Ai Ki Ya Japanese Restaurant — Restaurant in New York

I love Japanese bar foods and yakitori in particular. I've eaten my way through Japan a few times and have spent years looking for decent yakitori in NYC. Village Yokocho scratched the itch until its demise last year.

I was rooting for this place when I spotted it, but was instantly worried by the large menu that included sushi rolls, sashimi and hotpot. It's hard enough to do one of these well, almost impossible to do all of them well, but they offered deep-fried skewers something I've rarely seen outside of Japan... so I gave it a chance. Sadly my fears were realized.

The most basic yakitori skewers (chicken thigh w/ scallion) were tasty enough, but nothing special. Many of the other types of skewers were seasoned incorrectly (or not at all) and just felt like Americanized versions of Japanese dishes.The beef was very Americanized for example. Kawa (chicken skin) is usually insanely delicious, here it was tasty (hard to go wrong with chicken skin), but the yakitori sauce used to season it was a bit flavorless. Similarly the Tsukune was all wrong and weirdly they didn't offer everyone's favorite skewer: dish bacon wrapped asparagus.

The deep-fried skewers were tasty but also all seemed like foreign interpretations of genuine bar food.

I sat with someone who ordered sushi and another person who ordered hot pot. All were passable but average. Even little things like edamame were unimpressive (overboiled and they didn't use a thick enough salt).

Would I go back. Maybe if I was dying for yakitori and was in the area, but otherwise, sadly this place is a miss for now. Could it be fixed? Of course, but it would require a real rethink and an edit of the menu. My guess is that with a menu this extensive the owners are going for volume rather than trying to please people who love high...

It’s been almost a month since this experience, but it’s stuck with me for long enough to write this review. Ai Ki Ya restaurant was THE WORST experience I’ve ever had at any Japanese restaurant in my life and it was all because of this dish, the tuna tataki. No matter how much the owner insisted on the freshness of the tuna, both myself and my partner agreed that it was nowhere close to fresh. So much so that in the days that followed after eating, I had stomach issues.

I knew I should’ve listened to my instincts when I noticed the restaurant wasn’t at full capacity on a Friday evening in Manhattan. Everything else we ate was fine and we enjoyed what little we were able to have of the yakitori and hot sake, but as soon as we let the waitress know we didn’t enjoy the taste of the tuna, all hell broke loose.

The owner insulted our tastes, stating we “didn’t know anything about Japanese food” not knowing both myself and my partner spent more than enough time in Japan, respectively. And even if we didn’t, anyone with tastebuds could taste that the fish wasn’t fresh. He went on to say that the dish we declined would be taken off of the waitress’s paycheck (which she later told us was a bluff) and after embarrassing us in front of the staff and others in the restaurant, he had the audacity to offer us a $20 credit to return to the restaurant another time. AS IF!!

Through all this, we never raised our voices or looked to start an argument with anyone. We simply sent the tuna back and were looking to continue our meal till the owner bumrushed our table with hostility. Do yourself a favor and go to anywhere else in manhattan. Anywhere. This was the most ridiculous experience I’ve ever had at a...

$3 Sapporo draft but is a small cup (looks like 6 oz), not even a draft cup. Go to a place called Oh! Taisho and order a same $3 draft beer you will know how small portion Ai Ki Ya is offering.

The hotpot soup full of msgs and japanese fish sauce, not made from natural ingredients. (Edit: the restaurant replied to me that they used natural ingredients for the soup. I still doubt that cuz I know what a soup tastes like if it's stewed long enough, Sorry!)

Spent $130 for two people if you eat the hotpot with some additional skewers and drinks. Skewers are pretty bland, not cooking from raw but some half-cooked meat then oven-ed to reheat. The basic hotpot is $26.99 PER PERSON, any additional ingredient in the pot would cost another $3-$5. The portion is not large enough for the price. Remember the base price is already the price for (even higher than) some AYCE hotpot places like those in Chinatown.

If you tried similar places you will know what I am saying, Not a good value. For $65 per person you can get korean bbqs with higher quality meat and stuff.

I don't know why so many gave it high rating, probably trolls. Oh I did see somebody mentioned in the comment section that they are marketing toward international students. My Chinese friends also told me they saw many trolls in their "little red book" app, which is like an instagram but more capitalization. oh btw the this japanese restaurant is not run by japanese (no any offense, we don't have that many Japanese in NYC to begin with, just an additional information if you find it useful).

Thanks...