DOMOTO by DOMO — Restaurant in Closter

I am so excited Domoto is finally open in Closter!! We have been to konban in the city (from the same hospitality group) and I’m so happy they opened up another location in NJ.

We went for dinner on the first day of their soft opening and the restaurant was nearly full. Despite this, service appeared to go very smoothly. The interior is minimal and modern with good lighting, creating a pleasant atmosphere. Our server and the rest of the staff were friendly, knowledgeable, and checked in with us.

Not sure if it’s just temporary, everything on drink menu is non-alcoholic. I personally didn’t mind and ordered the earl grey lemonade ($5). It was a nice balance of earl grey and yuzu flavors.

We ordered the perilla oil noodle, pork loin, chicken katsu, pepper cheese ball katsu, and a side of curry.

The perilla oil noodle ($16) was a pleasant surprise. It was a cold noodle with a refreshing yet savory taste. It went well with the richer taste of the katsu.

The pork loin ($21) was a bit different than what we had previously at konban but still very good. The pork was very flavorful. The chicken katsu ($18) was surprisingly very tender and juicy. I loved the pepper flavor of the pepper cheese ball katsu ($17) although it’s a bit of a different eating experience than a regular katsu as it seemed to made with ground pork. The curry ($4) was also very flavorful and came with a lot of onions. Each katsu came with a side of sauce and cabbage with black sesame dressing, which was one of the best sesame dressings we have had.

For dessert, we ordered the strawberry kakigori ($12). The strawberry sauce was very sweet and complimented the shaved ice well. We were curious about the sweet potato crème brûlée; we will have to order...

We are big fans of DomoDomo so we were excited to find this restaurant. We wanted to try the katsu and the noodle dishes. And we tried the nigiri which we love from DomoDomo. The butterfish and branzino are amazing so it was amazing to start with that. Different toppings than the original restaurant but still amazing! Next time we will probably come for the sushi. The shrimp katsu was very oily. It wasn’t anything special. They offer 3 sauces. A katsu sauce with some special spices which taste Indian-food inspired, a yuzu flavored yogurt sauce and a spicy sweet chili sauce which tastes like a Thai sweet sauce with some gochujang. The best sauce is the black sesame salad dressing which is the same as the original. Love this dressing! The black mussel noodle soup is just a kalguksu. Broth was flavored well. Noodles cooked perfectly but nothing else really shined. The cabbage was okay. My taste buds were longing for something like a bok choy or something different .. maybe mustard greens.. and I was hoping for a wonderful sauce over the broth that sets it apart from a typical kalguksu. All in all, would we come back? Yes. But next time we’ll probably get the nigiri. And try the curry bc it looks like that seasoning is memorable. Service was good although they were understaffed for the full restaurant they had. Friendly servers and the food came out in a timely manner. For a NJ suburb food joint, nice to have- just needs the “typical” foods to stand out from the kalguksu that we can find at the restaurant in the...

Why have we not experienced this magnificent place before?! We had dinner at Domoto Katsu and Roll. Walking in, we loved the comfortable and serene vibe and already knew this was going to be a great place to try out.

For appetizers, we had Corn Corn, Ebi Sando, and Miso soup for each our our meals. The Corn Corn - perfection with the roasted corn and the sauce provided was good. The Ebi Sando (close to Shrimp sandwiches) was my favorite appetizer. You can taste bits of the shrimp jammed in with other vegetables. It was so good. Our Miso soup was tasty and hot - I wanted more tofu floating around and probably the first time spinach was used in a miso soup.

I had the spinach Udon. The spinach was fine floating around, I didn't think too much of it. Between the spinach in the miso soup and then more in my upon soup - lots of greens. The udon was handmade. Soft, delicious. I loved it, you can tell it was handmade and worth the slumps.

I'm already looking forward to the next visit. There is more we want to try out. Staff was attentive and friendly. Food was superb and restaurant was clean and spacious. Parking lot is available and connects to a bubble tea place. Until...