The 8 Best Hibachi Restaurants in the Hudson Valley, Ranked

Let's hear it for an onion volcano!!!

Growing up in Ulster County, my absolute favorite restaurant was the Golden Ginza, in Kingston. Yes, seeing fireballs mere inches from my face was exhilarating, but it was also the best food I had ever tasted. I always didn't finish my meal on purpose just so I could have leftovers to eat later that night.

Hibachi rules because it's the only cuisine that makes you think "is this legal?" as a chef squirts a mystery liquid into a stranger's mouth. They also have the only chefs that are honest with exactly how much butter goes into fried rice. Thankfully for me, the Golden Ginza is still in business to this day, but is it the best in the entire Hudson Valley? I think so, but that's just my nostalgia talking. Let's get scientific on this thing. And don't worry, I did the research so you don't have to.

First, some criteria. While many Japanese restaurants in the area offer hibachi on their menus, many do the cooking in a back kitchen. For this list, I'm only including restaurants with the big awesome cooktops in the middle of the dining room, because what's the point of eating fried shrimp if one of them wasn't flung into your mouth off a spatula? I'm also basing this list on a combination of Google reviews and the amount of reviews that were left, so for example, a restaurant with 4.3 stars and 500 reviews will score higher on this list than one with 4.5 stars and only 40 reviews. Ok, let's get cooking!