raji

If you have a bad experience at EMP, it's your fault. IMO!

I'll go a step further; the inclusion of Kyo Ya when there are plenty of other restaurants in that league excluded makes me suspect that not only are they asking friends, but they're trolling Chowhound, where Kyo Ya has received pretty universally warm reviews. And maybe that discovery on Chowhound is followed up with an actual in-person visit, but I doubt they visited any of it's peers which were not included. I haven't been there yet but the people who have seem easily impressed. That said, to see Kyo Ya, Gari and Jewel Bako at 1 star, and not a single of the Totto and Aburiya group included up there, proves to me that these people are talking through their boxer shorts, at least when it comes to Japanese.

Their menus are pretty similar between Yakitori Totto and Torys, yes - the latter is the little sister of the former, but Aburiya pretty much has it's own distinct robata menu with classed up versions of a few Totto things like their trademark tsukune, and Soba Totto's focus is on Soba, and they have a subset of the Yakitori menu, which I don't know will be maintained if and when they open another sister restaurant, as that yakitori menu generally follows the female head chef of the group as she is always working at the newest of the restaurants.

They're not comprehensive, but who is? ← Well, it seems like that they're being held to that standard. Because most of the chatter on here is why this or that restaurant wasn't included, or why a place like Jewel Bako still is. Maybe they just don't have the resources to keep up with world's penultimate culinary destination, 2nd only to Tokyo....

Is it safe to say that it is not Michelin NY's goal to be COMPREHENSIVE whatsoever? If so, I really don't mind their list, I just don't use it.

containing collagen?

Gyouza in the context of Ramen, or gyouza even from non-ramen places? When Setagaya first opened, I openly begged them to start offering gyouza and soon after they actually did, and those were pretty good. Rairaiken's too. Some of the Chinatown (ramen and gyouza, are after all, Chinese imports) places are better on execution and because they are high turnover but suffer because of low-quality ingredients. I really like Mandoo at some places in Koreatown and the pan-friend mandoo (gunmandu) are pretty much the same thing as gyoza - as could be considered turkish/afghani mantoo and those are served with yummy yogurt and meat sauce. I've been forced to eat Rickshaw a few times and that absolutely sucks, skins are wayyyy to thick Most gyouza come out of the freezer anyway. There recently an epidemic in Japan because a bunch of imported Chinese gyouza were making people sick. Gyouza often show up on izakaya menus with nonstandard fillings, and those are the ones you want to go for because that means they're probably house-made. Yakitori Totto features house-made gyouza, and those are probably the best I've had in the city. There is now a chain of restaurants in Japan that are gyouza-only restaurants (gyouza are usually the realm of ramen-ya),which I happened to be taken to by my friend's wife last April in Shimo-kitazawa, and those are probably the best I'd had in the world (close second was in Shenzhen, China), as they should be as a gyouza-only restaurant with extremely high turnover in one of the better culinary neighborhoods in Tokyo. Before this gyouza-focus, I would normally ask a Japanese dining buddy which ramen-ya happens to have awesome gyouza, and just walking out of a train station you could see which ramen-ya had people seated who were all ordering their gyouza since it is always pretty obvious, and I expect as the ramen competition heats up in NYC, so will the gyouza.

Ohh Kathryn you and I both know that people on here are not getting recommendations from TONY.... that said, Sapporo has for the most part sucked since the 90s, cheap ingredients prepared by a low-wage staff. But that's one of their best dishes, just the best dish of a bad place. I'm not a misoramen guy, but last time I was in Ippudo, I was with a good friend from Setagaya-ku in Japan (yes, the same Setagaya - I personally was not a fan of theirs in Tokyo and felt they never delivered on their promises in NY, but that's for another thread - and my buddy agreed that they sucked harder in NYC) and claimed that Ippudo's misoramen was just about the best he'd had in NY. Worth a try would be Menkuitei and Menchankotei's midtown locations, and downtown, perhaps rairaiken to be honest. Of course better to be had at Santouka @ Edgwater. Open already, bastards!

Japanese comprehension wouldn't have helped, they don't tell you on the website. It's like their "secret sauce". I asked an old friend who works there and she said she wouldn't divulge trade secrets! If you wanna spring for a ramen, I'll happily go and identify it for you... if I can't, the ramen's on me. Gourma-challenge!

Saravaanas I still like Madras Mahal Tamil Nadu Bhavan Dimple for chaat

Shark Fin is vegetarian? South Indian vegetarian is the only vegetarian food I can "go out" for. If you haven't been to curry hill recently, you are seriously missing out.

Sorry for the delay in reply, I've been away. After the many, MANY requests I have to divulge the might wasabi trick, exclusively to you loyal Egulleteers, for being members of the best, most well-maintained culinary community out there! So this was revealed to me many moons ago at a dynamite sushi-ya in Shimo-Kitazawa as a way to safely consume the wasabimaki, which is often ordered as al palate-cleanser after a sushi meal. They should usually be made with real wasabi, although recently I had one served to be made with the tubular variety at Yasuda of all places. Here's what you do. When you're eating a large amount of wasabi, as you are chewing, processing and swallowing it, breathe in and out through your nose and/or close off the channels to your nasal passages. Just the act of breathing in and out through your nose should do this well enough but you might want to close off your nasal passages the same way you would if you were jumping in a pool. The whole stinging buzz you get from Wasabi are the the vapors released when you further masticate it and release them into your mouth. If they don't reach your nose and most importantly, your sinuses, you are shielded from that wasabi buzz, and you can pretty much eat as much of it as you want. This works with both the green horseradish served as wasabi and real wasabi. Try it out!

I've seen a lot of support for this place on Chowhound... They might put up a fuss at a 6top for 2. For those who don't know, "kappou" is a casual but authentic as in classic Japanese fare. Think of an "classic" American restaurant that's serving the kind of stuff you'd see at a Thanksgiving dinner inasmuch as those are as much of an American meal as you can get. I think they do a kaiseki meal that has to be ordered a couple days ahead of time. Take a look at Aburiya's menus http://www.aburiyakinnosuke.com/aburiya.htm I would lean towards there as women tend to very much enjoy all their sashimi and fish options as well as their drink menu.

Well, you got the right idea - a tatami room is usually reserved for a business meeting or some special occasion. The dilemma, as Brian insinuates, is that the existence of such a room is no indication of it's merits as a culinary destination. Not too long ago you could easily find a tatami room in Japanese restaurants that haven't really remodeled since the 80s, and have not yet succumbed to the space constraints of the Manhattan of the '00s. If you don't want to skimp, you go to Masa, that's pretty obvious. Here's the thing - you asked for an authentic restaurant for your wife's bday. You want GREAT food and a nice experience. Bar none you will not get more authentic than Munekata-san's restaurants - AK, Yakitori Totto, Torys, and Soba Totto - they're really the most uncorruptable and their menus are so extensive and varied that you can really spend a fair amount of time experiencing all of them. Actually, Soba Totto might actually have a Tatami room; give them a call. Either way, everything from the menu, to the presentation, to the furniture, to the chopsticks, to the service, is pretty damn close to Japan. And the ambiance is very very nice. It's just not gaudy, which NY sometimes demands. So, if it were me, I'd book a private room for one of those, and then do dessert at Kyotofu. The only thing missing will be sitting on the floor, which is not as romantic as you might think. Places like Morimoto, Megu, En, and even Nobu and Matsuri to a certain extent, they're like Las Vegas Japanese. Japanese people might go to those restaurants, but mostly for the spectacle. Sugiyama is great too, but besides the food, might lack the wow factor that the others I've mentioned have.

Oh Brian, be nice... Honestly I can't keep up with who has them anymore, for many they have private rooms with tatami floors and it's a matter of swapping out the table for mats. I much prefer recessed seating - where you are sitting on the floor but your legs hang in recessed seating. They have that all over Japan. I think Nadaman Hakubai has some, and I'm pretty sure Sushiden has them, and those are 2 reliably good authentic Japanese restaurants. En might have some too, that place is huge. I would pick the restaurants you want to go and then call and ask them if they have tatami rooms or recessed seating (honestly I don't know how to say that in Japanese). Based on food I'd take your wife to Aburiya Kinosuke or Sugiyama for a very special experience.

Koi in the Bryant Park hotel?

If it were me I'd call in a 6:30p reservation and walk 10 blocks north to Yakitori Totto - if you order carefully, no alcohol, you can easily get out for under $50 a person. Also from right there I'd recommend Marseilles & Hell's Kitchen

Otoro is the guilty pleasure a sushi dinner. You can never have enough, and of course it's super-tasty and super-expensive. Think about it, fish don't really have fat on them. Where it does, it's pretty tasty, so how exclusive are those small portions of marbled tuna, kanpache, salmon, etc. However, if you really want to impress a veteran sushi chef, show them you can distinguish a good white fish (shiromi). Of course they'll know you'll like the toro. Everyone likes the toro!

There is a trick I was taught by Japanese wasabi farmers to dealing with a wasabi accident or a chef with a heavy hand. I'd post it on here but I stand to lose a decent source of income winning bets at bars. It's too late now but if you PM I'll tell you. It's been a while since Nobu was the standard bearer for Japanese in NYC, maybe not since around 2000. I'd only go there for the scene and for their signature dishes. That said, if you're finding pin bones in their signature dish, and not getting reliably well-executed Japanese cuisine there, I'd be pretty surprised.

Yasuda serves great otoro. I think most people on here take issue with the quantity, not quality of it.

I wasn't implying that Kuruma's tuna comes from Japanese waters - but the best bluefin tuna worldwide does end up at the Tsukiji auctions, right? Demand for sushi-grade fish has skyrocketed worldwide, so it has become harder and costlier for Japan to import all the fish they need - but the highest demand and the most exclusive fish will almost always go to Japan. So I could see their otoro, if it's so damn good, coming from the costlier auctioned Tuna from Tsukiji or other markets in Japan, where it's then further subdivided to different distributors, one of whom reserves a shipment's-worth to Kuruma. This might at least partially justify the cost.

Well if anyone had the details, it wouldn't be exclusive, would it... Yasuda works with various suppliers. Also, lots of sushiya have fish flown from Japan. So I'm sure Kuruma's tuna is from his source in Japan, secret or exclusive or not....

I wish my palate could experience a palette of Japanese flavors too! ← Suck it, U.E.! Cross-reference my post times, if I'm posting during the 8th inning of a close Mets game, I'm lucky I'm not drunkposting like a certain member let alone distinguishing between palate and palette

Yeah, c'mon Ben, you guys are so ADD sometimes. Reading comprehension! Also, why are you propagating Todd36's horrible spelling errors? The Tora/Tuna debate... Kuruma's ultimate strength is that they have an exclusive source for tuna (including the belly). Their tuna will be the best in town, as well it should be for that kind of coin. Kuruma is also a holdover from the bubble economy. Remember when the land area comprising the emperor's palace in Tokyo was worth more than the entire state of California? When Japanese investors bought Rockefeller Center? Kuruma-zushi will make you nostalgic for that era, in all the wrong ways, right in the middle of a Bush economy; juxtaposition if you ask me. So, tuna for tuna, Kuruma is better than Yasuda, economic factors aside. However, Yasuda excels at accommodating regulars, Japanese, Americans and Europeans alike, and this is a key to their popularity. The difference between sitting in front of Yasuda-san and the 5th sushi chef down the line isn't all that great, nor the price, yet the quality is consistently high. I credit their ownership for this. As for being worth it - dagordon chose to go to Kuruma only after he'd sample the best of Tokyo. This is a worthy endeavour, but if you truly want to emulate the other customers at a place like Kuruma-zushi, you honestly have to be living in Japan if not for a little while. After I'm back in that land for a week or two, my palette zooms in, focuses and expands. Because the Japanese flavor palette pulls the envelope back in, as it were, I don't really venture into the more delicate areas of it until I've been back for a bit. The same way that you can spend a few weeks in Thailand and suddenly you're eating the chilies out of your Laarb, the opposite will happen in Japan to you - if you eat like the natives. While the sign of a true sushi conneissuer [sp??] is the expansion of the palette over the course of one meal - white fish, to shell fish, to pink and red fish, to fatty fish, to cooked fish,... your tongue WILL truly adjust to a week of Japanese immersion. Try a soda out of a vending machine over there, for chrissakes.

That's a lot of money. How many pieces sashimi/sushi was it? How many courses of otoro were there? I haven't been to Kuruma in years, since being taken there by Japanese friends. They reward regulars, and unless you are one, you are paying full retail price. It's so prohibitively expensive that I can certainly cure sushi cravings at other worthy sushiya in the city and I can wait until I next go to Japan for an experience better than Kuruma at 1/5 the price. Kuruma's tab is enough to fly you to the land of the rising sun. Yasuda is a very appropriate comparison because they are the diametric opposite and very precisely tabulate EVERYTHING. There are new printouts of the market prices weekly, daily, whenever there are changes and the fish shipments arrive. I too was amazed that I wracked up a $570 bill at Yasuda, for 2, in little under 60 minutes, but when I went back over it, yes me and my friend had eaten ALL of that, all sashimi and sushi, and their pieces are small. Little over a year ago I had gone to Yasuda and spent only about $150, but I do believe it was because I was so busy catching up with my friends that we did not feast at the frenetic pace that I had most recently. When you order omakase at Yasuda, your tab will be determined by the kinds of fish you eat, but you are not really rewarded as a regular. This is much closer to Japanese custom and their notorious inflexibility. When you eat at Kuruma, you're charged some outrageous prices which used to be justified by the exclusivity of their wares, and then the price is pared down based on some nebulous calculation by your sushi chef. That said, if I was going to Kuruma these days, I would ask to order a la carte, which should show you the per piece prices, or set a price limit, otherwise you're in for an experience such as oakapple, which can certainly sting at the end of an otherwise wonderful meal.