Samurai Japanese

It wasn’t bad, but wasn’t great either. We sat down in a booth and opted to order hibachi that way. I just stuck with the chicken hibachi and ordered the soup that came with it. The soup was great. The meal came out and it was a good sized portion of rice, noodles, veggies, and chicken. The chicken, rice, and noodles were bland. Normally when I have hibachi my mouth is watering and it’s so good with garlic and ginger flavors, this just wasn’t cutting it for me. I’ll try it again maybe sitting at the grill, but overall… too bland.

My family has been to Samurai several times. We enjoy the hibachi tables. It’s always as fun and entertaining as the first time. The grill chefs are amazing! They put on quite a show while preparing your choice of meat or seafood along with fresh vegetables and the most delicious fried rice. My daughter loves the chicken. My son orders the scallops. My husband likes the steak & scallops and I order the steak and shrimp. Everything is cooked perfectly! We all enjoy the soup and salad as well. The restaurant itself, is impeccably clean with lovely décor. The staff is always welcoming and very pleasant. We love this place and will be enjoying it for years to come.

I ordered food and then went to the bathroom to wash my hands. I watched a chef use the urinal then rinse his hands w/​a splash of water (no soap) then he dried his hands with a paper towel and blew his nose in it and walked out. I couldn’t really fault him for not using soap as their was none in the dispenser for anyone to use. I realized that every male employee must not wash their hands with soap at this restaurant. I told the manager what happened and asked him to cancel my order because I won’t be eating here and he said Ok, bye. I actually used to like the food at Samurai, but I won’t be coming back here. Good luck if you choose this hibachi place.
Response to Jerry Z:
I was watching him. He didn’t reach for the soap so he wouldn’t have known it was empty.

ridiculous service. I ordered a 4 entrees groupon service and made a groupon reservation to confirm that we would have 3 people for 4 entrees. Arrived at the place and was told only 3 entrees are allowed for the groupon. Feel like be fooled by the restaurant. Will never never visit the place any more!!! I would give it zero star if allowed!

Food was excellent. Smaller location so a few large parties would fill it up. Can get loud. Chef was 3 stars. Is give it a 3.5 if I could.

Surprisingly lovely and delicious find in the middle of the suburbs of Albany!
The restaurant was quite empty for a Saturday afternoon, and the environment was very peaceful with gentle piano music playing in the background. Our waitress was so sweet and timely and her soft spoken manner enhanced the tranquility of the place.
The menu has an overwhelming number of choices — but everything we ordered was delicious, fresh, and well presented. The portions aren’t huge, but I feel like there is an emphasis on quality rather than quantity.
Overall, a stellar place that apparently has great HH specials, graciously located a few steps away from the hotel we are staying at. I’d definitely come back!

After driving 30 minutes to pick up and 30 minutes back home, spending $ 77 on a take out meal for 3, this was beyond disappointing because the order was not correct. There were no noodles, it was pretty clear that we asked for all noodles, but received none. We called and were told that the person that took our order wasn’t there so they can’t tell us what happened. We won’t be back again, and will be sharing this terrible experience with anyone that will listen.
Quantity Price Total
Sushi Deluxe
; Miso Soup; Spicy Salmon Roll 1 $ 20.00 $ 20.00
Green Salad 1 $ 3.00 $ 3.00
Harumaki 1 $ 3.95 $ 3.95
Gyoza (Pork) Pot Stickers 1 $ 5.50 $ 5.50
Pad Thai Vegetable
; Chicken 1 $ 12.95 $ 12.95
Hibachi Chicken with Scallops
; Salad ;please substitute all noodles for rice 1 $ 26.00 $ 26.00
Subtotal: $ 71.40
Tax: $ 5.71
Total: $ 77.11

I’m giving 2 stars only because the waitress was very nice and very attentive. If not for her, it wouldn’t give any stars. The sushi was bland and the portions small. The fish tasted like it was frozen. The atmosphere was that of a hotel restaurant, and nothing great. I tried it. I’ll be sticking to Sushi Na and KOTO
In response to the proprietor’s question, we ordered a Spider Roll, a Rainbow Roll, a spicy scallop roll and one of the special rolls with tobiko. The spider roll was small, with little crab, and the rice in all the rolls tasted like it hadn’t been vinegared. The salmon and tuna tasted frozen.

Took some clients out for lunch here based on the reviews. The restaurant was clean and comfortable.
Service was very good and we opted to order some appetizers from the dinner menu. The oysters were fresh and delicious coming topped with a light ponzu, caviar and siracha. We also had the peppered tuna tataki and jalapeño yellowtail. Both were very good and not overly dressed.
The miso soup was large and well prepared as was the seaweed salad.
I also had a firecracker roll which was a nice size and had spicy tuna inside with avocado and spicy sauce on the outside. My companions had the lunch roll specials and the sushi/​sashimi combo and reported that these were also very good.
Recommended.

Took a friend and kids here for his birthday and it was delicious. We did the hibachi and the individual did a great job interacting with everyone.

Delicous as always. The restaurant is very clean and service was great. I ordered the sweet potatoe roll and California roll. Lunch specials are served with miso soup and a very tasty salad. Definitely worth trying if you love sushi.

this place was tits!!! (.)(.)
Good was fast, my buddy and I were in and out with non stop service and amazing sushi, and that’s all you need to know. Fresh as you can get

I am always on the lookout for awesome happy hours (HH) in the area with well rounded HH menus. In this case, I’m glad to have found Samurai, as it’s HH menu is extensive and is extended from their bar area to even regular table seating on Mon to Fri 4 to 6pm.
The bar area is shared with its sushi bar seating so you can’t bring more than a few friends with you unless you want to sit at a regular table. The staff was friendly and checked in with us several times to ensure our needs were being met, very attentive and quick to serve. My friend is a regular but it was my 1^st time at Samurai, so I was guided as to which were the favorites. The menu is great! An extensive list of sushi rolls were BOGO and most of the appetizers were in the $ 3 – 7 range. Select beer and cocktails were $ 5 and under. PLUS: hot sake is BOGO. We sampled the Alaskan roll, shrimp tempura roll, spicy white tuna roll, YamiYami roll, Crazy roll, age tofu, crab salad, hot sake, and the Pineapple Paradise. The special rolls ($ 8) on the HH menu were steals considering other places have them for double the price!
Overall a nice place for HH goers and standard Japanese fare. The parking is aplenty and it appears to have a sweet patio facing a waterfall/​fountain area in the front of the restaurant for the warmer days. The only reason I didn’t give another star was because the restrooms were not well maintained and could’ve used some cleaning. Looking forward to my next HH!

If you’re looking to assault your tastebuds with strong, overwhelming flavours and sensations, the Samurai Japanese restaurant will definitely run a katana through your delicate sensibilities. My visiting mother and I went to try this place out, and we ordered a vegetable yaki-​udon and a steak strip hibachi meal. The complimentary miso soup and salad were pretty standard, and they came out pretty quickly. The yaki udon was pretty decent: the noodles cooked well but not overdone, an appropriate amount of vegetables seasoned into the entrée; and the flavors of the overall meal pretty standard. However, the other entrée wasn’t so standard. The Hibachi steak strips and chicken were well done, and I didn’t have any complaints with those. However, the steak strips were drenched in this super salty sauce that spilled and leaked all over the rest of the dish. This resulted in the lightly fried rice to soak up all the sodium, and the supposedly neutral carbohydrate became much too toxic to eat with my meats. I ended up having to separate them as much as possible and utilized the vegetables to build a separating dam. I also allocated some of the steak strips into the yaki udon, and that definitely helped balance the meals more.
Overall, this is definitely a place for heavy-​flavored palates and somewhat Americanized dishes, but it does have a few promising gems hidden in its menu!

Horrible service, all three of us at the table felt uncomfortable with how ‘put out’ our waiter was. Food was mediocre at best, we all agreed upon our departure that we would never be back.
One more thing, as we were leaving our waiter was standing around with the bar tender and one other person. None of them thanked us for our business or even acknowledged our saying good bye. Too many great choices on Wolf Road to end up at this place.

Update: Immediately after my review the manager emailed me and offered apologies for the waiters service. He promised me that he would speak to him encouraging him to be more attentive. I’d give this place another chance.
Bad Service! Avoid coming here for lunch, we waited for thirty minutes and not received our drinks yet, we asked for water. Our server was rude and ignored us for the first part of our stay, our water showed up with our food. The soup was tasteless.
After watching others sit down and be served and attended immediately with friendly faces I believe we have gotten a bad server and that would explain our experience. And the entrees were good.

This place is our go-​to when we want Hibachi or Japanese food. The food and service is consistently good, the ambiance is upscale, yet relaxed, and the prices are reasonable for the quality and quantity of food.
The restaurant is split into three sections — a bar, hibachi tables where they cook in front of you, and section of tables and booths. The hibachi tables are good for groups or couples as the hibachi cooking style is entertainment as well as service. The booth section is offset from the hibachi area which makes it great for dates or quiet conversation.
Eric and Don were our two most recent servers and they we’re great — neither one rushed us (and I literally took an hour to eat three sushi rolls one night), they kept our drinks topped off, and provided the check right when we were finished.
Pro tip — can you still order Hibachi if seated at a table/​booth. It tastes just as good, you just don’t see it cooked in front of you. And reservations are a good idea for weekends — they get busy!

Awesome. Dined there about six times mostly dinner at the hibachi table. Food is consistently good service attentive but not overbearing. The chefs put on a great show.
Usually eat there as they have specials on Groupon or other sites. Always easy to get a table.

This is a pretty standard Japanese steakhouse. I’ve been here several times and have always had a good experience. The service is fast, the chef always seems to put on a good show. My favorites are the chicken and steak, chicken and shrimp. The bang bang shrimp are a great appetizer. Each hibachi dinner comes with vegetable, rice and noodles. They’re nothing special but I like the noodles. The two dipping sauces are good. One is ginger, soy based, the other is this creamy pink sauce that is delicious! They also have an large selection of alcohol. I’ve seen people bring their kids, it’s a great place to go for a group dinner.

Perfectly adequate but fairly flawed, if I can marry those two concepts together. They’re lower end, with one of those annoying «a gazillion coupons and discounts, but we have all sorts of restrictions on how you can use them» strategies that’s just annoying and not at all money-​saving. We went during an advertised $ 6.99 lunch special, but weren’t given the $ 6.99 special menu at first but a completely different one. After we asked, we saw all these odd conditions on combinations, and ordered from the regular menu after all. Bait and switch anybody?
I once went on a sushi jag with a real sushi maven, who opined to me that you had to look at the cut made by the knives into the sushi to determine whether it was going to be good or not. Huh? I asked. He informed me it’s an indication of how much attention to detail they’re using — properly trained chefs are supposed to have razor sharp knives and make very precise cuts. If the sushi doesn’t have a crisp edge, there’s probably all sorts of other things wrong with it — handling, selection of fish — and the kitchen in general is cutting corners. For the most part this observation has left me in good stead.
So SJ’s sushi cuts? Raggedy. Fish a bit more mushy than usual. Rice not quite holding together.
Miso was fine, fried rice was fine, edamame appetizers fine, curry bland but fine, etc. etc. etc. Not great. Not terrible. Adequate.
Lunch came in just north of $ 15 a head with tip. Nothing going to bring me back but I wouldn’t say no if somebody else wanted to go. How unimpassioned a recommendation is that?
BTW this place is allegedly a recent remodel of an old Burger King — you can see it in the profile — but the interior looks like it’s worn down from years of use. It’s not exactly off-​putting but as far as atmosphere the Benihana-​style faux Japanese décor is really uninsipiring when it’s also a bit on the downside.