Sakae Sushi

Well looks like this place has finally closed down. Not that I’m surprised! Well actually I’m surprised it managed to last this long considering their awful food and service.

I work in mid-​town and its hard to find good, affordable, Japanese food. .specially a restaurant that delivers. Sakae Sushi fits the bill.
I would recommend ordering from the Lunch Special Menu. I’m a big fan of the Chicken Teriyaki Bento Box — rice, California roll, shumai, shrimp dumplings, miso soup and salad. All for $ 9!!!
The delivery guy is always nice and delivers to my office within the hour.
I’m a fan. I’m looking forward to checking out their happy hour one of these days :)

The conveyor belt had almost no variety whenever I went, which made me feel like I had to just order specific things. This, of course, kills the entire novelty with the conveyor belt that it feels like they’re going for. Anyway, the food isn’t very good and the waiters pour hot water into your cups rather than actual tea. Blegh.

Good midtown addition.
Cheap happy hour drinks and sushi. Easy place to have a nice quick sit –down dinner before heading home. Its quiet — almost sanctuary style — a rare find in midtown. The sushi on the conveyor belt does get redundant, but usually not before i’m already feeling full — but there’s always room and time to stop by Junior’s across the street for dessert.

Two Words: Conveyer belt.
That’s one of the things that hooked us in when walked in. We sat down
excited when we were told we could order on the computer. My friend and I aren’t one for human interaction. Just kidding. But when we tried ordering on it wasn’t responding. Lame. So we had to deal with the waitress who barely stopped by. The udon and ramen was not that great, the meat actually tasted a little off. The plus side — I ate about five $ 1.90 plates off the Conveyer belt [They need to slow it down a bit], and the sushi didn’t really disappoint. Maybe because my expectations were low. But overall it was okay and I will be coming back.

the conveyor belt and computer usage for ordering food was so cool. tho the food on the conveyor belt wasn’t that over the top it was decent but the sushi that was ordered on the computer menu was great! it was fun and relaxing and the service was good too. but i have to say, the green tea soy bean drink was really good. its a great place to experience the atmosphere because you don’t see much japanese restaurants that has this sort of feature.
during my dinner at sakae, i was thinking why they chose a green frog as there logo… 0_​o

The conveyer belt did not have much to offer, but all of the dishes that we ordered off of our computer screen were delicious. My dad got some sort of salmon roll, and salmon don. I got chicken teriyaki which was quite delicious. The food came out quickly, and the staff were ultra pleasant. The branding on everything from the napkins to the toothpicks was ultra cute, and the décor was very tasteful. However, it took 15 minutes to get our check.

The novelty of a conveyer belt wears off in about 7 minutes (what did you expect Singapore, you’re dealing with New Yorkers!)
I ran across this place by accident, but now I remember reading about a conveyer belt sushi place opening in this area. The belt concept is cute but their implementation was sub-​par; the food going around was not that interesting and not varied enough and it tasted a bit stale (almost as if it had been circulating out in the open for an hour… oh wait, that is exactly what it was doing). My lunch companion and I found that we had a hard time talking with each other because we kept looking at that damned belt to see if finally something interesting was coming. We finally ordered from the menu so that we could actually have a conversation. We got handrolls and were really delighted at how yummy and crunchy the nori was; in most places the nori gets damp and rubbery pretty quickly but this nori was a nice suprise.

disappointed.
that’s how I felt after going to sakae… i was so excited to find out they were actually open, after previous attempts ended in failure (why timeout & other webpages said it was open when it wasn’t eludes me). having been to real kaiten-​zushi places in japan, I know that the US won’t meet up with that standard… even still, I’ve had so much better than this place.
the computer system was glitchy, and multiple times the servers would come out with food that we didn’t order or completely forget the food we did. the conveyor belt had only cooked items or salads for the majority of the time we were there, and the exact same rolls went by multiple times. all the sushi i ate had to be ordered via computer, which ruined the whole «oo there it goes i want THAT» experience.
i will say that i did see some nigiri and actual rolls start to go by at the end of dinner there; it seems that they only put ACTUAL sushi rolls and such on when the restaurant is busy… since it wasn’t crowded when we came, they didn’t bother putting sushi on the belt. maybe if it was later in the night, and the place was packed, would there be a chance of getting the actual conveyor-​belt experience.
the service was decent. the manager came to apologize for the multiple mistakes in our order (although he didn’t comp anything — darn) and our servers were pretty attentive. the menu is huge too.
all in all, if you’re walking by, i say you keep walking… unless it’s packed; otherwise it’ll just be like going to a regular sushi restaurant… only with computers.

My friend and I really enjoyed our experience at Sakae Sushi-​yeah some of the same things seem to circle around the belt BUT you can use your own station computer to request made to order items which we also did. The service was attentive and when I said thank you they said thank you.
The dragon roll was particularly good. I found the prices to be pretty reasonable. The best sushi I have ever had? No-​better than much of tthe sushi I have had-​yes.
The story of how the chain came about is pretty heartwarming and the mascot seems to be a friendly little frog character.
I will definitely return.

I’m not sure what I expected from Sakae. After months of anticipation. waiting for them to finally open, I wasn’t impressed. When I lived in San Jose, I had kaiten-​sushi at least twice a week and I envisioned Sakae would be similar (little boats strung together, floating around-​and-​around in a little shallow river of blue-​dyed water, each boat filled with tasty, unidentifiable sushi).
I just saw the same things coming around-​and-​around at Sakae. Lots of gunkan and an octopus salad that had a seemingly permanent residence on the belt.
Décor is high-​school cafeteria. Food ordered through the computer comes out promptly and the staff is really happy to pour you more water.
I’ll return if someone else is paying for my meal.

I don’t think I’ve anticipated something, anything, so eagerly in my entire life and I don’t think I ever will, again, not even if the gods tell me that there will be a pound of gold tied to my first born’s umbilical cord. Hell, I’d have given myself an epidural if that could’ve helped ease my pining for Sakae’s grand opening. Before this place actually fired up its conveyor belt, I must had called its sushi hotline (first time to Singapore, very very scared about the phone bill) and walked by its location at least a dozen times. Coming from Taiwan, I count sushi plates instead of sheeps in my sleep and had to endure East Sushi for many years, where my favorite game is «hey, there it goes again!!!», so you can understand my excitement when I first stumbled upon Sakae.
For months I circled Sakae like a hapless prey. Every time I was greeted with sealed windows, I came home to study the extensive menu on its website some more. Every time I walked by the nearly empty restaurant with all but two or three patrons who looked suspiciously like employees, I sheepishly walked away and resolved to come back the next day to snag the lonely plate of sushi making its solo journey across the restaurant to rescue it from further misery.
So I finally went tonight. Ehh. Like Bob Seger once sang, I wish I didn’t know now what I didn’t know then…
Actually, everything was okay. Just that it isn’t worth all the hype…

Dear Diary,
¹⁄₁₈
My friends Thrillist, the Weekly Unilocal and TimeOut tell me that this new chick Sakae is moving into the neighborhood. I walk though the Chrysler building like an idiot. The entrance is on 43^rd (405 Lex?) and it’s not open.
¹⁄₂₅
Still not open.
¹⁄₂₈
It’s a «soft opening». I placed a take out order for a Superior Sushi Set, waited 25 minutes and got a Regular (price difference was about $ 6). I called and the manager Belinda apologized and would make it up. Not a problem, growing pains are always there and I’m 3 minutes away. The set was copasetic, but I realize that I need to dine in.
¹⁄₃₀ & ¹⁄₃₁
There’s a sign on the door. They are closed. WTF?
²⁄₁
It’s raining. It’s pouring. Pedro is snoring at work.
Finally. A group of 4 stroll into Sakae, deposit our umbrellas in a bucket at the front and sit down. Just for good measure I asked if we were going to see our umbrellas again. The conveyor belt is moving, nice and slow with plates separated 6 – 12 inches apart. We picked up a handful of plates. There are three classes of plates, differentiated by prices of $ 1.90, $ 3.90 and $ 6.90. We ordered a sashimi classic, shrimp tempura, dragon roll and ice cream off the «online menu». That’s cool.
Beware of what you pick up! There is a roll with «American Cheese» in it. My colleagues took a cheesy-​fishy punch in the stomach and did not insert any thing else into their mouths afterward… until ice cream. There were moments where I felt that all I saw was California rolls, specialized Calfornia rolls and egg concoctions. I don’t think so.
Underwhelming. «Genki/Oh-Raku-It’s Japanese» was a big loss to midtown.
I’m officially the Sakae stalker.
There’s no way you can be full with $ 20. We spent $ 108 between 4 people (I wasn’t full) and no one drank alcohol. Sorry, fat boy. Sakae takes a shaky start. It has work to do in order to be a serious contender!
3 out of 4 got their umbrellas back as we left. Since I was the only one with the $ 2 Chinatown unbrella, I got hosed (there were 3+). Yes, I took a broken one home. How the hell did I leave with an umbrella worse than what I came with?
IFHTP 2

«Welcome to the future!!!» I think that’s what all the workers there are shouting whenever a customer walks into the restaurant… I’m not sure exactly how great the «future» is though. I’ve been to conveyor belt sushi places out in LA before and I really enjoyed them. Those had the sushi chef placed in the middle of the belt, so you could see the chef making everything and placing it on the belt and you are able to order things right away that aren’t readily available. Sakae’s conveyor belt is a bit different as it runs the length of the restaurant and acts as a sort of divider between tables and I wasn’t quite sure where exactly the sushi was coming from or who was loading it up…
I really like the concept of just grabbing what you like, but everything on the belt looked unexciting. I picked off a sort of Spider Roll kind of thing, but everything else available seemed like California Roll variety. It’s a good thing their full menu was available, and boy is their menu extensive… like 30 page long extensive (no joke). They had everything from donburi bowls to ramen, udon and bento boxes. You could also order specific sushi things that don’t appear on the belt. The «futuristic» part of this restaurant experience is that you place your order through a computer that sits table side. What’s kind of bad is that they don’t have all the pictures of the meals and descriptions like they do with the regular menu, so you’re kind of flipping back and forth between the menu and looking for the item on the screen. Once you confirm your order, then the servers begin to bring your food out.
My co-​worker and I sampled a bunch of things including the shrimp tempura, yakitori, white tuna, teriyaki chicken and beef ramen. Everything was pretty good, but nothing was really spectacular. All in all, it’s a pretty neat experience to be able to snag off sushi right away and sort of feel like you’re in the Jetsons by ordering your food through a computer. But the food just seemed ordinary.