Sushi Suzuki — Restaurant in Metuchen

My go-to place for Japanese food in the area. Sushi Suzuki has an extensive sushi menu, as well as a variety of other dishes including teriyaki salmon, hibachi-style entrees, and rice bowls. The restaurant has an intimate atmosphere with Japanese music playing in the background. The service time tends to be good, but varies visit to visit. All in all quite a cute little restaurant to get sushi/Japanese food in. Sections: Sushi, Lunch, Dinner, Soup/Salad.

It's nearly impossible to go wrong with sushi here. The sushi chefs do an amazing job of making the sushi. (you can even see them making it!) There are a variety of special rolls on the menu if you want a more complex preparation of your sushi or are perhaps feeling a little adventurous. But even the more basic rolls taste amazing (and are much cheaper). Sushi recommendations: Spicy Salmon, Peanut Avocado, Sweet Potato, and Salmon Mango.

For lunch, I suggest one of the bento box specials. I like to get tofu teriyaki or salmon teriyaki. Each box comes with soup, salad, the entire teriyaki entree, shumai (shrimp dumplings), and 4 pieces from a California roll (you can swap the California roll for a different roll of sushi for $1, but you get 8 pieces of sushi instead). There's also a sushi roll special for lunch that allows you to get a 2-3 different rolls (spicy salmon and peanut avocado anyone?) with soup and salad at a good price. Lunch recommendations: lunch bento box, 2-roll special, 3-roll special

For dinner, I love the teriyaki dishes. However, if you aren't a fan of teriyaki sauce, I strongly suggest one of the Donburi (a rice bowl with things like chicken and vegetables on top). There is something satisfying about the steam coming up from the dish when you start eating it that only enhances the flavors of the meal. Dinner recommendations: Salmon Teriyaki, Tofu Teriyaki (done exceptionally well), Oyako Don, Coconut curry

Soup and salad come with most non-sushi meals (and with the sushi roll lunch specials). I love how the miso soup's tofu, seaweed, and scallions interplay with the miso base. It makes for a great start to your meal. The garden salad has a delicious ginger dressing on it, but the greens in the salad unfortunately can make the bottom of the bowl a little watery. The garden salad is still good and comes with many meals (be aware that some meals require you to choose between soup or salad, though you can pay a few dollars more to get both). If not interested in the garden salad, I strongly recommend the seaweed salad, which in my opinion is probably the best salad on the menu. Soup/Salad recommendations: Miso soup,...

The atmosphere was great, except the choice of music was a bit too modern. I prefer traditional Japanese music or something gentle while I eat. This place caters to the trendy youth. The staff was so friendly, helpful and sincere that it made my food seem better. The tea was decent. The called it brown rice tea, and it reminded me of Korean corn tea mixed with green tea. The chicken teriyaki meal and the uron and miso soups were really great. I even enjoyed my salad. The price was below average, at the standard price you'd find in a diner in NJ. We'll eat here again.

Background: My wife and I love Japanese food in general but our favorite Japanese food is not sushi. She likes soups with tempuras and bento boxes with teriyaki. I love everything I've ever eaten that was Japanese, including dongos, except for most of the sushi I've eaten. As such, we spend a lot of time looking for Japanese places that represent a wide variety of Japanese foods, and not just sushi. That's hard to do, in a country fascinated by eating raw fish (our parents generation generally considered it poisonous, so that makes it somewhat of a trendy novelty to our...

We came in @2:50pm. Two other tables were filled, one with customers, one with a guy that clearly worked there. We were told we could sit anywhere, and we took a booth. About ten minutes later, we apologized to the man who clearly worked there who was reading a newspaper or something and asked if we might have some menus. He asked as if to confirm, "you want menus?" Then, skipping the stack of menus, he grabbed two take-out menus (there were three of us), casually dropped them on the table and waked off. My wife noticed it was now 2:59. She again asked him if she could speak with him. She then asked if we could order the lunch specials (until 3pm). He said she could, and stood there. She looked through the menu and asked if she could have five minutes to pick. He ANGRILY said that it would then be after 3pm, so, no. We quickly gave him the orders. They were all very good. But that restaurant apparently employs people who do not...