Yakitori 39
“A few of my favorite dishes are:
Negiama (Chicken thigh & Scallion): Tender pieces of chicken and scallions in a savory soy based sauce.”
“We ordered 8 or 9 skewers to start and then ordered 6 or 7 more as soon as we got our first round of yakitori.”
“I usually go to siant mark to have yakitori but I can say this one is better in term of quality.(saint mark is the place where you hang out with friends) .”
Yakitori 39
Takes Reservations: Yes
Take-out: Yes
Accepts Credit Cards: Yes
Good for Kids: Yes
Good for Groups: Yes
Waiter Service: Yes
Price range.
$$ Price range $11-30
8 reviews
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This is one of my all time favorite spots. I been coming here for a number of years now and decided to give it a well deserved review. I have had many of their small portion items. The best out of the list is the potato salad, asparagus wrapped in bacon, chicken wings, short rib, pork neck with wasabi, lamb sausage, mushrooms wrapped in bacon and ramen. Everything I listed is absolutely amazing but if you must order one item off their menu it's the pork neck with wasabi. This is absolutely delicious. I mean it's seriously so good. TIP: They have excellent beer and hot sake. I highly recommend trying this place out if you haven't already.
Was contemplating 3 or 4 stars but decided to opt down.
Yakitori places are extremely difficult to find.
If anything, I think this is the only yakitori place I can think of in New Jersey.
Food prices are fair, albeit slightly more than NYC prices (correct me if I'm wrong as I haven't had much yakitori as of late). In addition, this establishment is one of the few places that has a liquor license, and they take advantage of that fact; their beer prices are certainly on the higher end. That extra $1 sure keeps me from drinking that second or third draft.
We wish we had some of the duck but unfortunately was not entirely comfortable spending $7 per skewer the last time we week. Perhaps next time, but their chicken was satisfactory (though I was really wanting the gizzard, which they were out of when I was there).
Service was a little slow as they mentioned that some food (particularly the grilled onigiri and ramen) was going to take about 30 minutes. That's fine, and all, but sometimes "slow" does not mean "missing". And unfortunately, the ramen was certainly not worth the wait. The broth was too thick, too collagen-y, certainly lacking that thick and extra fatty pork belly slice all ramen places offer.
First of all, expect you are going to pay NYC price here, I would say for 2 ppl, you will probably end up paying around $ 80~ $120, it's not cheap.
The Good:
Appetizer items are good, the portion is quite generous, the fried tofu is probably the biggest I have ever seen in my life.
The chicken porridge is huge portion, too.
The price of these appetizer is actually very reasonable given the portion is very generous.
The Bad:
For yakitori, it's about $2.6 + per skewer, you can choose you want it to be grilled with sea salt OR Japanese BBQ ( teriyaki) sauce.
I feel the yakitori I ordered that day really disappointed me,
I chose sea salt flavor because I wanted to taste the flavor of the food itself, the yakitori skewers I had that day were just plain.
One of the reasons that they are not delicious is probably because they were under-grilled, so they were just not as crispy as they should be,
If you are going to order chicken skin or the intestine, make sure you told them you need " extra crispy", otherwise the chicken fat attached to the skin will make you feel very hard to chew and swallow. I always order chicken skin while going to the yakitori place, but this could be the worst I ever had.
I was also very disappointed to the grilled octopus ($4 /each) , it looked like it was not grilled at all.
Conclusion:
If I have ever returned, I will probably just order appetizer items, because i feel the yakitori is over priced and it wasn't that great.
Maybe I'm missing something here, but not understanding the 4-star rating. All the food was lacking in flavor. The only saving grace was the dipping sauce that came with the calamari – think duck sauce with some kick.. like sriracha. The chicken thigh yakitori were juicy and tender, but again, no real flavor. The meatball yakitori had potential but needed salt and some kick.
The wings were decent – good crunch and tasted good with the calamari dipping sauce. Preferred the house special wings over the salt and pepper since the wings needed some type of sauce to add flavor.
Long story short, unfortunately, not much flavor in majority of the dishes.
Wow.
Maybe there's a portal outside Yakitori 39's door, because I swear I was in Japan for dinner that night. Everything from the quaint and polite waitress to the wooden Japanese architecture and paintings convinced me that i'd traveled through a worm hole. The Tapas were on point, very well prepared and priced reasonably. The mushrooms, wings and pork belly are to kill for. I ate and ate till I couldn't anymore, washed it down with some plum sake, and descended back to reality when I left.
Definitely surprising to find this level of authenticity in Teaneck. Definitely going back [until I can find the time to actually visit Japan]
Yakitori is a small, 5-6 table Japanese "tapas/small plate" restaurant in Teaneck NJ. What I love is the variety of fresh, authentic, options that are meant to tease and tantalize the pallet.
The wait staff is friendly, accommodating and even they have a liquor license with limited choices (Beer and Wine). A few of my favorite dishes are:
Negiama (Chicken thigh & Scallion): Tender pieces of chicken and scallions in a savory soy based sauce.
Enoki Mushroom Wrapped in Bacon: Skewers of delicate, Enoki mushrooms wrapped in crispy bacon.
Asparagus Wrapped Bacon: Crunchy Asparagus wrapped in a crispy piece of bacon.
Fried Chicken Gizzards: Crunchy, tasty but a little too chewy.
Pork Kimchi: Slivers of flavorful pork on a small patch of pickled kimchi.
Miso Braised Beef Tripe: Braised Beef Tripe, in a savory miso soup broth.
Salt & Pepper Calamari: Crunchy fried, calamari rings with a spicy cocktail dipping sauce.
Spicy Chicken Wings: Petite chicken wings cooked in a sweet, spicy sauce.
This was about my 5th time eating here. I find that this place has some consistency issue so I wanted to be sure of it before giving it a review.
They offer several different types of chicken parts cooked on skewers 'yakitori'. Of course, not limited to chicken, you'll find Berkshire pork belly, shrimp, beef belly, seafoods, etc. Special skewers tend to run out fairly quickly due to its popular demands and limited quantity carried so if you get there early enough, order it. You'll see a separate section for this on the menu.
There are few different menus you can ask for. Menu for yakitori, menu for ramen dishes, also sukiyaki hot pots and drinks. Tried the tonkotsu ramen & the dipping ramen but, I tend to stick with yakitori since the food is generally pretty salty for my palette. From time to time, they introduce a different type of drinks on their blackboard. Mostly sake or special type of beer.
This is a nice touch if you are like me and doesn't know much about sake brand /type, etc.
Parking is quite limited. Prepare to walk a block or so if you are driving in.
Dropped by for dinner when I was in town for dinner.
Great food and pretty good service.
I say pretty good because we had a bit of an odd experience.
When my friend and I came in (Friday night) there weren't too many people there yet. I sat down by the door which had two tables, but the girl told me that we would have to sit at the 2 seater since they might get crowded during the dinner rush. I thought ok well that makes sense so no big deal. As soon as I placed our order she proceeds to tell me that my food migh be delayed because there was a big party in the other room. This was confusing at first, but who was I to question it. In the end, we ordered so much that we had to use two tables after all. And there was no delay with our order. I'm not sure what was up with her. The other guy working was great.
In any case, we enjoyed our meal. I would definitely come back the next time I'm in town.