Takumi Japanese Restaurant — Restaurant in Town of Smithtown

I'd been to Takumi several years ago, but it was the first visit in a while. We had a party of 7 with reservations for a Saturday night. Our group are all frequent diners at various Japanese restaurants. This is a tiny restaurant, but they try to make the most of the space. As far as I know, you need reservations, at least on the weekends. We were seated right away, and there was one other party of 3 or 4 dining while we ate. Another party was finishing up and leaving as we were getting settled, and I saw then turn another group away, so they are taking precautions for Covid. The waitress even stopped me & gave me hand sanitizer before I could sit down. I was a bit surprised by the menu, though. There were no bento- box style meals. I didn't see any great dinners featuring multiple sushi rolls or sashimi pieces. In fact, for a restaurant that says its all about authentic Japanese food, the few "meals" were less than inspiring-- a Maki roll dinner with 3 very basic rolls, like a California roll & 2 other equally American rolls. They had some interesting specialty rolls. But only a la carte, not in any kind of meals. And the waitress was really friendly & got into the spirit, as it was a birthday for one of my friends, but not overly informed. For example, one of my friends asked how big the Maki rolls were, as she wasn't sure how many to get. The waitress said 8 pieces, not 6. My friend asked about that, as we are used to 6 pieces, & the waitress said people to get more pieces. So we asked if the rolls were made bigger than average, or just cut into more pieces? The answer was one we then ended up hearing multiple times in the night- that this is an authentic Japanese restaurant, not a Chinese Japanese Restaurant, so they do things the authentic Japanese way. How did that answer the question? (P.s. they cut the same size roll into 8 pieces instead of 6), The "this is an authentic Japanese restaurant, not a Chinese Japanese restaurant" started to get annoying when we got the food. 2 of us ordered shrimp tempura Maki rolls. We have ordered these rolls at JAPANESE restaurants across LI, NYC, & even other states for tears, & you get a piece of shrimp tempura, sometimes with avocado, sometimes cucumber. Roll it in rice & wrap in seaweed, add tempura sauce, any toppins, and slice. That is also what the menu said, but the shrimp in our rolls was boiled shrimp, not shrimp tempura. There was no tempura batter anywhere. Instead of apologizing or even saying she'd check with the kitchen, the waitress gave us a hard time. Saying we must be used to Chinese Japanese food. "We are one of the top 100 Japanese restaurants on LI & that's shrimp tempura roll." We tried to tell her no, & even showed her it was boiled shrimp. But we were just wrong. In my experience, at the very least someone should have said sorry, we use a different recipe than other restaurants. It was things like that, and all the "Chinese Japanese" talk that got to us. The shrimp tempura rolls were not shrimp tempura & not good. They were out of the seaweed for seaweed salad, which was a disappointment for some. But the specialty rolls were very good. Geisha roll & Ichi roll were excellent. An udan noodles bowl was very good. Desserts were also delicious. And as I said, the staff did get into the birthday & socializing with us, which was fun. So the night had ups & downs. But I would stay away from the shrimp tempura rolls...

Any time that I want a reminder of how real sushi is supposed to be served and how it’s supposed to taste, I find myself at Takumi. The owner Chef Yuki is a fine artist and serves the most authentic sushi and sashimi on Long Island. The fish is always fresh and delicious, but as any good sushi chef will tell you the most important component is the rice and at Takumi the rice is always perfect.

Takumi is a small family run restaurant in Commack. The service is always personal and they strive to make sure you leave happy. The clientele is mostly “regulars” that Chef Yuki has been feeding in Commack for 20 years (back to the days where he trained under Chef Shiro Damon at Kurofune - in the days when that restaurant was outstanding. Not that good anymore). Takumi is not inexpensive. It will cost you a little more than other sushi spots, but it’s well worth the cost. Also, this is not a place where you will find dozens of “specialty rolls”. Yuki is a traditionalist so maguro, yellowtail, salmon, ika, and other nigiri choices are the best way to go.

I have been a customer since the restaurant opened (I followed Chef Yuki from Kurofune) and have never had a bad meal. If you love authentic japanese food,...

Became very ill after eating their shrimp and vegetable tempura. Went to bed early and woke up in the middle of the night feeling nauseous. Tried to sleep it through only to wake up at 3 in the morning to have multiple exorcisms out my rear end. I had an episode of family guy where the whole family was viciously vomiting except out my rear end as I sat in the dark feeling like dying.

The waitress was very polite and nice. Can't say the about the shrimp and vegetable tempura. The crust was not crunchy, it had somewhat a crusty yet soft exterior and felt very oily biting into it. The Vegetables were very bland. I don't like wasting food so I tried to truck as much as I could.

Very disappointing experience. Food is very expensive for the quality. Perhaps I may have had a better experience ordering their sushi, but I will not...