raji

No way.... no belly.... still no Tagine takers?

I like to give my first date a "beard papa"

Do Nobu and Nobu Next Door share the kitchen? That would settle it for me...

I know I know, mea culpa, I can't even redact my post. I read the menu it's actually very reasonable. Is French Roast still in it's old space? Where is this place in relation?

enoogh already

Yup - my bad - I read $30 lunch elsewhere in the thread - carry on!

ok man don't hate me, but it bugs me - kUruma kUruma momofukU momofukU You've got some 'U's missing in your Scrabble set! As for oak's issue - it's almost always best to sit in front of the head sushi chef, everyone else is just a chip off the old block - although what happens sometimes is the the apprentice starts to get better than the head chef when he's getting older - like the Seinfeld episode with the 2 barbers... That said, it will still be very very GOOD, but might feel like you still have to go back, after all it's Sushi Yasuda not Sushi Someotherguy - If it were me I'd take the opportunity to hit up one of the SushiDens, Sushi Seki or Sugiyama (which features a lot of sashimi as part of their courses)

OK I just read that Tagine is a favorite restaurant of Julia Stiles, who also happens to be a big Mets fan too. So I'm gonna check it out - surely someone else has been?

Le Souk is known as a lounge for underground house music - they have the shishas and different nights with belly dancers but I have never heard that the food is good there - but sounds like you'll have luck in the EV...

Well, I'm the type that, if I'm going all the way to Japan from NY, or all the way to NY from Europe for that matter, I'm going to want to "do in Rome". There are the types of tourists that will, for example, stay in a Hilton no matter where they go. So they like to say they've been in the Hilton in NY, and the one in Thailand, and the one in Brazil, even though it's essentially the same Hilton everywhere they go - Same goes for restaurants, I get the feeling the Michelin grades on a scale where that restaurant could be picked up and plopped down in any cosmopolitan city - those are their standards, regardless of local color... how that's going to play in more "ethnic" locals, and NY is certainly the most ethnic of all cities, who knows...

Might not be their fault... If I'm paying that much for hamburger helper...that shit better be mind-blowing C: You got the Oak Room Burger and fries for $24. CS: Where's the booze ? Flowin' like mud around here. C: A $24 hamburger ? W-What's the story ? CS: What story ? C: Are you a rich miser or something ? CS: - Hah ! No, I'm just your average blind man. C: Your average blind man. How do you plan on paying for all this stuff ? CS: Crisp, clean dollars...American. I saved up my disability checks. C: How much did you save ? I mean, we flew first class, we're at the Waldorf-Astoria, at a $24 hamburger restaurant.

Lafayette Grill has regular bellydancing - never eaten there tho...

Not much in UWS proper, Columbus Circle and extending east and west much better - The Modern, db Bistro, Bar Americain, and the restaurants in the TWC Of course I'd go to Sugiyama 55th and 8th - that's a chef-owned bistro, sorta :-) There's a Megu in Trump Plaza, that place is very good for business dinners

I think the single best thing to get there is their deli sandwiches, they are huge, and the array of ingredients at their disposal is insane. So be happy

I've had really good luck with kosher butchers - plus it will arrive pre-brined for you, brining is a pain, what NYer has room for that? Plus the turkey tends to be of very good quality - "we answer to a higher authority"

I'd love to see any evidence for that claim. Perhaps you'll find it if you research the mandatory English education programs in Japanese schools. Not that guidebooks speak. I think you'll find that the number of Japanese who can understand written English is about infinity times the number of Americans who can understand written Japanese. Not that you need to understand much of any language to read a Michelin guide, since the Michelin red guides don't really say anything. They're great gifts for space aliens who speak purely mathematical languages and don't care about the reliability of their sources. ← Japanese people are supposed to be able to *read* more English than they *speak*. Which is why your hotel concierge won't let you leave the hotel without a card or instructions written in Japanese detailing the places you want to go - and how to get back to your hotel. Note that I am not fussing at the Japanese. How many Americans can put together a single coherent sentence in French 10 years after their last high school course? I used to speak fluent Spanish - and my fluency has disappeared rapidly after 10 years of non-use. By the way - one reason Japanese may be able to read English better than they speak it is one form of "Japanese" writing is Romanji - which is the use of the Latin alphabet to write the Japanese language. But that's like saying I can "read" French (without understanding a word of what I'm reading). ← Just to weigh in this part of the debate, all Japanese students take a mandated 6 years of English study (probably since the occupation) although it can be less in the countryside. The focus is on grammar and antiquated English situational speaking. Outside of English class the vast majority of Japanese hardly ever get to use it while they're learning it. A current debate in their educational system is also HOW they are taught - more progressive teachers want to teach English with natural pronunciation, while it is currently taught primarily with the pronunciation of the Japanese alphabet (nah nee new ney no, only 5 vowel sounds exist), because modern Japanese has incorporated SO MUCH foreign language, primarily English. If you take 1 day of Japanese and learn this alphabet, you can probably communicate with a Japanese tourist 1000% better just by pronouncing English using their katakana alphabet. (instead of saying Internet, say eentanetto) As to their speaking ability, you'll find far more Japanese speaking English usefully than the reverse... it's often IN there, it's just a matter of shyness and lack of speaking experience. How many schools in the US offer Japanese; most American Japanese speakers took it in college. And tourists are seemingly their #1 export! You can judge the state of their 15-year recession and exchange rate merely by counting heads at Rockefeller Center and Yankee games. Indeed many restaurants can stay open beyond their usefulness by catering to the right tour guides or getting featured on Japanese TV. So a pretty big economic force in NYC. Although a lot of the coin goes right back into the Japanese community as I can't tell you how many times I've had to go get Japanese food with a friend who's here for a few days just so they can tell me how much it sucks here... The vast majority of tourists refer to the "bible" Chikyuu no Arukikata which means the way one walks the globe - it's a travel guide combining shopping, dining, entertainment - http://www.arukikata.co.jp/city/NYC/index.html Try clicking around and using babelfish, you can see their info doesn't age well. I've been known to grab them out of the hands of tourists on the street and throw them in the trash. However there are tons, it's got to be the most covered topic of any travel literature I've ever seen. That includes TV coverage as there are daily and weekly shows dedicated to NY living and travel to this day... FujiTV broadcasts live from NY to Japan every weekday morning. The younger set refers to the magazine and speciality guides, the most famous has to be the one produced by BRUTUS magazine which is really fantastic, I try to get it every year for shits and giggles and it's meticulous coverage of dining, shopping, architecture, etc. Zagat's produced in Japanese now so they're getting bigger every year. I'm going to laugh at seeing Michelin's Japan guide. It will undoubtedly be a guide that caters to Euro-laden tourists in foreign-friendly areas rather than the adventurous types with adventurous palates who can carve enough time out of the 14-hour flight to master the phrase "Let me get what's popular here" or "Do you have an English menu" and can respect the local customs - many places either have an English or picture menu.... maybe I should start a guide myself or arrange culinary tours, as everyone I know wants to go to Japan at least once, and a single visit open's ones eyes to what Japanese cuisine is capable of... that's one bitch of a flight though.

Was it that obvious an insult? Maybe he simply meant women keep themselves cleaner than men? My HS french teacher loved to tell the story of how she went to Morocco with her Italian husband who was offered several camels in exchange FOR her. That's Borat-level sexism... Morocco IS an Arabic nation after all, so maybe you were expecting it a bit? Has anyone been to Tagine @ 39th and 9th recently? It's always seemed like people go there for the belly-dancing and not the food, but if it was not good, that would be strange as that stretch of 9th Avenue dependably yields at least one superlative restaurant of every nationality (except Indian as it were) and that place has been around seemingly forever... If not Tagine then where? P.S. Can't stand belly-dancing...

Yeah I saw it wrong in a press release and on their site at the link above... Mind you I'm not as soured on the list as you may think - I finally tried Devi over the weekend in part encouraged by them earning a star..

I don't know what Raji is talking about. I have the book in front of me now. Masa is listed in Midtown West, along with all of the other Time-Warner restaurants. ← You bought the guide? I just saw it here: Restaurants Borough Neighborhood Del Posto Manhattan Chelsea Masa Manhattan Midtown East Bouley Manhattan Tribeca Daniel Manhattan Upper East Side http://www.michelinguide.com/stars_nyc_07.html

Thanks, Sneakeater for digging up that topic for Ling. The full name of the restaurant is Mas (Farmhouse). The three letter word "Mas" alone will not turn up anything with the eGullet search. Galen Zamarra is a very talented chef, who for very good reasons is particularly popular amongst the Slow Food cognoscenti. ← I can also vouch for the partner/sommelier Hugh Crickmore, who had the been at Marseille previously, as a wonderful person and impeccable selector

As I wrote, Masa and Per SE, in the same building! It's just funny they moved him to Midtown East where all the other Japanese restaurants are..

Doc, you and I are going tpo get along just fine.... just fine.... I bet you like being called Doc, dontcha Doc! Now if someone on here knows Boras, maybe we could collectively woo Matsuzaka by showing him how comfortable NYC is for a native Japanese, over Chef Masa's cuisine. He's already married, so the biggest potential problem is already solved. We need a young ace and I would hate to see this guy in a yankme uniform

Absolutely. I was in the "put towards next flight to Japan" camp until I read several "religious experience" reviews of Masa in a row. People are having out-of-body experiences there....

Well..... I don't know that there was any quibbling.. I'm pretty sure all the visitor guides will tell you that 5th Avenue is the middle... any address says XXX WEST 46th Street or XXX EAST 53rd St, etc., so I think it's pretty obvious... I mean come on Michelin, it's a grid. And Per Se is in the very same building with the same address, and they listed it correctly, as Midtown West. It's probably just a stupid mistake, made it into the press releases, let's see if it made it into print. It's just ironic. I think you've got the nomenclature mixed up too - "midtown" is a north-south, not east-west, distinction. Midtown is what's in between uptown and downtown. Midtown West is that chunk from 5th to the Hudson. Midtown East is that chunk from 5th to the East River. Midtown West or Clinton, it will always be Hell's Kitchen to me Semantics aside, you're preaching to the choir about the value proposition - when Masa opened, with it's hefty price-tag, I think I was the one arguing the loudest that to enjoy dinner and drink at Masa was the same price as off-peak airfare between NY and Tokyo, so you might as well go see for yourself. That said, according to Michelin, money is no object; it's purely about what is on the plate. And a lot of people don't have the time or money to be going to Japan, although you'd think the type of person who can afford Masa does. I haven't been there yet (have been dying to), but have heard an overwhelming amount of positive food intel, from both Japanese and non-, and being that it is such a feast where you are getting both quality and quantity in an "ethereal" setting, with the attention to detail they strive for, I'm sure they're aspiring for a third star. The restaurant has 26 seats, they MUST be obsessed with quality control. Don't assume Masa has all their "stuff" flown in from Japan, the top NY sushi places use sources from all over and usually the fish coming from Japan are those which are only in season or exclusive to that market and those fish suitable to the flash-freezng process as well - that's why Yasuda-san can serve you an uni simultaneously from the North Atlantic and the North Pacific... I tend to agree with your assessment of Kaiseki in general, but I think at a solid kaiseki like Sugiyama, it's a non-issue, it's always going to taste better than it looks. Megu suffers from sometimes sacrificing flavor for excessively flashy presentation. So it's too bad you haven't had delicious kaiseki - it's supposed to be delicious! What tourists pay $350 in NY instead of $200 in Tokyo for is Masa - while sushi is a collective process from fish market to plate, there is the artisan who puts it all together and by all accounts there are few better than Masa. And of course you are paying a premium having some of the best fish in the world brought to you here in NY. Now are the stars a rating on complexity, that could be their sixth stated meaning...

Yet ANOTHER confusing description of their rating system: According to Michelin, a restaurant gets one star if it's among the world's 1,000 best, two stars for the top 300, and three stars are awarded to the top 59 eateries.