bpearis

I agree with you about Grimes' review -- that there was no mention of dining at the sushi bar and doing it up right and the review didn't seem to really reflect the star rating (nothing new it seems). That yellowtail/jalapeno roll didn't sound good to me. Pickled jalapeno just makes me think of movie theater nachos. -bill

If you sit at the sushi bar and basically tell Yoshida-san to give you what's good, you're going to get all sorts of stuff that's not on the menu -- fish to rival what you got when he was at Jewel Bako. At least that was the case when I went shortly after it opened..

Here's a somewhat dated menu for the BREAD BAR at Tabla. Decide for yourselves whether it seems Indian or not. Personally, the Bread Bar is one of my favorite places to eat in NYC -- Indian, American or otherwise.

I'm surprised no one spoke up and told them to pipe down. (I would've.) Further proof that the cell phone ban is a much needed breath of fresh air. I think the menu probably won't change -- at least for the time being. The old menu WAS a lot of food, not to mention they probably lost revenue due to the number of items served, in proportion to the cost spent. I kept feeling that for $100, not including what one would have spent for sake and wine, that the top option was priced amazingly low -- and that a more appropriate cost would've been something around $120 to $130. Ah, the introspection that hindsight brings.... Soba

I don't think it's lost its appeal. I was there on Monday night. I was a bit disappointed that the omakase menu was very similar to last time, but everything was excellent. The one new thing we had was lobster. It was a pound, pound and a half -- they split him down the middle from the midsection down and served the tail as sashimi with the still-live front half as a garnish. I thought it might be a bit too much for me after I said yes we'll try it -- eating something that is still looking at you -- but it turned out to be no big thing. It was delicious, sweet. Squeezing lemon on it caused the flesh to twich, which was a bit disconcerting, but it didn't stop me from eating it. The front half of the lobster came later in the meal as a soup, which I didn't find anywhere near as good. It was an odd evening, as there were two men at the sushi bar who were a bit tipsy and seemed determined to turn the place into TGI Fridays. They were yelling, making jokes, talking on their cell phones, being generally obnoxious. There was also a young-ish solo diner sitting next to me and my friend who, if it was 1999, I would describe as a dot.com dude (talking about how earlier in the week he'd dropped a grand at Alain Ducasse). He was also constantly on his cell phone. Maybe more than the drunk guys. Midway through his omakase meal, he pulls Jack over and says how he has to have o-toro, no matter what the cost. Jack tries to tell the guy that he's going to get it as part of the meal, but the guy starts demanding it NOW from the sushi chef. Then the drunk guys chime in that they want o-toro NOW too. The chef obliges, and from then on out they are telling him what they want next. If you've been to Jewel Bako, you know this isn't how it's normally done. With the omakase meal, you're going to get all the great stuff. But these guys... amateurs. Despite all the chaos, it was a great meal. I think I will wait till I hear the menu has changed to go back, but Jewel Bako remains one of my favorite restaurants in the city.

New York Magazine weighs in with their opinion.

I've walked in a certain cheese shop in the West Village and they've offered me both "special" cheese and meats without me asking about them. And I'm not a regular. I don't know if it was on the board or displayed, but they weren't shy about telling me about it. edit: for anonymity's sake

Brasserie 360 get the Diner's Journal treatment in today's NY Times. Maybe this thread should be retitled to reflect the restaurant...

The one time I called day-of and got a 6pm reservation, we were seated upstairs, which always seems preferable to downstairs. I've always had much better service up there.

That last-minute reservation was probably for 5:30. You can get 10:30 reservations day-of too, at least that has been my experience.

well, this beer had sat in their fridge undrunk for about three months... out of fear. someone brought it as a "gift" at some point. so it sort of gave the game an element of danger. but mostly we were playing with keg beer (michelob i think). but that smoked beer was gross. maybe not fear factor gross, but up there. of course, your mileage may vary.

I really like Crif Dogs. The Chihuahua is the one to get -- the dog is wrapped in bacon, deep fried and topped with avocado slices and sour cream. It's something else. If you're in Williamsburg, Sparky's Hot Dogs (North 5th, just off Bedford) is really good too. They have their buns specially baked for them and the meat comes from Niman Ranch. Crif Dogs is better, but Sparky's is in my neighborhood.

Was this on the Food Network? I haven't heard of it.

I was in the neighborhood shopping yesterday and popped in for dinner at Brasserie 360 at the sushi bar. I'm not sure how the idea for this place came to be. The space is your standard brasserie-looking place, lots of red wood, white tablecloths, etc, very nice. Two levels: downstairs is more Frenchy; upstairs is the sushi bar. But you can order off either menu anywhere you eat. At 6:30, I was the sole person at the sushi bar. I'd eaten enough at Jewel Bako for Yoshida-san to recognize me. He smiled sheepishly and asked, "How did you find me?" I said word gets around. The seven or eight seat bar is marble and high: more like Sushisay than JB or SY. There were two other sushi chefs who seemed to be handling table orders. Those hoping for Jewel Bako Uptown will be disappointed looking at the sushi menu. There are only two appetizers: eel salad ($9; with cucumber, japanese yam and that yummy vinegar jelly) and, you guessed it, toro tartare ($12). I didn't get the latter, but saw one being made. It has the avocado topping, but also comes with a couple of garnishes: some daikon and a deep-fried sawagani crab (though it doesn't mention this on the menu). There are three entrees on the sushi menu. Sushi ($24) features tuna, amberjack, seared salmon, fluke, spotted sardine, fried oyster, botan shrimp, eel and IR spicy tuna. Sashimi ($20) is tuna, yellowtail, salmon, fluke, spanish mackerel and live black fish. Sashimi 360 ($35) has toro, amberjack, salmon, red snapper, needle fish, botan shrimp and fresh octopus. A la carte has better choices than your neighborhood sushi place, but not overly so: chu-toro, o-toro, three kinds of mackerel, two kinds of salmon, and most of what's mentioned in the entre selections. Rolls are of the funkier variety: fried oyster, yellowtail w/pickled jalapeno; mozzarella cheese, sun-dried tomato and basil; spicy tuna; tuna, yellowtail, salmon, eel, shrimp, salmon skin (they list this as one but, at $5, i'm guessing it's just pick one fish); and cucumber or avacado. I got the eel salad (very good, similar to what Jewel Bako has made before) but instead of ordering one of the entrees, I just told Yoshida-san I would like 10 or 12 peices of whatever he thought was best. Happily, none of what I got was on the menu, though JB fans will find a few of them familiar: the three-day marinated tuna, the minced mackerel with ginger pressed into the shiso leaf, and seared toro. The real differences here were the sauces. The yellowtail came topped with a monkfish liver sauce, live clam with uni sauce and another one (I didn't take notes) had a spicy yuzu mayo... I think. I also got needlefish, a pristine red snapper from Nagasaki, black bass, seared king salmon and fresh sardine (which I really liked). It was all one piece at a time. According to Yashido-san, for now the good stuff is only available to customers at the sushibar. And, I'm guessing, only to those who know to ask. It was all very good, and in some ways the sushi was better than what I had at JB earlier this week. Along with more standard fare, Brasserie 360's kitchen menu lhas some interesting items: Braised Veal Cheeks; Crispy Sweetbread Cassolette; Braised Pigs Feet in Black Truffle Sauce and a few others. Did not have dessert and didn't see the menu. Not much of a wine drinker, so I cannot comment on their list. Their beer selection was pretty boring (only two Japanese beers -- Asahi and Sapporo) and they offer nine varieties of sake. I had an Asahi. Service was just fine, but the waitress was just there for drink orders and i got exceptional treatment from Yoshida-san. Again, I dont' really understand the brasserie with a sushi bar thing, but I'm glad Kazuo Yashido is still doing things his way for those who are interested. -bill

Also, the "new" chef isn't really new. Tatsuya Nagata (I think that's his name) was there every time I've eaten there (I'm pretty sure) but seemed to be second fiddle to Kazuo Yoshida. The new new sushi chef seems to be more of an apprentice. He was showing the new guy a piece of sushi and telling him why it should be done the way it was done. They each took a piece, snuck down below the bar and came up chewing.

Had dinner at Jewel Bako last night with a friend at the Sushi bar and had nearly the same meal that SobaAddict70 described above. Had the soba/greens/wild mushroom salad and toro tartare (the proportion of toro to avacado seemed normal, the green stuff was just icing). We also had a variety of wild mushrooms cooked in a foil pouch with butter and yuzu, with fresh lemon we squeezed on at the very last second. this was great. Next came sashimi. The last time I was there (early Novemeber) you had to choose whether your omakase came with sushi or sashimi -- you got both with the $100 version. Now $75 is your only choice and you get sashimi and sushi, which is fine by me. We were given four kinds of yellowtail, sweet shrimp, two kinds of white fish and, I think, mackarel. The amazing, amazing soup with yellowtail "meatballs" followed. This was just wow. My friend and I both agreed the only way to improve it would be to get four yellowtail balls instead of two. The broth was perfection. Sushi was next, with many of the varieties SobaAddict described. New to me was the sweet shrimp sushi that was a bit hard to eat (lots of noodly looking shrimp on the one piece, sort of fell off the rice), but very very good. After the lichee sorbet we had a fruit-and-cream-filled cake/pastry thing that was quite good. Jack gave us a nightcap of this fruit-infused alcohol (which he described as being like grain, but not grain. pure alcohol) that smelled like scotch but tasted very smooth, mild and, well, fruity. I detected no decline in quality from my previous four visits and the service remains excellent. Just a fabulous meal. We were there for nearly three hours but it only seemed half that long.

NY Press sort-of reviews OTTO in this week's issue (only one visit). Basically says what's been said here: crust is tasteless but the gelato is awesome. Read it here.

The Obsever "reports" on the situation, which has quickly escalated to the $500 burger. This link may only be good through the weekend.

That looks much more appetizing than what I attempted to eat. This was, I think, stir-fried. It looked like inch and a half sized pieces of white bread, but sort of yellowish in color. I was fine with it 'til I put it in my mouth.

Some Chinese-American freinds of mine took me too Flushing, Queens this weekend for some culinary adventures. This included a stop at the Flushing Food Court. Of the many foodstands featuring menus almost exclusively in Chinese, we stopped at two. The first was a noodle stand where a woman made them fresh -- cutting, stretching and slapping them on the counter before throwing them in the boiling water. Our soup had, I think, lamb and "36 Chinese herbs." It was delicious. I wish I felt the same way about what we got from a Taiwanese stand -- stinky tofu. My friends were practically salivating in the car on the way out there, telling me how good it was. I'm a pretty adventurous eater and have no problem with offal, thousand-year-old eggs, and the like. But I met my match with stinky tofu. It came with some kind of cabbage-y green and a yellowish sauce. Taking in the aromas, my freinds got excited -- "It's so stinky!" To me it sort of smelled like moist gym socks that have been at the bottom of a laundry pile for a month. The texture was much like that as well, spongy, squishy and stinky. Maybe I shouldn't have eagerly shoved a whole piece in my mouth, but I found it entirely foul and, after holding it in my mouth for a few long seconds, had to spit it out into my napkin. Why hasn't this stuff been featured on Fear Factor? Obviously, some people love this stuff and searches on this site found a few members praising it but my palate was just not ready for it. Maybe it's like that scene in Defending Your Life -- it's food for people who use more of their brain than I do.

but they also say that anyone can make reservations. i wonder if the restaurant will continue after the show ends?

Oh dear, Rocco starts starts getting real

I'm pretty sure TONY has fact-checkers. They knew they were on the record I bet. The gist of the story is about stuff that's illegal in the US -- cheeses, fruits, cured meats -- that wouldn't have Greenpeace *too* up in arms. It's not about eating Komoto Dragon or anything. They basically say that the government doesn't inforce these laws, 'cause you can get it pretty easily in NYC.

If there was ever a need for a EW-style charticle, it's this.

I believe someone told me that she'd left, but I'm clearly fallible. ANyone have the latest issue handy? i'm pretty sure she still works there.