Raku Sushi

Average at best … Rice was bland, whitefish was a little tough, tuna and salmon were nothing to write home about. I will not be returning anytime soon.

I love this place! I go here or order out from here as often as I can. The atmosphere is nice and the food is absolutely delicious! I’ve gotten all different types of rolls which I love, and I also really enjoy the lunch box specials. They also have great appetizers and other entrees like fried rice. The prices are decent considering it is a sushi restaurant. I would highly recommend this place to anyone who likes sushi and Japanese food!

After dining in several times before and loving it, we decided to grab some take out. Disappointment does not come CLOSE to describing the meal.
I was previously unaware that «bland» was an adjective capable of describing sushi, but evidently, it’s fitting for the sushi at Raku.
Spicy yellowtail is normally a delightful light fish with a hint of spice. The roll looked and tasted like fish mayo and had a terrible mouth feel. Same went for the spicy tuna roll.
The spider roll, was also bland. The crab was overly fishy and not delicate and sweet like fresh soft shell crab is supposed to be.
Kani salad was a blob of mayo with slight resemblance to the crab meat salad that is supposed to be Kani salad.
The only edible, tasteful thing on the table was the seaweed salad.
$ 40.00 later and we are still hungry and epically disappointed. Sushi gone wrong. Maybe it’s because it was take out, but what an awful waste.

This is our local sushi place within a 10 mile radius of our house. There are more but we tend to go with this one. Their sushi are works of art. The menu is extensive for such a small place. It is tucked away in a small strip mall near Stop n Shop supermarket.
The rolls are delicious and so are he appetizers. I haven’t tried everything on the menu, but I’m working on it !

Was very disappointed. California Roll seaweed was fishy and tough to chew, the avocado was mushy. Teriyaki chicken the teriyaki sauce was do watery. Had no flavor. The chicken fried rices chicken was rubbery. The only thing good was the dumplings. I also thought it was a BYOB but it’s not and they wanted to charge me $ 5.00 to open it. So I said no and had water. And one of the employees kid was there being a pain in the butt. Sticking his tongue out at everyone. Go to Tokyo in Haskell.

Great sushi, extremely friendly people, great atmosphere to eat for family and dates, highly recommended! If dining in, MUST try the spicy tuna martini, tempura app, their Raku Special Roll, and tempura ice cream!!! For those that are concerned with price, very fair!

My friends, if you are around this area, and in the mood for sushi I would 100% recommend this place. If you happen to have the time to dine in, I would recommend that even more. I’ve gone to so many around this area and this place impresses me the most. I’m going to breakdown my review to make it more concise and specific into 3 categories, service, food, and price because that’s probably what most people care about.
Service–
By far the best in all of my experiences including the prestigious ones in Manhattan. This is a family run business, and I believe the owner’s wife and her sister waitress and they are fabulous people. Extremely nice, patient, quick to tend to any of your needs, never making any of my dine in experiences awkward or uncomfortable no matter how many times I ask them for things, they are always more than happy to oblige. On weekends the place can become fully packed, so in that sense service may be a bit slower but that’s understandable and despite that, they always remember what you ask for and bring it to you even when all tables are full. 8 stars, if I could.
Food–
Fresh, fresh, fresh, creative, delicious, raw food, cooked food, presentation, portion size, teriyaki sauce, eel sauce, spicy tuna, the yaki soba, the edamame salted just right, I don’t know where to stop but you get the idea. I’ve had it all and it’s better than any restaurants I’ve been to in NJ or NYC. You need to go try it, I would recommend for starters… their mixed tempura and spicy tuna martini (beautifully done and great), then their yaki sobas are delicious if you want cooked, or ANY of their special rolls if you want raw, and MUST MUST MUST order a tempura ice cream to finish off your dinner with a cool, creamy, crunchy desert that’s to die for.
Price–
I’ve been to many, it’s cheaper than NYC obviously, and it’s very fairly priced, if you compare it to some towns that are a town over like Franklin Lakes or Wyckoff (this is a nice area fellas, so don’t expect to pay low end prices, you get for what you pay for, and for this place… premium quality) it’s cheaper, but if you go over a few towns like Bloomfield, Pompton Lakes, Wanaque, then it might be .50 or $ 1 more per their respective items but those restaurants are much dinkier, not as fresh, not nearly as nice, so choose wisely.
I hope this helped, had to write a review, I was on Unilocal and saw a 3.5 stars and I shook my head, good luck on your search, and good eating!

Raku is the only sushi option in town so we are lucky it is good! It is a standard sushi restaurant with average prices and good sushi.

Delicious, fresh sushi is on the menu at Raku. Prices for the special rolls are a bit high, but the regular ones are good enough to satisfy. I love the crazy dragon rolls with the big shrimp pieces. Go for pickup as the minimum for delivery is high and they can take a long time to deliver.

Sushi is good. Recommend take out although it’s nice to sit and eat there but depending on how crowded it is, service can be very slow. Friendly staff

Great sushi, fresh! Great service! Go to place for local sushi!

Best sushi in this area unless you are willing to drive 40+ minutes. Raku special, red dragon, crazy dragon and toro rolls with an appetizer of tuna martini … cant go wrong for the wife and myself.

Really lucky to have this little gem in Ringwood! Fresh and really good.

Very nice place. Have been there many times. Tuna, spicy tuna, yellow tail, salmon skin, cal roll are all very good. We especially like the Ringwood roll. My family always gets the salmon teriaki too. Beef negamaki and Japanese pickles are our favorite appetizers. Always fresh. Friendly service.

As one of the other reviews stated, Raku IS the best sushi place in the area. Of course, there are no other sushi places within a 5-​mile radius, so you have to take that with a grain of salt.
Don’t get me wrong, the food is good, the sushi is fresh, they don’t screw up your order if you phone in for takeout. For what you get, it’s kind of pricey, especially for a small town, and that’s what keeps me from being more of a regular customer.

My husband and son go here often about 2 times a month give or take a visit. The wait staff is always welcoming and as for someone saying they never give you anything for free, we did not experience that upon our visits. My son LOVES brown rice and they have given us a bowl for free before, and not for nothing it is a small business in a small town with a down economy.
My husband always orders the Ringwood Roll and the Maki combo A… he enjoys their sushi and never has a complaint.
As for my son and I we eat the gyoza (BEST around), Miso soup, and the teriyaki chicken. A big fan of all three as is my son. I have tried the teriyaki salmon and that was great too.
Very clean, good sushi and good cooked Japanese food as well.

The sushi here is usually fresh and above average quality. They never give anything away for free, as they do in some japanese restaurants… especially when you are a regular customer. Nothing amazing, but not bad for a town that doesnt have much.

If you do not want to read the whole thing… decent sushi place nothing special but nothing was bad. Service was friendly and pretty good. My gf said her Octopus dish… same one she orders at every sushi place (maybe it is called Taku something) was better then most. Food ranges from 2.5 stars to 3.5 stars in my eyes.
So i recently moved to this area and was searching for a local sushi joint. Based on the high reviews and not much else around my girl friend and I decided to give it a try.
There were a couple other couples in Raku. Place was clean and the service was good. We started with some Sake and Plum wine, both which were great but not something they actually make at Raku.
We ordered mixed tempura to start and my gf ordered the one dish she orders at every sushi place. Tako Su or something like that. It is thin sliced octopus in some vinegar sauce. She said it was the best one she has ever had. Coming from her that means a lot.
For sushi i had some spicy tuna and eel and avacado rolls, eel sushi and a piece of egg sushi. The spicy tuna was not as tasty as I would of hoped but everything else was good. Nothing really left me craving more. My gf had some specialty roll which was good and I forget what else.
To end the night we finished things off with a fried banana. This my friend was a 5. We even debated getting another one to split it was so good.
Bottom Line: Good sushi (below avg spicy tuna), clean place, nice server and decent pricing. Is it the best sushi i have ever had no, would i go back? Yes.

I Love Raku! It is a tiny little sushi place tucked into a shopping plaza, but exceeds any other «exotic» restaurants in this area.
Favorite’s are their Spicy Tuna Roll, Eel roll, excellent Miso soup, Beef Negimaki. Your run of the mill fare. Always fresh.
Service is good.

I wouldn’t consider myself a regular there but I’m treated as though I go every week. The wait staff remembers exactly what our drink order is every time.
The wait staff is friendly and the place is very clean, bathrooms are also very clean.
Raku recently switched locations from the CVS shopping plaza to across the street in the Stop & Shop plaza.
From the dishes I’ve tried, everything tastes great. Our usual meal consists of their Miso soup, Goyoza (dumplings) and 3 orders of Sushi. I highly recommend their «Raku Special» roll, we get it every time we go there.
Overall the Sushi and Sashimi tastes fresh and is always presented on a decorative fashion, they really seem to take pride in their presentation.
I can’t speak about their entrees as we have never gotten any, just their for the Sushi. O would believe it is just as good as the sushi.
Give them a shot, the prices are reasonable, service is great and the Sushi is very tasty!
I give them 4 stars only because we’ve never tried any of their entrees.