Osaka Ryu Gin — Restaurant in Glen Rock

In the NY-metro area, there's a sushi place in every town and seemingly on every corner. The tiny Osaka Ryu Gin stands out from amongst the crowd of shops for all the right reasons.

We sat down and the waitress, although darting from here to there, was friendly and all smiles. She was clearly busy serving a full house, but not too busy to be warm and welcoming. She gave us a complementary appetizer: a small plate of tempura white tuna. This was the second time I've visited and she did that before. It's a gesture that seems overly gracious in this day and age.

My party of four ordered the following which can be seen in my pictures.

seaweed salad happy Friday roll spicy tuna roll lemon kiss roll hot lulu roll unagi don nabeyaki udon hot tea chirashi & various rolls are also included in the pics from previous visit to show presentation.

Sushi orders and the unagi don came out on wooden or ceramic boats and garnished with edible flowers! I looked around and every table had the same treatment, some sushi was served on boats and others on bridges. Presentation at Osaka is surprisingly stunning!

I ordered the lemon kiss roll ( salmon & yellowtail, etc. with lemon) and hot lulu roll (deep fried crab inside with baked spicy kani and white tuna on top). I'm very glad that I gave in to my curiosity on these orders. The lemon kiss roll had just the right amount of citrus to give a great sweet and tart kick that complemented the fish. And the hot lulu roll had just heaps of baked crab and tuna on top of the roll. I was really pleased with these choices and I highly recommend them.

Osaka is a small place with five booths, four tables and a couple of seats at the sushi bar. I kind of liked the photo-wall towards the back and the colorful lamps everywhere. Although diminutive, this place was popular. The shop was full that night and it seemed that every so often, customers would pop in to claim their take-out orders.

Osaka Ryu Gin is deserving of your visit because it checks all the boxes: great, friendly service, delicious food that has some complexity beyond your typical corner sushi-shop, beautiful presentation and a nice...

Celebrating our last few days together before an upcoming trip, we decided to grab a bottle of Saki and head to our little place in Glen Rock. Only pick-up orders discouraged that notion. But just a mile or so, another Japanese restaurant with a good rating was in full service. Pulling into a strip mall in the middle of a busy intersection raised a few doubts. However, a cheerful greeting, quality food, and reasonable prices quickly changed our minds.

A very attentive waitress took our little brown-bagged Saki away to be heated. A pot of delicious flowery tea helped take the chill out of the cold, wet December evening. Ordering commenced for starters of miso soup and Seaweed salad- generous portion lightly dressed topped with sesame seeds.

The menu had everything we graved, for me, raw fish and Kate, Tempura. Surprisingly, the main courses arrived pretty quickly (or maybe the warm Saki passed the time soon). Almost apprehensive, I was more into taking photos of my Sushi & Sashimi assortment than poking it with chopsticks. But like I said, “almost apprehensive!” Along with the artful vegetable carvings, the beauty of its presentation certainly enhanced the flavors and textures of the raw fish and rolled assortments.

The crispy fried Tempura was another flavor and texture explosion hosting another generous assortment of vegetables. The curiosity here will make a cat fat, and a beautifully plated Dragon roll with a purple orchid appears. Delicious!

Of course, dessert had to be reviewed, so Green Tea Ice cream and Green Tea Mochi were ordered, and it was another rice ball homer out of the park!

Well, I guess you may figure out what my recommendation is, and we’ll be back when...

We started out with the Edamame and got some delicious Pepper Tuna on the house which was very photogenic and a nice surprise. I got the Shumai Soup and the Fair Lawn Roll while my sister got Miso Soup and the Sweatheart Roll. The Shumai Soup is very good but a little bit too salty. We both loved the extra work the went into the decorations on the plates with our rolls.

The Fair Lawn Roll consists of spicy salmon and mango with salmon and white tuna on top. It also has kani and uses soy paper instead of seaweed. Great flavors, love the addition of the mango! I did feel like it was missing a little bit of crunch though, maybe some cucumber?

The Sweatheart Roll is super cute, it's shaped like a heart. It's a pretty standard spicy tuna roll with additional fresh tuna...