River Japanese Cuisine

Tasty sushi, good dishes, anime style decorations, but subpar service. We (8 people) walked downstairs into the restaurant and was greeted to a lot of anime decor. There are shelves and cabinets displaying gunpla, figures, playing anime on their t.v, etc. If you're into anime with a Japanese astetic, then it's really cool. We all had all you can eat sushi and kitchen. A lot of the kitchen dishes were mediocre, but the sushi and sashimi is were it was at. They offer quite a variety of dishes for their kitchen. A good recommendation would be the salad, soup and their fried dishes. Their BBQ stuff was mediocre. And their shell fish were good. For their sushi and sashimi, most of them are good. Their fish quality is ok but tasty. Especially the salmon, and I kid you not, we ordered over 200 pieces of salmon sashimi. And it tasted amazing. It was small one bite pieces and were soft and sweet. Their other fishes tastes really good as well. I enjoyed their white fish. Their special rolls were good as well with a good amount of variety. But I do suggest avoiding anything that has their spicy mayo. I don't know why their spicy mayo tasted nasty. Their service was not good. The main problem we had was trying to call them, but they would ignore us and we had to get them ourselves. The worst part was that there were only 2 tables occupied during the time, and the servers were right in front of us. It's crazy how we always had to get up and walk towards them to get their attention. Overall, good decor and sushi. Not so great service. Would come back again and order 200 salmon sashimi.

Been to all AYCE sushi bar. River is the best sushi bar AYCE in NYC. A bit underrated. The food is excellent. The atmosphere very clean and spacious which I love, the services are excellent as alway. The food quality improves so much since previous years (post covid) It could be change in vendor and chef. I think this sushi beat the rest AYCE taste wise. The other AYCE place I used to frequent go live near me by no longer taste good. The atmosphere wasn't alway good. But hey it taste pretty good like 9/10 now like 7/10 (post covid). I occasionally go to river cuz Atmosphere and service and their exclusively menu that only river have. But we know taste is the most important. later(post covid)can't remember when) river quality taste so much better for . the sushi taste like 11/10 before it was 8.5. Come here ever since fresh consistent always. Every place have inflate the price. Some r closed permanently, some place got worst and some got better. But I can't complain about river. Definitely is better. Love the quality food, services, and atompshere. Services r awesome too.

Cozy atmosphere for both dates and solo dining experience. The anime theme is heavy and definitely come for the food. Don’t go in expecting a light meal either the portions are just right and so filling but you won’t want to stop regardless. I’m sad to say that I recently visited them again and noticed the ELL bento box was no longer in the menu. I’m going to miss the absolute melt of the meat on my tongue with a sweet cotton-candy like after taste.

My wife and I ordered from the all you can eat menu, and the price came to around $40 per person. The menu gives small sampler sizes of some of the appetizers (takoyaki comes with 2 balls) but full sizes of their sushi rolls! I’d say if you can eat a lot of sushi in one sitting until you’re full, definitely go with the buffet. I have also dined at their restaurant before, and their Deluxe Ramen was To DIE for! The thing I ate in the video was the bbq Pork Skewer, the spices and flavors EXPLODE and coat your taste buds with seasonings to remember, they’re tiny but they are Flavor Bombs!!! The service ladies are always on the move so you need to catch them while they’re passing by, they were ALWAYS asking if I needed refills on water and tea, however in the evening hours the “hot” tea does become Luke warm (since they were prepping to close for the night at the time when I was there, it makes sense they wouldn’t keep making new hot portions of tea). They were very friendly, always telling us what food item they were bringing so we knew if we wanted to order the same thing again. They take a bit longer to serve the hot items than the sushi though since they cook everything there to order, so that’s important to keep in mind! The ambience is very calm with lower lighting, and the booths are very private, separated with a bamboo screen partition. They have some statues of anime characters, as well as a conservative amount of anime posters that match the color theme of the restaurant. There is always anime playing on each of the TV monitors (which is very nice for a weeaboo like me)! All in all I’ll give this place a 5/5, even though they had some flaws later durring their closing hours, I’d say come here at the end of lunch - start of dinner time for the best experience! Definitely go check this place out!!!

The prices has gone up, but the buffet is still worth it. You really need to plan out what food to order to eat your money's worth, unless you can eat a ton without a problem. Majority of the time, the food are delicious, although there are the occasion cold or "not as good as last time" food. The servers are always around and there usually isn't any long delays or long waits.

I came here more than 3 times and how worth I pay for sushi and sashimi buffet? No place in Manhattan can beat this place and the quality of food compared to the price isn't that bad at all. for the service, sometimes when you order so much of food, they can forget your order so you have to follow up with your order. Normally they will give you 2 hours to eat and gratuity is already add, so make sure after your bill comes.