Japanese Food at Robongi in Hoboken, NJ

I love Japanese food. But you really need to find a good place: clean with fresh fish, especially if, like me, you like sushi and sashimi that in most cases are made of raw seafood (sushi is the one with rice!). My least favorite in sushi are raw calamari and shrimp, the later coming more often cooked but bland.

I also have a rule: I will not have sushi / sashimi on a Sunday or Monday night as most likely the fish is leftover from the week end!

In Hoboken, Robongi is one of my favorite Japanese restaurants. Their menu is nice and they offer a wide range of specialties. The quality of the food is also very good and the service very attentive. No wonder why it is always crowded on the week end!

Food wise, here are my favorites:

• Appetizers/salads:
• Nasu (photo 1): baked eggplant with miso sauce. Ok, few times, the eggplant was undercooked, but otherwise, one of the best appetizers. By teh way, avoid the crab cakes...
• Yasai Gyoza (photo 2): pan fried vegetables dumplings. Tasty, crispy, delicious!
• Shrimp shumai: delicate and sweet.
• Spicy squid salad: a very nice dish. It is spicy but not too much for my taste. I prefer the squid salad over the spicy tuna salad.
• Sushi / Sashimi / rolls:
• Avocado roll: standard. It only happened once that the avocado was not ripe.
• Spicy scallop (photo 3): it was the first time I tried raw scallop. I love everything in this roll: the tenderness of the scallop, the tempura batter crunch and the spicy mayo! Yummy!
• Salmon or tuna avocado roll: very fresh!
• Philadelphia roll: smoked salmon, cream cheese and cucumber. Not sure that they serve that in Tokyo!
• Spider roll: deep fried soft shell crab, lettuce, cucumber.
• Sushi or sashimi entrees: they pick the fishes they will serve. Salmon and tuna are usually making the cut. 

The specialty rolls can be, as in any japanese restaurants, difficult to eat because big!

They also have a nice lunch menu served with soup and salad at a reasonable price!

Definitely a good Japanese place if you are in Hoboken!

Enjoy (I did)!