Taste of Japan on Mohawk Reservation
HOGANSBURG — A new Japanese steakhouse on the St. Regis Mohawk Reservation just east of Massena?
We heard rumors, and they're all true.
Koi Express Japanese Hibachi Steakhouse opened in May at the traffic light in downtown Hogansburg, a few miles down Route 37 from the casino. It's in a building that formerly housed a gas station and currency exchange.
Don't be deterred by the exterior with its Koi Express sign lettered on a sheet of vinyl. The small dining room is charming and comfortable, neat and clean, and tastefully decorated with Japanese art.
If you've been to one of those big city Japanese steakhouses (Ichiban comes to mind) where diners sit around a big table with a built in flattop grill and the Japanese chef comes out and puts on a show right before your eyes, this isn't that place at all.
The big grill is in the open kitchen, visible from the dining room. A Native-American chef does all the cooking there while sushi rolls are assembled at another station.
The menu seems a little overwhelming at first: appetizers and rolls, dinner plates and dinner bowls, salads and vegetarian selections, lunch plates and lunch bowls.
But as it turns out, it's basically the same ingredients reworked to create different dishes with slight variations.
Our server was a sweetheart of a lady, extremely pleasant and patient, and had no problem helping guide us through the menu.
If you're a fan of real sushi, that is, raw fish draped over a small ball of rice, you're not going to find it here. At least not yet. The only raw fish available is tuna, and it's found in the tuna roll, rice wrapped around the fish to form a cylinder, then sliced into bite-sized pieces.
We tried three rolls: tuna (tuna and cucumber, $4.50), California (crab, avocado, cucumber and cream cheese, $4.50), and a new addition to the menu, a "sunrise" roll (crab and cucumber topped with spicy tuna, $7).
The first two are staples at any Japanese restaurant. The sunset roll was similar to a tuna roll with the addition of a spicy sauce that appeared to be mayonnaise-based.
All were quite good, served with the traditional soy sauce, wasabi, pickled ginger and chopsticks. Presentation was not exactly what you might get in a metropolitan area, but perfectly acceptable for Northern New York.
Another addition to the ever-expanding menu is tempura, batter-dipped deep-fried pieces of fish (scallop, salmon and mahi mahi) and vegetables.
It was flawless — crispy, light and thin enough to identify the food it coated. Two dipping sauces accompanied: soy sauce and a slightly spicy mayonnaise sauce.
Another highlight was shrimp noodle bowl, totally tasty with noodles, vegetables and shrimp quickly sautéed on the flattop in a broth of soy/sesame oil. Rather than using Asian noodles, it appeared to be standard linguini.
By getting two combo dinner plates, we got to try a variety of menu items.
Dinner plates come with your choice of fish or meat with rice and vegetables. Combo plates allow you to choose two meats or fish. You also get to choose your sauce, soy-based "hibachi" or slightly sweet teriyaki.
For our first dinner plate, we chose chicken and filet hibachi. The meats were expertly cooked, the chicken still moist and the filet still medium and juicy. The fresh vegetables were bursting with flavor, the Asian brown rice just sticky enough to make it possible to eat with chopsticks.
Our other dinner plate was a fish combination, salmon and mahi mahi (a type of dolphin) with the teriyaki preparation.
Once again, the vegetables were exceptional, the teriyaki sauce (soy, sherry, sugar) flavorful without being salty. It allowed the food to have that nice balance of grill flavor, not getting in the way of the natural flavor of the seafood (which could have been cooked a little less, for our liking).
We had more than enough food at this point, so couldn't consider trying the only dessert offered, cheesecake spring roll.
Our dinner check, including four soft drinks, came to $64 before tip.
It seems Koi Express has been well received so far. They have just expanded the sushi roll portion of the menu to include 17 choices. Among them are things like a green roll (zucchini, avocado, cucumber), a salmon skin roll (peppered deep-fried salmon, cream cheese) and a New York strip roll (filet mignon, cucumber, topped with mushroom Marsala).
Our waitress told us that beer and wine are in the works. They're also contemplating a larger location.
According to one of my guests, "As far as Asian cuisine goes, this is some of the best I've had in the north country." And another commented, "It's definitely a place I would go back to."
You can contact restaurant reviewer Walter Siebel via e-mail: wsiebel@wdt.net.
Koi Express Japanese Hibachi Steakhouse
612 Route 37
Hogansburg, N.Y.
1 (518) 358-2829
www.facebook.com/pages/Hogansburg-NY/Koi-Express-Japanese-Steakhouse
A charming little Japanese steakhouse on the St. Regis Mohawk Reservation serving appetizers and sushi rolls, dinner plates and dinner bowls, salads and vegetarian selections, lunch plates and lunch bowls.
HOURS: 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. Monday through Saturday
4 to 9 p.m. Sunday
RATING: 3 and one-half forks
