Ono

[SobaAddict70]

The menu is long and complicated. The ethos is overkill, but a sybaritic diner could die worse deaths. We sliced into a pork belly entree of sinful but much-appreciated crispiness and fattiness. A gigantic tuna steak arrived with a pool of wasabi bérnaise that I would gladly wade into again and again.

Ono (Frank Bruni)

Jeffrey Chodorow, he of the genius behind Asia de Cuba and Rocco's on 22nd Street, offers another restaurant based this time on the mystique of Japan.

Soba

[Jinmyo]

To attend to our strangely situated table, which was essentially at floor level with a deep well below it for our dangling legs...

Strangely situated?

This is bizarre.

Frank's either putting us on or he really is an idiot.

[Pan]

Union Pacific had strange decor, but this place just sounds out-and-out weird. It sounds like the product of a hallucination. Anyone want to go there? Not I. But it sounds like it'll fit in in the current version of the Meat-Packing District.

[Pumpkin Lover]

I've been to a restaurant like that in Toyko. We sat at the bar, on the floor (I think), with our legs dangling down in the hollowed out floor. I wonder if this kind of sitting style is becoming a trend now.

[Jinmyo]

I've been to a restaurant like that in Toyko. We sat at the bar, on the floor (I think), with our legs dangling down in the hollowed out floor. I wonder if this kind of sitting style is becoming a trend now.

←

A trend about fiftteen years old, even in Canada. Even most teppan steak places have a few tables like this. I can't believe Frank never saw one before. If that's the case, his inexperience as a diner has been severely underestimated despite the Times' touting of it.

[Jason Perlow]

Yeah, this is not typically the sign of a quality Japanese restaurant. A local place here in NJ called "East" once had several of these tables, and when they remodeled the place as a kaiten-sushi restaurant, they removed them all. Its actually considered to be retro, they had them for about 10-20 years.

[Behemoth]

I've been to a restaurant like that in Toyko. We sat at the bar, on the floor (I think), with our legs dangling down in the hollowed out floor. I wonder if this kind of sitting style is becoming a trend now.

←

A trend about fiftteen years old, even in Canada. Even most teppan steak places have a few tables like this. I can't believe Frank never saw one before. If that's the case, his inexperience as a diner has been severely underestimated despite the Times' touting of it.

←

Yeah, if they have them out here in the midwest you know it ain't new or innovative. God, I hate those things with a passion.

[Jinmyo]

I think Frank needs to get out more.

[Joanne212]

I have yet to agree with a single word Frank Bruni has ever written.

[mjs]

Yeah, this is not typically the sign of a quality Japanese restaurant. A local place here in NJ called "East" once had several of these tables, and when they remodeled the place as a kaiten-sushi restaurant, they removed them all. Its actually considered to be retro, they had them for about 10-20 years.

←

I spend quite a bit of time in Japan and these types of tables are exceedingly common, even in very high end restaurants. I wouldn't really consider them a good or bad sign.

OTOH, I went to Ono last week. I sat at the robata counter. I didn't inspect all the other tables but didn't see anything resembling what Bruni talked about. However, it is a really big place, point being the majority of the tables aren't like that.

We had a variety of the robata (grilled items) selected personally by the executive chef. Ingredients were good quality but the smokey taste overwhelmed everything. Foie gras, salmon, fluke, lamb, all tasted almost the same. The seem to intentionally keep the charcoal flaming high. I thought the Ono parfait (uni on top with layers of different fish custards) was tasty and interesting and the sushi just so-so...again some of the fish was cooked and much too smokey tasting. Overwhelming impression was that much of it just doesn't succeed (especially given fairly high prices) and it is more flash than substance.

[SobaAddict70]

But the process of ordering them addled me. I had to decide among flesh-only skewers, combination skewers that mingle flesh with vegetables and yet another set of combination skewers that are called "fire and ice" because they wed warm elements to cold ones. And then I had to guess how much sustenance $14 of crab or $5 of chicken liver augured. (Answer: less than a full-fledged appetizer, more than a canapé.)

The "Ono parfait" marries a mousse of sweet sake and foie gras, a plum wine gelée and sea urchin. It worked.

Ono (Frank Bruni)

Soba