace. I enjoyed the albacore, pepper salmon, and white tuna sashimi. The sushi menu (everything else after sashimi) is nearly identical in layout and content to Sushi Palace's, with the exception of maybe a few special rolls that are not that special, especially since avocado is an ingredient in almost every roll. I tried the Spider Roll with soft-shell crab.
B. Kitchen menu: the following menu items are not offered by Sushi Palace, but not really remarkable enough to go out of your way to try either:
-Pepper Tuna: 1'' x 2'' pieces of seared tuna encrusted with pepper around the edges and lightly seasoned with sauce
-Tuna Tartar: shaped into a heart, topped with an avocado slice and drenched in mustard and mayo
-Rock Shrimp: supermarket shrimp that is deep-fried, topped with sesame, and soaked in sweet-and-sour sauce
-Spicy Seaweed Salad: an otherwise fine seaweed salad that is drowned, again, in a mayonnaise-based spicy sauce
-Short Ribs: medium well done and chewy, surprisingly not disappointing
-Age Tofu (3 pieces): lightly fried tofu with benito flakes and ponzu sauce for dipping (very hot and the only item on this list I would recommend)
-Fish Katsu: 3 - 4 slivers of lightly fried and breaded white fish that is more crumbs than actual fish
-Peking Duck: Small but tender cuts of duck meat with leeks and way too much soy sauce (醬油膏) served open-face on a white steamed bao.
2. The amenities:
-A playlist of nineties music, Adele, and Bruno Mars
-Two fairly clean, single-occupancy restrooms with sticky floors
-Two mounted flat-screen TVs with Optimum set top boxes
3. The service:
From what I could tell, the staff from this evening included two sushi prep workers, one kitchen chef (for the hot food), one hot food runner, and three regular food runners, one of whom doubled as a hostess.
If you're hoping that this establishment is not staffed by off-the-boat, off-the-books immigrants who escaped from an oppressive rural village in China just to find a better life working at sushi restaurant in NJ, you had better look elsewhere. The language barrier was only the least of the problems with service I encountered here:
Service was adequate at first, then gradually deteriorated, even before the dinner rush:
-My request for hot water was understood to be tap water with ice.
-At least one item was left out from each order my table placed: no squid, no rock shrimp, no miso soup, and no ice cream.
-Not once did a server offer to refill my water. When I asked, the girl shot me a look like I had asked her to bring me the universe on a plate.
-About two hours after arriving, the hostess dropped a check on the table with a brusque "thank you". My group's pending sushi and ice cream orders were never fulfilled.
The seating capacity of this business is only about half of Sushi Palace's, so I understand the urgency to move customers along, but I left feeling neglected, disrespected, and more importantly--still hungry. The food may have been better than Sushi Palace's, but Sushi Palace staff never pushed me out at the 2-hour mark. My guess is that Sushi Saga's profit margins can't really sustain too many experienced, marathon eaters--and is hoping that you and your friends will pay $28 a head to eat less than your money's worth.
My experience was really anything but a saga: the food was slightly better than expected but punctuated by serious lapses in customer service by inattentive and apathetic wait staff who have no regard for restaurant hospitality. If you have a similar experience with the servers, understand that this is how they treat customers in their home country. read more