East Japanese Restaurant

2 Reviews on “East Japanese Restaurant”

• Morton Fox

  The last time I went to East was back in 2009, before I moved out of the NYC area. As I recall, I had a higher opinion of this restaurant back then, although it still wasn’t something I’d go to every day. It’s the only restaurant I’ve been to so far that has sushi on a conveyor belt, so I don’t have any basis for comparison. What this is basically is they have plates of sushi going around the restaurant on a conveyor belt. The sushi chef works in the center island, making new plates of sushi, as needed. You are charged by the plates of sushi you take from the conveyor belt. The plate color indicates how much it costs, ranging from $1.50 to $8. The conveyor belt idea certainly is good if you want to see what sushi is available and get it quickly. The implementation, however, leaves a bit to be desired.Firstly, it takes a long time for the sushi to travel around the belt. I noticed they don’t intersperse the various types of sushi, so if there’s a particular kind you want, you might have to wait as long as five minutes for it to come around. Secondly, related to that, the conveyor belt system is only a good idea if the restaurant is busy. If the place is quiet, as it was when I visited Monday evening, the sushi may have been sitting on the belt for quite a long while. That is an issue when you’re dealing with raw seafood. I can’t imagine how long the higher-priced items have sat on the belt. Thirdly, although they have a chart showing prices for each plate color, there were some plates on the conveyor belt that didn’t appear in the chart. So I had no idea how much those cost. I’d hate to pick up something and find out later that it’s a lot more expensive than I’d assumed. Finally, it’s really not a good deal. There weren’t many sushi plates from the low end of the price range. As soon as you get past the basic California roll, most of the sushi plates were $3 or $4. (I’m guessing, since some plates weren’t in the chart, as I mentioned before.)Rather than take too much dubious sushi from the conveyor belt, I tried one of their Monday ramen specials. The Tonkatsu Ramen had flavorful soup, but the portion size was on the skimpy side. On the plus side though, I thought service was fairly good and attentive that evening.

  February 6, 2016, 10:12 am

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• Nicole Lebron

  East Japanese in the mall.. This restaurant is one of the best Japanese restaurants I have been to. The waitstaff is really good, and the food is good. They have a sushi carousel that you can take as much sushi as you want and the color of your plate determines the price. They have big portions for a reasonable price. I actually forgot I was even in the mall because it has such a nice feel to it.

  January 5, 2011, 2:42 am

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