Shalom Japan — Restaurant in New York

A couple of unique tastes overshadowed by poor service and steep prices.

We visited Shalom Japan in May 2025, meeting up with my cousin from Seattle, who picked the spot based on YouTube algorithm and the intriguing cuisine fusion concept. The restaurant left mixed impressions though.

We tried five appetizers (out of seven available) and two entrees (out of five). From appetizers only the Jew Egg stood out with its unique taste and texture combination. The rest were passable: Sake Kasu Challah was just a fresh bun with butter - something most restaurants offer complimentary before appetizers. The Duck Prosciutto Salad was a plate of arugula with four dried mushrooms and a few water-thin slices of duck prosciutto, so tiny we could hardly taste them. Sawa's Mama''s Karaage (fried chicken) - was simply a fried chicken you would get in any diner, KFC, Chick-fil-a etc. The name was fancy though. Hamachi - the finely chopped fish lacking any spices was essentially tasteless at $18, the price of a good tuna tartare. Even Costco's sesame-wasabi raw tuna at $20/lbs offers way more flavor.

From the mains, the Chilled Sesame Temomi Mazemen was absolutely great and really impressed by its taste, flavor, and ingredients combination. In my opinion, it’s the best dish in this restaurant. I only wish they offered an option to add protein beyond mushrooms, but that wasn’t available. The Matzoh Ball Ramen was decent, but nothing special. Less interesting and flavorful than what we get in typical Japanese ramen shops. The add-ons were questionable and unjustifiably expensive. We got one with soy marinated egg ($4) and spicy ($2) and one with foie gras dumpling ($5). The egg was a basic poached egg in a soup. Who can feel and appreciate a distinct taste and texture of foie gras inside a dumpling in a soup? It tasted like a dumpling with some filling, nothing else. “Foie gras” however sounded fancy to get people pay extra $5 for it. Charging $2 to make the soup spicy? $4 for an extra matzo ball? Seriously? Knowing what matzo ball is and how it’s made, I think they should include two by default and add more upon request for free. We skipped the Lox Bowl - a rice+avocado+pickles combo with lox, it sounded more like a healthy appetizer for $32 rather than an entree.

Drinks - the cocktails were tasty but laughably small, with barely any little alcohol, yet costing $18 each. The Riesling from the wine list was good, but at $16 per glass and $64 per bottle (market price: $23), it was heavily overpriced.

Desserts - we tried Matcha Ice Cream Parfait, Hoji-Chai Cheesecake, and Chocolate and Banana Challah pudding. The first two were pretty good but nothing outstanding to justify the price tag.

The service was almost non-existent. Very slow, inattentive, serving one appetizer at a time, serving different entrees at different times, etc. For example, the server took our drinks order and then went behind the bar to prepare them himself, delivering them one by one. Really?

Overall, the experience was quite disappointing and I cannot recommend this restaurant. The hype is very high, but in reality aside from a couple of standout dishes, it’s just a couple of really good dishes with poor service and...

I really wanted to like this place. I found the concept super interesting and love a good ramen shop, especially during the winter. Ultimately, it was a bit of a let down. What I think was specifically a let down is that there isn't enough influence of Jewish culture in the brunch menu so it's just a meh ramen-inspired shop. The second thing that is disappointing is that EVERYTHING is an upsell. I knew this looking at the menu but there are so many areas in both the brunch and dinner menu that are +this or +that. The fact that it would cost would be an upcharge of $2 to make the ramen spicy is befuddling to me and just unfair to the cuisine.

We started with the okonomi. It's interesting because on the website it's listed as a latke but in person the word latke is removed. I was fully expecting a latke (i.e. potato) with pastrami on it, but was given more of a traditional okonomi with cabbage. The flavoring was fine but I do wish it had a bit more meat on it, as this was fairly sparse.

Next we ordered the sake chasu challah French toast with fried chicken ($6 extra). I can't imagine this without the fried chicken, which was nicely crispy and portioned well. The challah French toast was very much fine. The French toast aspect, syrup, etc. didn't really shine through and it felt like a bit of an afterthought.

Finally, we had to get the Matzoh ball ramen. I couldn't bring myself to spend more to add a second Matzoh ball, an egg, or spiciness to a ramen that already cost $19. The difficulty with Matzoh ball soup is that it can often be very bland. I had hoped that adding the aspect of ramen to this would liven it up, but this was very much Matzoh ball soup with ramen noodles thrown in versus ramen that happened to have a Matzoh ball in it. The noodles did not seem that fresh or inspired and the flavoring of the broth was certainly chicken broth but nothing else.

The service was quick. Recommend getting a reservation as the place does fill up. We thought about getting some sake but this was also fairly over-priced so decided against it.

Again, I think this could be an excellent concept. But it just didn't seem to be cohesive enough to work as it is for brunch...

My friends and I have wanted to go to Shalom Japan for the past year, so when my partner and I were in Williamsburg for an event, we made sure to get dinner here. Unfortunately, the experience was a let-down.

Food: The food was completely hit or miss. Two dishes stood out as particularly good: the Jew egg and the lox bowl. The Jew egg is a unique take of a scotch egg over hummus and israeli salad and was delicious. The lox bowl was a poke bowl with a hearty serving of lox and the flavors melded together perfectly.

We were less impressed with the other food we ordered. The matzo ball ramen lacked flavor and was served lukewarm. The sweet potato cheesecake was decent. The worst, though, was the challah bread pudding we ordered for dessert. It was burned on top and, unfortunately, that burnt taste ruined the dish.

Service: The staff was attentive, but there were two interactions that rubbed us the wrong way. In the first, the server took our order and we told her what small plates we wanted. She then cut us off and told us that "the chefs prefer all food to be ordered together," even though I was about to order the rest before being cut off. The second interaction was when another server ran our food to our spot at the bar. He didn't say a word. I thanked him several times and he simply looked at us and turned away.

Props to the bartender, though. He was attentive and clearly cared for his craft.

In summary, the pretentiousness of the staff was not justified by the lackluster food. From the start, we did not feel welcome as a walk-in and the staff seemed to feel like they were doing us a favor. If you do go here, though, the Jew egg and lox bowl are safe bets.

Next time I'm in the area, I will pick somewhere...