Sake One

Agreeing with Patrick W., there is no sashimi which is a favorite for lots of sushi-​lovers, but it just opened up for 3 months and has not yet gained enough popularity yet to include it onto the all you can eat menu.
Got both mochi and fried ice cream and it was great, even though we had to pay extra. Fried ice cream could have had better batter, and the ice cream was very hard. Just happy it was red bean.
My father absolutely LOVED the tempura shrimp. Fresh, authentic Panko flaky and fluffy batter. He always tries the tempura shrimp at every restaurant. The BBQ shrimp wasn’t bad either. The seaweed salad had a little too much sauce, but was better than Sushi Palace’s.
My stars are mainly for the service. The owner came up to talk to us, the staff was super helpful and polite. They came by all the time to make sure everything was fine. The music reminded me of Chinese songs (instrumental) that we used to listen to when I was little. Comfortable seating, and great atmosphere overall. We liked it so much and I would definitely go back again.

A Japanese all-​you-​can-​eat, order off menu style sushi buffet that recently opened ~March 2011 in Middletown towards the back of Union Square mall plaza. Competitively priced for dinner and a bit overprice for lunch buffet, menu includes appetizers, sushi, rolls, hot dishes from kitchen. From other sites’ reviews, there is also a takeout menu.
I’m a fan of the growing trend in NJ of the AYCE menu japanese buffet over traditional buffet lines b/​c the sushi is made to order and brought on nicely arranged large platters. Sushi Palace in Edison and Adami in Hazlet are the same type of buffet, so fair comparisons can be made.
The food on the menu was pretty good for mid-​range buffet quality. Cuts of fish for the sushi nigiri and basic rolls were thick and the amount of rice used was not massive — was impressed with the thin layer of rice for the tuna roll. Granted this may slightly vary per night and per sushi chef, but I was pleased with their simpler sushi offerings. A smaller selection of specialty rolls than other places, and rice layer thickness was back to normal as most were large inside-​out rolls. To comment on a few: the dragon roll was spot on, large soft shell crab for the spider roll was good, spicy girl roll was good, but prehaps over sauced, and the bagel roll, though a neat concept, was a bit of a miss, needing more (smoked?) salmon to balance the avocado and cream cheese.
The hot food was mostly good — rock shimp, beef negimaki, and fried calamari were tasty, many teriyakied choices (maybe too much sauce again though), standard level miso soup, kani, and seaweed salad.
The problem with the food is what is not on the menu. There was no sashimi and no included dessert. Fried ice cream or mochi ice cream were offered ala carte for $ 3 each, but when competitors offer 2 – 3 flavors of ice cream and maybe another couple choices, its hard to ignore the omission. It’s even harder to forgive the lack of sashimi. Even if competitors are cutting the fish a bit thin and limit fish choices for sashimi (I hate when there’s no tuna sashimi T_​T) at least they offer it. Well, why not just order more nigiri since its a buffet? The extra rice is to fill you up, and not providing the alternative of some sashimi feels a bit underhanded for the customer. A restaurant needs to be able to sacrifice on some things and take a less cost effective method to better please customers.
The service was mostly commendable, which is important for this type of buffet. Appetizers and hot dishes came quickly and sushi followed with an acceptable wait. Our orders were filled fully and correctly and the wait staff came by regularly to take empty plates and refill drinks. I also welcomed the fact that their menu is made as a photo catalog of each dish.
From a previous sites’ thread, I made an inquiry and they do have brown rice as a substitute, however the waitress advised that most customers that had ordered it didn’t like the texture and consistency of their brown rice sushi. Personally, I’ve had really great brown rice sushi before and had requested a brown rice roll in our last order towards the end of the meal when other people I had been dining with were finished with their meal. Granted it is a bit unreasonable of me to expect them to make brown rice so late in the evening for one roll, but I was kinda disappointed to not be able to taste it or at least have a waitress notify me they couldn’t fulfill the request. Given a chance to go above and beyond, its too bad the roll came with white rice instead. My advice to the chefs would be to keep working on the recipe if customers aren’t enjoying it, because being able to offer tasty brown rice sushi would be a unique distinction vs. other competitors.
Summary: In general, sushi is usually better at a restaurant, but among mid-​range japanese buffets, the food at Sake One is pretty good. However, the omissions of sashimi and dessert are huge disappointments that need to be addressed. I would recommend to try because its new and not bad, but likely will revisit only after several weeks giving them a chance to hopefully make some improvements. ⁷⁄₁₀