Shogun, Hooksett, New Hampshire

SHOGUN Hooksett, NH

February 16, 2008 was the 47th birthday of a friend of mine. We decided to be different and try the Shogun in Hooksett, NH. They had never been there…my husband and I had both been there a very, very long time ago.

It starts out with the birthday girl….since we hadn’t been there in so long, my friend’s husband decided to make reservations. We really couldn't remember if reservations were required. He made reservations for 5:15 PM. We agreed they would pick us up. When they had not arrived at our house by 5:15 PM, we called their cell phone. They were still about 10 minutes from our house. They had called and changed the reservations to a later time. Even that time still wouldn’t work -- they would still be making us late, but we didn't mind.

We arrived at Shogun a little before 6:00 PM. After telling the hostess we had reservations, she checked their list and promptly seated us (there was no waiting line). Ok, so if you’ve ever been there before, you already know you don’t need reservations, they probably don’t even take reservations and reservations wouldn't even make any difference. They just seat you at the next available table. It was quite obvious once we were seated and the whole time we were there, there were available seats.

Ok…so we arrive just in time (bear in mind our friend is having a birthday) to hear the staff helping with a birthday celebration. The head birthday singer, sounded like, well, ok…a cat that had it’s tail stepped on…..no, maybe a chicken …no…I’m not sure…it was a sound I’ve never heard before. Hmmmm…how would we describe it? …. a be-headed chicken??? A screech owl? I’ve never heard a be-headed chicken, so I’m not quite sure., but that would be the closest, I think. It would have been fun to embarrass my friend, but I didn’t even want to put MYSELF through that noise again. So we kept the birthday thing quiet. I looked over and there was a child who looked to be about 4 years old . He actually had his hands over his ears! I wanted to do the same, but at my age, it would have been VERY inappropriate!

Our salads were served; bagged iceberg. You know the one, yes that one, with shredded carrots. It was very interesting….it was served with some sort of teriyaki salad dressing. I have to say I liked the dressing but would not want to eat it every day.

It was very confusing to know what to order. There seemed to be a communication problem between the languages when we asked questions. We felt very lost and didn’t know what to ask or what to order. I ordered the Sukiyaki steak and my birthday friend ordered the Terriyaki steak so we split a $19.95 dinner for two (yes to make it more confusing, we had a coupon). Service was very poor. I had a Love Potion – brandy, amaretto, and passion fruits -- it was GREAT!! Our waitress didn’t come back to the table to ask if we wanted another drink, but we finally waved her down for another one.

Of course our cook was very talented. The shrimp tails went in his shirt pocket, the lobster tails in his hat. It was a lot of fun to watch everything cooked in front of us. But! BEWARE!
If you are allergic to seafood, be careful. The steak was cooked in the same area on the grill as the seafood. I’m so glad my daughter was not with us. We just found out that she is allergic to scallops.

The Japanese sauces they used were great…but again, if you have any allergies, beware. We didn’t really know what sauces were being added. Also, if you are a little germophobic, you might just have a couple of issues.

Dessert – I remembered having a “fried ice cream” many, many years ago. Since I saw it on the menu, I thought, “maybe it was here”. I remember loving it. I quickly searched my memory bank. It was this big scoop of ice cream with a slight coating around it. How did they do that, I remember asking myself? How do you fry ice cream without it melting? It always looked like it had not melted at all. Ok, when they brought our desert, I knew something was wrong. This dessert had a very thick cooey coating, and the ice-cream measured about a tablespoon. Disappointed, this was NOT the “fried ice cream” that I remembered.

My friend pretty much begged us not to mention it was her birthday. I think if she knew she would get a whole year of free dinners, she STILL would NOT have wanted us to mention it was her birthday….was it the dying chicken voice?

We went back to our house and discussed the reservations. Ok, we all admitted they were a joke. They did seat us in the next available spot (they did not hold any table for us), but that was ok. We had a really good laugh over it. It was pretty funny that he made reservations, then actually called to change them when we were going to be late. They probably were laughing at us, too.