Samurai Japanese Restaurant — Restaurant in Town of Colonie

We hadn't been here during the pandemic. And we didn't get takeout during that time. So this was our first time back in two years. Previously had a great experience sharing hibachi w/ friends. We walked in and asked to be seated at the bar. We were greeted by the bartender/server JP. He brought our drinks, let us slowly go over the menu, and was very helpful explaining all the nuances of the sushi, sashimi, & rolls. I started off w/ the Tom Yum shrimp soup ($6). Excellent balance of flavors w/ the right amount of heat. Gets a 5-star recommendation. My bride had the edamame ($5). Then she ordered her fav Beef Nagamaki ($8.50) & a cucumber roll ($3.50). She's ordered this at other place and said that was tender and a bit more flavorful than the others. Under JP's guidance I chose an eel & a yellowtail tuna roll ($3.50 ea.) Eel had an almost smoky flavor (umami?) and the tuna had a bright, fresh flavor. They offer many choices for sushi & sashimi. I finished off w/ the spicy crab roll ($8.50) - BAZINGA. Perfect presentation, temperature of food & plates, & timing at a leisurely pace. We had a two Sapporo draft beers ($6 ea.) & two glasses of wine ($7 ea.) We felt that this was great value for the price. Open M-Th 11am-10pm, F-Sat 11am-11pm, Sun 12pm-10pm. The Samurai is on a busy strip w/ lots of retail, five minutes from the airport, hotels businesses & restaurants. So locals & visitors have lots of dining choices. The Samurai stands out amongst the sea of chain restaurants on this strip. We highly recommend this independent restaurant when in the area. Arigato gozaimasu! JP and all the staff at The Samurai. Updated two more visits. We were here a few years ago for hibachi with some friends. But this year we've been coming for dinner & drinks. I think three times in the last two months. This a full service Japanese restaurant with top shelf bar offering rare sake, whiskey, scotch, & tequila. Beer & wine also available. It has at least six hibachi stations, a large dining area, and a 10 seat bar. We like to sit at the bar for two reasons: the bartender, JP is professional, helpful, & entertaining and you get to watch the pros make the sushi, sashimi, rolls, and these wonderfully extravagant house special seafood dishes & boats. These guys are really good. It would take a year to try everything they offer. The freshness & presentation are five star. Too many items to list but their website is the place to start. One visit was Sat. 10/23/21 5:30pm. Jerry, the owner took care of us. We ordered drinks and tried to decide what to eat. I had my favorite TomYum Shrimp Soup ($6.50). I've had this at many other places but this is the best-spicy, flavorful, and consistently perfect. I also had a great Godzilla roll-Shrimp tempura scallions avocado inside, BBQ eel on top ($15). My bride very much enjoyed her Chicken Teriyaki ($16) and took half of the dish home. Our next visit was Fri 11/12/21 6pm. JP greeted us and poured our drinks. Prime seats for the sushi creating show. My bride again ordered her go to dish-chicken teriyaki. I again had the Tom Yum Shrimp soup-perfect. But changed it up by ordering two apps. Tempura oysters ($7) & duck drumettes ($8). Duck was excellent. The oysters were OK, but were way behind the duck from the kitchen. When I mentioned to JP how good their Tom Yum is he called over the owner, Jerry so I could tell him how great was their soup. He thanked us and then told us a valuable tip when comparing Asian-style restaurants - have the hot & sour soup. He says it must be consistently excellent. And also, if it's not good they're probably not doing other things on their menu well either. So another great visit to a highly recommended restaurant. We'll be back. Looks to be at least a once a month here so far. Excellent food & drinks. Top shelf service. And a masterful show by the sushi chefs. Thank you JP, Jerry & staff. Nicola P & Liz...

If I could give them zero stars I would. Went here to get sushi with a few friends, and the service was mediocre at best. The waitress was rude and constantly acted as though we were an inconvenience to her. Upon briefly reading the menu I spotted in fine print at the bottom of the menu "18% gratuity included" but did not see that it was for parties of 6 or more. My party was a party of 4. When we got our receipt, everything tallied out, and it made sense that gratuity was included amongst our meals. A friend of mine had seen that gratuity was included for a larger party, but being that almost 20% was clearly included in our bill, we paid, headed for the restroom and had plans to leave. Upon leaving the restroom I was approached by our waitress who was waiving her arms in large gestures that weren't coherent to me and I told her I didn't understand. She then screamed at me "WHY YOU NO TIP?!?!" so loudly that she now has the attention of every surrounding table. I explained to her that 4(!) people calculated the total and the only way it made sense was if gratuity was included and she continued to scream her question about supposedly not tipping. We proceeded for the door where she got her manager who then proceeded to FOLLOW US OUTSIDE TO OUR CARS and insist that we tip her or he was going to call the police!!! Well, we never giver her any extra money and we waited for over an hour for the police to show up, and when we asked the manager who placed the call outside our view (silly us) he kept saying "they're coming they're coming. You tip now or stay here and answer cops". If this had been handled in literally any other way we would have been happy to discuss the matter with them and either have the bill explained and proven that there was no tip involved, or jee I don't know, talk to me with some respect without screaming at me?!?! If it had been explained and we were incorrect we would have been happy to pull out a $20 and hand it to her but WE PAID OUR BILL! We will never return and I will never recommend this place to anyone. Don't...

I recently ate at Samurai for the first time as part of a large group dinner. I'm giving Samurai a '3' rating for two reasons: first, the waitress assigned to our group had a visibly sour attitude, which the other members of my group also noticed and privately commented on; and second, the restaurant has the practice of automatically adding the gratuity on to the total of the tabs given to diners - but the wait staff noticeably does NOT point this out and the diner needs to happen to notice this if they do not want to inadvertently 'tip on top of the tip' that is already included!

I read my tab in full because I wanted to calculate the appropriate amount of gratuity to leave and was surprised to see that it had already been added to my check. While I am okay with this as a point of convenience, I made sure to ask my dinner companions if they had happened to notice this on their own tabs. They had not - with several of them commenting, "I never look at the check, I just give them my card" (to process the tab). I am quite sure that the wait staff at Samurai counts on this default behavior by the majority of its customers in order to pad the tips they receive. To compound what I view as an ethically questionable practice (not informing diners of the fact that gratuity is already included), when the waitress serving our party came back to collect everyone's charge slips, she literally stood next to me and made a point of looking at my slip to see if I had tipped on top of the tip! I had not.

So, Samurai, here are two recommendations from a customer from their first-time experience at your restaurant: 1) tell your wait staff that sour looks/attitudes towards your patrons are noticed and don't go over well; and 2) it's REALLY RUDE for your wait staff to visibly look at a guest's check to see if they added a tip on top of the gratuity they...