Since freshman year, Ayame has been one of the restaurants I’ve frequented most. It’s close to campus, they are one of the few restaurants in Hoboken with hibachi, and their lunch specials are absolutely phenomenal. Normally when I eat there, I’ll either go for hibachi with a large group of friends or the lunch special if I’m just going with a couple people. But for this week’s Cuisine Corner, I explored some of the rest of the menu, namely some of their wackier experiments.
First, a bit of background on Ayame. Located on Washington between 5th and 6th Streets. Of the many sushi restaurants in Hoboken, theirs is arguably one of the more modern settings: lots of glass, lots of light (for a Hoboken restaurant, at least), and their patio furniture is pretty simple. The restaurant is divided into two pieces: at the front, the traditional sushi bar and restaurant environment that you’ll see all over Hoboken. But in the back, a series of hibachi tables await at all hours of the day. While their dinnertime menu can be on the pricier side for a student’s budget, their lunch specials cover both sushi and hibachi and run until 4 p.m. daily. In the past, I’ve done both the sushi and hibachi lunch specials, both of which are fantastic and highly recommended.
The sushi lunch specials all start with either miso soup or the salad with the really good ginger dressing I have yet to find at the supermarket (maybe Mitsuwa up in Edgewater has it); unless you really want soup because it’s something hot, I highly recommend the salad to start. For the main course of the sushi special, you can choose between sushi rolls, bento boxes, teriyaki entrees, and noodle soups, all of which are excellent. For the hibachi, you have the choice between steak, chicken, salmon, vegetables, and any combination of proteins. While the hibachi is a bit more expensive than the other lunch specials, the show of the hibachi chef cooking your meal is well worth the price!
Normally, when I go for lunch, I’ll stick to the simple sushi rolls – your Spicy Tuna roll, Alaska roll, Yellowtail roll, maybe Shrimp Tempura if I’m feeling decadent (many rolls are covered by the lunch special, but none too complex). But armed with a budget and nothing to lose, we tried some of the more interesting rolls within the menu. Ayame gets somewhat interesting in their experimentation, with such rolls as the Angry Bird roll, Lady Gaga roll, and Sushi Sandwich. They’re all in the $12-14 range, but if you split a couple larger rolls between a couple people, they’re very filling without breaking the bank.
Our first course was a daily special, the Paradise Roll, described as “shrimp tempura, fried banana, and lobster salad, wrapped with soybean paper.” We saw fried banana and were immediately intrigued. I was initially a bit worried the roll would taste somewhat heavy (as rolls with fried components occasionally are), but it was truly excellent. It was surprisingly light, with the cold lobster salad balancing well with the fried banana and shrimp tempura. There was also an unannounced sauce on top which we think was some kind of mango-ginger sauce.
The same sauce resurfaced on one of the two rolls we ordered next. The bagel roll, which I thought would just have salmon and cream cheese, was quite a bit more elaborate, stocked with crab, avocado, eel, cream cheese, and smoked salmon, all deep fried with tempura flakes on top. This roll was a bit heavier than the Paradie roll, especially with the cream cheese, but it was a decent filler and definitely interesting. Finally, to cap off our meal, we went for the granddaddy of rolls: the Hoboken Monster Roll. With a mind-boggling number of ingredients rolled all into a single roll, this was easily one of the more complex rolls we’ve ever had. With such a complicated roll, you’d think all the mingling ingredients would blend together into a single taste – not so! Each of the different flavors hit in succession, making for a very complex roll with a lot of flavor.
Ayame is easily my favorite sushi restaurant in Hoboken. You can go for the lunch special and be extremely satisfied in an environment that doesn’t feel inexpensive, but can be (at least for lunch). Aside from the specials though, Ayame goes a step further by creating a number of really interesting specialty rolls that are extraordinary but not overly complex.
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