Shoga Sushi & Oyster Bar
“I originally picked this place because of their $1 oysters during happy hour (12-7pm I think).”
“Just a quick snack tonight…a dozen oysters on the half shell…1$ ea before 7pm…always super fresh!”
“We also got a bunch of rolls (salmon cucumber, eel avocado, spicy tuna, oyster tempura) which were all well prepared.”
Shoga Sushi & Oyster Bar
Takes Reservations: Yes
Delivery: Yes
Take-out: Yes
Accepts Credit Cards: Yes
Bike Parking: Yes
Wheelchair Accessible: Yes
Good for Kids: Yes
Good for Groups: Yes
Has TV: Yes
Waiter Service: Yes
Price range.
$$ Price range $11-30
8 reviews
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Do not go to Shoga.
There's another sushi restaurant five steps away, Ichiro, if you don't want to go far for your sushi fix. Go to Ichiro. You'll thank me.
They don't just have sushi rolls and sashimi. They also have pad thai, Sesame chicken, and lo mein. They are honestly all across the board with their menu.
We ordered a salmon avocado roll, eel avocado roll, 88nd-and-2nd roll, and chicken pineapple fried rice.
The chicken pineapple fried rice came out first.
It was red in color, which is not its usual color. And with the first taste, I realized they had put in some ketchup into the fried rice.
There was hardly any pineapple pieces, and if there were any, it was the size of a cut nail.
To make up for the missing pineapple ingredient, they added raisins.
The chicken was the worst part of it all. It was soft, rubbery shreds that tasted more like soy and fish. It was definitely not chicken. I hope it wasn't rat or pigeon meat. We put all the 'chicken meat' to the side.
Also, there was INTENSE DRILLING AND NOISE COMING FROM THE KITCHEN.
I don't think it's okay to fix, repair, or reconstruct a part of the restaurant, especially the kitchen, during open hours. I don't know. You tell me.
The sushi rolls came out.
It looked fine. And I was honestly relieved, since the pineapple fried rice was such a bust.
HOWEVER, HALFWAY THROUGH THE MEAL, A SLIMY, GOOEY, BLACK THING (for the lack of a better word), FELL FROM THE EEL AVOCADO ROLL.
I uploaded a photo of the 'black thing'. I highly recommend you go take a look at the photo right now.
We called over the waitress, whose greasy hair was too long to be considered sanitary. Her hair kept hitting tabletops and our shoulders.
She grabs it with her fingers, squishes it, and brings it into the kitchen.
She comes back out, and insisted that it was a piece of the avocado pit.
We asked her to bring out the avocado.
She said that it was unsanitary to do so.
She wanted to replace our eel avocado roll with a new one.
We bargained. And told her we would pay for half of our bill. We wish we could have walked without paying a single penny.
She quickly prints out the check. And rushes us out, worried that we'd make a bigger scene.
We even left a $4 tip. We just wanted to get the hell out of there.
STAY AWAY.
DO NOT GO TO SHOGA.
YOU WILL NOT EAT REAL CHICKEN MEAT.
YOU WILL EAT SUSHI WITH BUGS.
"His (her) palms are sweaty; knees weak, arms are heavy
There's vomit on his sweater already: Moms spaghetti
(S)he's nervous, but on the surface he looks calm and ready"-Eminem
Eminem basically summed up how I felt walking into Shoga last night. No, I wasn't worried about the quality of the fish or anything. I was nervous because I was going on a date. A first date. A dinner date. Like an adult. Like a real life adult who goes on first dates to sushi instead of getting wasted in some dungeony bro bar in Murray Hill. Like, who am I?
I walked tentatively up to the booth my date was occupying. I noticed that Shoga was pretty nicely decorated–that swanky feel that asian places either have or don't have. Shoga had. I hugged my date hello, I sat in the booth. It was comfortable. My date ordered my green tea before I arrived and I was a little nervous because I didn't see it poured which means he could have drugged me, but approx 500 cups of green tea later, I was definitely not drugged. The tea was delicious, obviously.
I was pleasantly surprised to see that they had my 4 favorite sushi rolls on the menu. It was a first date though, so I had to be a lady. I ordered my top 3: avocado, pumpkin tempura, and peanut avocado. As it turns out, the pumpkin tempura roll also has avocado in it, so I ended up really getting my avocado fix on. I was okay with that–I love avocado, and so does my date. Thank god–it would be very hard to trust him otherwise. He proved his love for avocado by ordering an avocado salad. And miso soup and tuna tataki, which he said he enjoyed. But can you imagine a person on a first date complaining about food?
My date and I continued to talk and get to know each other long after the food was finished, and the Shoga wait staff continued to refill our water and tea. We stayed for literally over 3 hours. It was a good date!!!!!! You guys, it was a good date!!!!!! What I am trying to say is that the staff was great and at no time pressured us to leave. For the record, the restaurant was near-empty the entire night so we were not taking up space they would otherwise be using.
My date walked me home, and all-in-all it was a lovely evening with delicious food.
ALSO–when I am not pretending to be a functioning human, I order veggie ramen from here and slurp it in my bed while wearing pajamas and loving the single life. The ramen is great!
$1 oysters! And happy hour cocktails. I got the Almond Amaretto which was pretty good and my friend got the Kir Royal but didn't comment on it.
The sushi itself was pretty good. Service was also friendly and prompt.
Overall, had a decent experience.
Average. The service was REALLY slow and they told us they had a lot of deliveries they needed to make… Which I would assume would come second to the customers in person. The $1 oysters are for a certain time slot we just missed- we did order a couple and they were good! Sushi was not bad, the spicy mayo is okay… Overall not badly priced, may try again and see if better experience!
Nice restaurant with great service, fun atmosphere and delicious fresh sushi. Also great menu selection of food and cocktails.
Delicious sushi with quite a few rolls for the vegetarians! This is absolutely my favorite Sushi place in NYC bar none.
It is on the smaller side, so note it can get busy and packed on Fridays and Saturdays.
Service is always nice, all in all it is a good place for Sushi!
My friend and I went to Shoga Sushi & Oyster Bar while I was visiting her New York City, and overall, I felt it was a an average sushi joint. There are actually a lot of sushi restaurants clustered in this area for some reason, but I had just looked at OpenTable and we both had a craving for sushi. The place was not packed, even on a Saturday night, which normally is a red flag. Of course, we were seated promptly, but I think there was somewhat of a language barrier at this restaurant. It was all very nice Japanese ladies, but they don't really have recommendations of what the best food to eat is.
The menu is expansive, and their Maki sushi is actually very beautifully presented. We ordered the shrimp tempura roll twice, because it was so tasty, but as is always the case, my eyes are bigger than my stomach. My friend also ordered the sea bass, which, though it wasn't her favorite, I felt it was actually deliciously cooked. We also had 6 oysters, but they weren't memorable or that good.
They drink services kind of mediocre. The lychee Cosmo clearly just had lychee juice from a can, and was not very inventive or different. They have a few Japanese beers, but nothing out of the ordinary and nothing on tap. This is really not the place to go for drinks.
Overall, I don't have any reason to definitely not recommend Shoga Sushi & Oyster Bar, but the same time, I wouldn't recommend going here when there so many options on Second Avenue.
So happy I found Shoga! It's become my new standby sushi restaurant — yummy rolls (I forgot exactly what I ordered, but everything was delicious), a decent drink menu and a friendly atmosphere. We ended up staying for a while and it made for a perfect evening.