Nakama

Nakama has become one of our date spots. We always sit at the bar. Great beer selection and bar tenders will give recommendations. We order 3 – 4 rolls and leave absolutely stuffed. Favorites include the red dragon, dragon, and rainbow roll. It isn’t mind blowing sushi by any means, but for a delicious almost junk food sushi experience I can recommend it.

Trendy and overpriced as it may be, I’m a Nakama fan. Best hibachi in the city, and the atmosphere has more of a modern-​feel than competitors like Ichiban or SAGA. We had a large group (about 20 people) there for my birthday dinner this year, and the service was great. The chefs put on a great show and everyone had a good time. We also had my sisters bachelorette party at the one in the South Side and it was a success. Recommend for a fun occasion.

I went here on a Friday night to celebrate my boyfriends new job. We didn’t want to drive downtown, so I figured nakama in Wexford would be a nice place for a celebration. The service and staff we’re very friendly. My boyfriend got sushi and he said it was fantastic. But the hibachi dinner, not so much. The salad was drenched in dressing and everything that came off the grill was extremely salty. It made really hard/​impossible to eat. The cook and waitress were so nice, I didn’t want to say anything. I was a little upset because we spent so much money on dinner, I wish the quality would have been better. Overall I think this place is way to expensive for the quality and amount of food you get. You would be better off getting a groupon for another hibachi place. Next time I think we will make the drive downtown to go out for a celebration dinner.

Never a bad experience here. Chef Tom is an amazing entertainer and cook! He was especially attentive to my 3 and 4 year olds that loved him.

Good sushi, perhaps a little pricey, but always good. Hibachi is excellent as well — great chefs, entertaining.

Best sushi north of Nakama in South Side. Notice a trend? Seriously great beer selection, very fresh sushi. Very good ginger dressing and miso soup was on point. I will certainly be back.

Food is overpriced. Like, a lot. Ginger dressing is horrid. Usually the ginger salad is one of my favorite things at sushi joints, I look forward to it. I ate two bites and pushed the bowl away. The hibachi was overpriced and not that great. The fried rice had no egg in it and just didn’t seem like the typical. Wasn’t filled with flavor and they put two huge pieces of fat on my plate with the steak. Ugh??? Is that normal? Also, the miso soup was like super miso. Spicy and odd. But, and this is a big but, because without this there would be one star: the bartender/​server. I don’t know his name but he has a tattoo over his collarbone. He is amazing, nice, attentive and made the trip to Nakama okay. He needs to run this joint. Otherwise, I hate to say it because I like new restaurants in our area, skip this place. Go to ichiban instead.

We just got home and had T H E best Nakama dinner yet. We’ve been going to Nakama for years and have never had the amazing experience that we did tonight.
The shining star was our chef, Tom. Right from the start — great eye contact and great communication with our table — my husband and me, and a couple with a 7 yr old — a very engaging young lady. Tom didn’t miss a beat and truly made her experience (and ours) special. He made sure to ask if anyone was allergic to anything, … handed her the tools and challenged her to do cook, he made the rice into a heart, the veggies into a ‘U’ and the 3 pieces of chicken in the fist column stacked to make an ‘I’.
The ‘I’ ‘Love”U’ was a first for us and Tom seemed so pleased. And so were we. He showed he was having a good time and it was contagious. The food was amazing — — Bob’s Delight and I had the shrimp/​scallops/​tuna. My husband agreed that our meals were the best yet at Nakama-​in both flavor and the correct temperature.
We’ll be back in two weeks and will ask for Tom. Hope he’s working then too!

Our family’s favorite Hibachi restaurant. Workers are wonderful. Luke is THE BEST!!! Amazing chef and Fantastic with kids!!! HIGHLY RECOMMEND!!!

I had the chicken and shrimp combination dinner. The shrimp was good, the chicken was bland and chewy. The service was good but the entertainment was pretty much nonexistent. The real down side of this place was the price. The prices were way too high for such mediocre food. There are more reasonable alternatives around that blow this place away. I have been to so many of these Japanese steak house style places that I can tell when one is just average at best… and that was Nakama.

Stopped at lunch on a dreary Pittsburgh Saturday. They were not crowded and we sat in the bar area. Nice, cool vibe with modern décor. Got the sushi sampler. The fish was nice and fresh. Me and the hubby both got hibachi as well. He got the strip and me the tuna. I enjoyed mine immensely. The hubby though it was just all right. The bar tender was our server as well. She was phenomenal! I wish I could go 3.5 stars but I can’t so 3 it is. The hubby thought it was average. I thought it was a little above.

I was skeptical about coming here after reading all of the awful reviews, but have to say that I was pleasantly surprised by the food once I got there. I had the standard sesame chicken hibachi dinner and everything I ate was excellent — the ginger salad dressing was really tasty, onion soup was just OK, and all of my hibachi food — shrimp appetizer, chicken, veggies and fried rice was really very good. Everything was very flavorful without being overly salty.
Our server was attentive and friendly, even when we had an issue with a watery mojito that one of my friends ordered, she rectified the situation immediately and gave her another drink without hesitation.
While the food and service was good here I just cant get over how stupidly expensive this place is. I wouldn’t even think about getting sushi here at their prices — 15.00 for a dragon roll? Come on! Even the hibachi dinners are over priced. I won’t be making frequent trips here just simply due to price. 33.00 for ONE person for ONE dinner and a beer? Just a little too steep for me.

My hubby and I were so happy when this opened nearby because after the change in the taste and serving size of sushi and sashimi at jimmy wan’s, there were only a few choices left. So far our experience here has been great!
The hibachi here is one of the best tasting I’ve ever had. The chefs are entertaining and service has been consistently good even at the bar area. You can order sushi at the hibachi section as well.
The bar area is open seating and has quick service. They have a lot of beer on draft about 20 and good ones too. I have yet to try their cocktails.
Happy hour is half off appetizers and a dollar off draft beers. I think also a dollar off some of their martinis? The last time we dined here, the sushi chef, steve, did a great job on presentation and even came up
to our table. We were also able to use the $ 10off $ 50 dinner coupon from the clipper magazine.
They have a good amount of space at the bar area but can get a little crowded at the hibachi area. Overall, happy with this restaurant and would recommend this place :)

Delicious sushi rolls in a chic atmosphere! Very fresh ingredients and creative combinations. Reasonably priced drinks, too. Definitely a good local pick.

Lunch: Filet mignon and shrimp was delish! Ginger salad dressing and shrimp sauce was awesome!

Went there Friday night for Sushi. We had 3 different roles and tgey were amazing. Ordered 2 more nagiri pieces that were great. The fish was fresh and flavour was good. Will definitely go back for sushi.

My husband and I just want to give this place a try, food is ok but over priced. The chicken lunch dish have no test, the dragon roll was ok. Anyway, the food are not worth the price we paid.

Food was pretty good but prices were outrageous. Customer service is not good. First, they do not have a spicy salmon roll and if I wanted spicy salmon I had to get the sauce on the side for an extra 75 cents, did I mention we spent over 175 $? come on! I felt I was nickle-​dimed to death. Then came the vegetables, none of the kids meals come with vegetables or noodles and their kids dinners are the same price (or more) than the other hibachi places in the area. I had to pay extra 4 dollars for vegetables. Come on we are in the burbs we feed our kids vegetables. They need to work on their pricing and market research for their new location. Waiters need some help too they did not know the menu and could not provide much help making selections. May try again in a few months but that was a lot of money for a not very good experience.

I went with a group of friends to try the new Nakama. I had never been to the original one, but had heard the hype. My expectations were high.
I want to give them credit for being new, but they should have had their act together for 8pm at night.
The entire visit was a mess. The service was unstable and poor. The ingredients in my sushi were stale or over ripe. The salad had WAY too much dressing– but I suppose that’s my fault.
It’s possible I will try there again in a few months, but for the prices, the food and service should be impeccable.

Always on the hunt for something new, we dined at Nakama on a recent Saturday afternoon. The entrance background is covered in shiny glass tiles. We were greeted right away and offered a hibachi table or a table in the bar area. The bar is small and intimate with a few flat screen TV’s. The hibachi area is typical for this type of place and we decided to go with the chef show.
Our server was prompt with our menus and then with our beverages. I was concerned that we would have to wait for our table to fill. But our server said that our chef would be out right after our first course. So, there was only the two of us at our table. I ordered the shrimp flambé’ appetizer, salad and the hibachi shrimp. The bf ordered the same appetizer, mushroom soup and hibachi chicken. The soup and salad came out first. I was impressed by the size of the salad and loved their ginger dressing. BJ’s soup was equally as delicious.
The show was pretty typical of this type of restaurant. We really enjoyed it and our chef was friendly and very interesting to talk to. The shrimp were good size and pretty cooked. The chicken was nicely seasoned and we loved the vegetable friend rice. Service was a bit off, but the restaurant only recently opened. We loved our meals and will visit, again!