Aburiya Kinnosuke
213 East 45th Street between 2nd/3rd Avenues
New York, NY 10017
(212) 867-5454
Subway: 4/5/6/7/S to Grand Central
Bus: M/15/101/102/103 to 42nd Street


I am very unaware of Japanese food, and I know why: I have never been to Japan, and I have no Japanese friends. That said, I’m very interested in knowing about Japanese food, so I suggested Aburiya Kinnosuke for dinner with two of my girlfriends.

The restaurant is below ground a short flight of steps, and as soon as you enter, the clean lines and dark wooden walls typical of Asian restaurants is evident. There are private booths, some tables and a sushi bar for dining. I appreciated that most of the tables (particularly the private booths) were occupied by Japanese businessmen.

My friends let me drive, and we ordered a number of dishes to share. I couldn’t resist the mushrooms sautéed with bacon and butter, which were rich, indulgent and delicious. There were a variety of mushrooms, including oyster, shiitake and what I thought were king.

The deep fried tofu was clean and simple, served with soy sauce and freshly grated ginger.

The ground chicken skewer was roasted over hot coals and from our corner sushi bar seats, you could watch the chefs as they turned the chicken to a perfectly crisp exterior while the aroma of toasted rice floated towards us. We chose not to have it sauced, and it burst with flavor anyway – really quite delicious.

The sautéed shrimp with aona greens was very soothing to me. It reminded me of a light stew and with rice, I could imagine craving it when I’m next ill. The rice balls filled with cod roe could be the perfect snack food, and despite the delicious filling, there was too much rice.

The grilled scorpion fish was probably my least favorite. It was a small fish served whole that had a lot of teeny bones and was annoying to eat. When it was cooked, it tasted good, but there were parts that were still cold and on the raw side.

I love the noodles that finished our meal… mai fun-type noodles that are sautéed with vegetables are slightly creamy, while some noodles are crispy and some are toasted. It would have been even better had we had it with pork.

I had also ordered the pork cheek, but our server didn’t write it down, which was probably for the best since we were all stuffed by the end of dinner. Despite being stuffed, I wanted to lick clean every part of this meal (except the fish), and next time (if I can convince my husband to dine with me here), I’m looking forward to trying more dishes particularly the fish collar and the pork cheek. Service was attentive as you’d expect, and price... including 3 large carafes of sake and a tremendous amount of food, it only came to $53pp with tax and tip.

Genji Sushi
424A East 14th Street between 1st Avenue and Avenue A (East Village/Stuyvesant Town)
New York, NY 10009
(212) 388-1127
Train: 4/5/6 to 14th Street/Union Square; L to 1st Avenue
Bus: M14 to 1st Ave or Avenue A


I only started eating sushi in college, but since my first foray with yellowtail & scallion rolls and nigiri maguro (tuna), I have branched out considerably. I usually only eat sushi with a few people (my mom, sister#3) because I’m very particular, and I really prefer omakase (literally translating to "entrust"), sitting at the sushi bar allowing the chef to serve you with the freshest fish in the order he believes best.

That said, I've been craving sushi, but recently I've been dining with friends who seem fond of all food types, but with whom I’ve never eaten sushi. Interestingly enough, rarely does anyone seem like me when it comes to sushi. I did some research since I chose the restaurant, and I found a small article in New York magazine's food blog "Grub Street" that seemed like the perfect spot.

The neon sign outside screamed cheezy, but the cozy interior, with about 6 tables in the restaurant, and 3 seats at the sushi bar, was welcoming and not cramped nor crowded. The adorable hostess sat us immediately; fortunately, I had made a reservation since there were a number of patrons waiting to dine.

On my first visit, we were waiting for a friend to arrive, so we ordered edamame. Service was kind, but inefficient, and tables were passed over and forgotten, particularly ours. When our delayed friend finally did arrive, it took over an hour for our water and green tea to be served, our bottle of wine to be opened (oh, did I mention Genji is BYO? Very appealing... but after what felt like hours - ok, minutes - of waiting, I finally asked the waitress for her corkscrew and opened the bottle myself), for glasses for the wine to arrive and for our order to be taken. The edamame certainly didn't hold us over, nor was it that remarkable.

When we finally did order, we began with the sea urchin (uni) tempura, which surprised me because the sea urchin was still relatively raw (which most restaurants cannot get right) while the tempura was crispy, a bit heavy, and not greasy, but the ratio of batter to sea urchin was disproportionate, and the sea urchin flavor was lost in the mess of batter. Next we received the Mountain Fuji, a cucumber roll, topped with a heaping dollop of spicy tuna sprinkled with tempura crunchies, which was the perfect appetizer to share. This was followed by a piece of nigiri salmon toro (belly), which was delightful and fresh.

We waited for our next course to be served; in the meantime, the table next to ours was seated, served multiple courses and finished before we even saw our entrees. The restaurant did recognize this and apologized, and we were served a complimentary appetizer (the same Mountain Fuji that we had just finished), but it just left us hungrier for the rest of our food.

My three dining companions shared a number of Genji’s special rolls, including the Genji Roll, a shrimp tempura roll, the Special Roll, as well as a yellowtail-jalapeno roll. I ordered a la carte sashimi of ama ebi (sweet shrimp), baby yellowtail, striped bass, scallop and uni (sea urchin) as well as a spicy tuna roll. Everything we ordered was quite good; the rolls were less imaginative than you’d hope for “special” rolls. Service, despite the diminutive size of the restaurant, continued to be terribly slow; we had to ask for tea and water multiple times before receiving any.

This feeling was just enforced on my second visit with two friends, where I tried the dish similar to the Mountain Fuji, but with spicy real crabmeat on an avocado roll. However, my spicy crabmeat, which was sparse, unlike its spicy tuna counterpart, was served over a cucumber roll by mistake. I didn't point it out because I didn't want to wait another hour to eat. The a la carte fish was of the same freshness, although salmon toro was not available on this visit.

Although displeased with the service, we certainly were not displeased with the bill. With tip and tax, the total on each visit were both around $25 per person. Of course, being BYO helped. Next time I'll just be sure to invite a friend who I haven't caught up with for a long while.