raji

Yeah that changes everything, basically. So, he doesn't eat anything with a face.... Yes Pan, I completely forgot about Madras Cafe.. aren't they related to one of the curry hill restaurants too? Anyway, I haven't been there since they first opened, I guess about 9 years ago, but it was very good and not such a heavy hand with the Ghee like, at the time, Madras Mahal and Mavali Palace (now closed) had, which I appreciated more 9 years ago... I guess pretty similar to Saravanaas. It's 18th Street. so gramercy, but close enough and certainly worth it, Devi I still maintain is the best Indian on the Island and probably all 5 boroughs when cost is not a factor... While the Japanese brainwashed me fully despite no familial connection, one of my other specialties is certainly South indian... but I'm only half a dot, maybe Mayur has more current info... Fish (and therefore fish sauces) being ok, I'd also check out Sobaya, they've been consistently good for a couple of decades.... I'm quite fond of okonomiyaki, if you've never had a shrimp okonomiyaki, now would be your chance. I think the takoyaki place on 9th Street makes them, albeit in street food fashion... Village Yokocho, on the 2nd floor of that corner, usually makes a good one. BTW if you ever order one and they don't tell you it's gonna take half an hour, cancel that order because it's coming out of the freezer. Okonomiyaki is a labor of love. I love those things. I don't think a proper teppanyaki place opened in NYC, but making your own okonmiyaki with the table as your griddle is delicious fun Also on the Japanese tip, Umi no ie, I think around 1st and 3rd, something like that, has great great Okinawan food... some dishes have spam or pork in them but a great deal only contain seafood. Uminoie means beach house, the owner is okinawan But that's starting to get too far east Is Republic on Union Square still good? still there?

To answer your question, an off-peak direct flight from NYC to Tokyo can be had for as little as $500... These pictures are mostly from the TORAJI chain of Yakiniku restaurants... full disclosure, the owner is dear friend of mine, part of the reason I am so immersed in the Japanese beef culture.... He DID open one in Hawaii, so prices are about the same as Japan... Those shots are of the premium kobe harami, kalbi, misuji... http://www.ebisu-toraji.com/EN/hawai/menu_diner.html I've been BEGGING him to open in NY for years now - I mean, look at the selection of meats!

It's like getting fine dining advice from that annoying mildly slutty/attractive girl in marketing who thinks an amuse bouche is how she reciprocated on her date last Friday night

When eating with or craving Vegetarian, i gravitate towards South Indian... Thali is no longer open, but the dosa man on Washington Square is great - Haveli on 2nd and 6th is inconsistent but can be very very good Surya on Greenwich is also good There is a cafe spice on University and they can be very good if you know what you're ordering... There's several falafel joints in the neighorhood, where you can also get your hoummus, baba, etc., Mamoun's is probably the best

They're driving... I'd get Greek in Astoria.... close enough....

Unfortunately, those shots are from Japan...

You're mostly correct... probably the best way to enjoy wagyu is "ishiyaki" style. The beef will come cubed or in, say, half-inch thick slices similar to the way your porterhouse might come sliced (albeit smaller slices), and you sear the beef on a hot stone placed before you, and eat it rare-medium/rare. This is how Sugiyama does it, and does it best, as well as you'll find it at Megu, Morimoto, Nobu too I believe... There used to be a restaurant in Midtown east, 53rd Street I think, called Seryna. It was a NY outpost of a group of them in Tokyo. They specialized in Wagyu ishiyaki, and from what I recall also had a $150 Matsuzaka steak. Not sure how it was served. Good Wagyu, I think naturally you want to savor every morsel of it and enjoy it as the centerpiece of a whole course... but hell, if I had the money and the inclination, a wagyu STEAK will of course taste great. It is still medium-rare and will surely taste a whole lot better than lesser grades of beef. Someone with a big appetite, craving a steak, might just be disappointed at the quantity of beef they'd get at a Sugiyama.... Japanese people just don't eat THAT much beef in one sitting. It was only introduced to the country in 1867 and really wasn't widely available until the 50s or 60s anyway.... Another way that I've best eaten wagyu is at yakiniku restaurants, where it will arrive only slightly seasoned, salted, peppered, lemon-juiced, and I'll let these pictures speak for themself and make you all hungry... These days in Japan it's not uncommon to find wagyu sushi - It's certainly cheaper than otoro, and fat is fat, right?

OK, but when the smoke and vapor come back up, surely they must possess some characteristics of the charcoal, no? I think intense heat and charring is most of what I'm looking for, which is what sucks about a lot of Korean BBQs, besides the poor quality of meat and over marinating, is the cooking surface, gas-heated, just don't get that kind of heat...

During the World Cup I tried out pretty much every place on 46th Street, but this was after heavy drinking starting with the Japan match at like 8am, so it's all a blur of green and yellow... There was also a place on West Broadway and Grand, I think, that was decent If you are looking to do the Churrascaria thing, I have heard good things about the new Porcao on Park Avenue South, which I have not personally tried, but the Plataforma in Midtown West was excellent when I went there a couple of years ago.

Good to know there is sill a place that does charcoal. In my experience it does in fact impart a fair amount of flavor on top of the benefits of intense heat cooking. It is more noticeable on those premium meats like tongue and the highest grade kalbi that are not completely sopping in marinade - then the charcoal mix gets right in the mix of the beef and fat that is being rendered down I think Gyukaku uses charcoal too, doesn't it? I haven't been to Do Hwa in a few years but I do have very positive memories of it, especially in it's use of good to great ingredients. That is ultimately the big letdown of 32d street. I'd rather get a smaller quantity of higher grade beef than the platters of marinated stuff server on 32nd. The other extreme of that is Gyukaku, which can be a bit of a ripoff, especially as the quality isn't all that great either. Beware of their happy hour too - if you snezee you might launch their harami across the room....

Oh, sounds interesting! Please do give some details. Where is Santouka? ← Santouka is a ramen chain from Hokkaido known for it's stellar chyasuu, skinny, delish noodles and intoxicating white tonkotsu broth ignore the japanese and click around! http://www.santouka.co.jp/ In my days in Japan Santouka was geographically the closest ramen shop to my office in Shibuya, Tokyo; it also became my favorite and the favorite of many. You know it must be good when there is a line 50 people deep at lunchtime, at 20 people deep at 2am, in Tokyo where there are seemingly as many ramen shops as people. They happen to have an outpost at the Mitsuwa in Edgewater, and I've always lamented that the best ramen in NYC is in NJ. After an inaugural visit to Setagaya with FG the other week, this is still the case. I wasn't a fan of Setagaya in Japan, but, their flavors just don't live up to the hype... if Ippudo is coming over, I am psyched - lookie lookie!! http://www.ippudo.com/index.html Their style is hakatamen which will seem pretty identical to hokkaido-style ramen to most Americans... Anyway, I do believe the Setagaya ramen was not the right STYLE of ramen to expect to succeed in NYC... liking it is probably more specific to the Japanese palette in it's usage of light flavors and especially fish flavors while you could compare the potential appeal of an Ippudo or Santouka to the solungtang at Gah Mee Ohk, which has many many American devotees and is just GOOD FOOD anyway you slice it. If they're not consistent, well that's a whole nother problem. They shouldn't be serving tough chashuu. For those who know what Natto is (it's fermented soybean; I don't like it, it's texture is that of mucous and it smells like feet) - same deal - I wouldn't exactly open a Natto shop in NYC, because you're already going after a niche market. But negitoro - hell, everyone likes negitoro!

Well... 48oz vs 12oz.... definitely good strategy, to approach the Wagyu course like a plate of fine sashimi, not the old 96er... Which reminds me, the last time I at Wagyu was at Sugiyama - perfect cuts that you seared on a seriously hot stone right in front of you - like LAN, for something different, highly recommended... 6 Course Kaiseki with Wagyu $145 Besides asking where in America or Japan (or Oz for that matter) it's from, not sure what else you can do... I've seen a 12-point marbling scale as well as Grades (AA, A B and C I think...) you can try to find out what "grade" it is....

At $100 it's probably a 12oz Ribeye or Strip... or maybe a lower-grade 20oz in Japan I usually enjoyed it in smaller quantities, often as a guest at someone's house, as yakiniku, kushiyaki, shabu shabu...- I mean, imagine eating a 16oz slab of otoro, that's kind of how we look eating an entire steak of it because it is at such a premium! then again, is there really too much of such a good thing?

For me, Blue Smoke, Daisy May's and Dinosaur are the principal repeaters, which is not to say they're flawless. I haven't been to all the new places yet, though. ← I'm right with Weinoo in that I've been disappointed multiple times by Rub, so much in fact that I will not return. In fact, I still really have yet to find out what the fuss is about - I tried their signature dishes and meh Daisy Mae's is my only destination and repeater, meaning if I really must eat barbeque and I'm in Chelsea, I will bypass RUB and go to Daisy Mae's. Maybe a decade ago, Tennessee Mountain was the best place in the city for ribs, better than Virgil's certainly, I wonder if it's still a repeater...

I'm still partial to Sea Breeze at 40th and 9th (haven't had much of a choice since Central closed down several doors down). Haven't seen that sort of freshness, variety, volume elsewhere, even Chinatown. Maybe I'm biased because it's convenient to me and also because it's very affordable, so maybe someone can cooberate my claim....

Ooooh good question.... If it were beef from Japan or the top grades of American Wagyu, I'd have to get the Wagyu... I mean an entire steak of that is pure gluttony...

ya think? Isn't it just "Kobe beef" or "wagyu" on menus everywhere? That's usually how I tell at this point.... the price... and I ask the chef if possible... wa+gyu means Japanese (in the culinary sense) beef the way wa+shoku means Japanese cuisine... Then again, beef has only been available in Japan since the Meiji restoration, 1868... It IS specific to the breeds of cattle raised in several prefectures in Japan, but in a broader sense refers to how they are raised, i.e. the feeding of beer, sake, shochu, massages and milk baths... I don't think the aussies, north and south americans go quite as far, but foreign-raised Wagyu has gotten really damn good

You know I have yet to see it listed as "kobe-style" on any menu, but the vast majority of "kobe beef" in NYC is so-called American wagyu. "Wagyu" itself means Japanese Beef, so, go figure. What made it more confusing was the 4-year ban on importing Japanese beef, as they stopped importing our beef. So most Japanese restaurants have also by now switched over to the American strains of wagyu... That said, it's still light years ahead of USDA prime, but there are higher levels of flavor and marbling in Japan, so if you can find actual imported Japanese beef, jump on it...

Do you mean Uncle Jack's at 36th and 9th?

I wonder what Champignon in Chelsea sells... they have a whole catering business too... But In Chelsea they have a deli.

It was sushi; soy-cured tuna... Put it this way, I find it far more probable that Bruni mistook this for an off piece of tuna than any of the sushi chefs at Ushi actually serving one... they are running operation at a level that would simply not do that...

Well THIS just in from Grub Street - http://nymag.com/daily/food/2007/08/hark_n...ea_stadium.html Yeah - read the URL. New Shake shack to open at Shea Stadium. [edit] it will be at the new Citi Field. I'm pretty sure 20 years of conditioning will have me calling it Shea for the remainder of my years, however. First off, this is a natural to me. Most baseball stadiums are the antithesis to culinary destinations, BUT since Camden Yards and most since, i.e. AT&T, Petco, Citizen's Bank, they're sure to feature outposts of their local specialities. They also now have loads of options in terms of draft beers. What sucks is, the overall operation of the park is Sysco, who is somehow capable of overcooking, undercooking, making stale and otherwise mishandling even the most basic items. Their staff is also comicly slow and just gets shit wrong constantly. So I do hope that the ratio of Sysco-operated crapola will decrease greatly compared to the franchised outposts. It's actually a good opportunity for anyone who wants to do quality takeout food; you will ALWAYS get customers because the lines are so long elsewhere, so people are just hungry and will eat anything, at which point you really must suck if even then you can't do good business... I mean look at the crap people are actually standing online waiting for.... Funniest thing about this - the baseball schedule will exactly mirror the seasonal schedule of the Madison Park shack. So now they still don't have to even think about the shack for 4 months out of the year.

I would say supply and demand, and population trends, beget the culinary trend, not the other way around... While authentic Jewish delis have all but disappeared, you can get them in many town in the suburbs that you never could before; the Jews all fled to the suburbs. As New York City has become safer, cleaner, more gentrified, and in general a more attractive place to reside and go to school, start a career, move your company, etc. so goes the influx of non-NYers. In general, i have seen ton more imports from BBQ havens like the Carolinas, Virginia, Texas, Georgia, etc. in the past 10 years, than in the 10 years before that. And of course, as they come into the city, they're convince all us yankees that we need proper cue, especially in the summer. I credit that for a big part of the trend - a lot of cue-lovers I know are simply craving a taste of home, and are very vocal about it, blog about it, etc.

If the din at Bar Room was enough to kill your date, certainly the ride to and from Peter Luger's would too... otherwis, PL is your place, but on the merits of it's food only; it's room is just plain MALE. I might go to Keene's too... I avoid places riding reputations like Craftsteak and BLT...I've had great steaks at Dylan Prime and MarkJoseph, but I believe they are now more inconsistent and have perhaps slipped. For something different, LAN is a great Japanese restaurant that specializes in steaks - you can also do courses of American and Japanese wagyu beef, sashimi etc. Might be time to try Wolfgang's I like beef. My avatar is myself being feed mind-blowingly good top Matsuzaka (yes, just like the pitcher) beef in Japan a couple years ago. Matsuzaka is pretty much the best beef you can get....

Why not give this place a try - http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?showtopic=77974