New York Restaurant Reviews – Page 16 – Writing With My Mouth Full

Soba Totto

211 East 43rd Street off Third Avenue
212/557.8200
about $80 for two people, with sake, with tip
♥ ♥ ♥

I don’t need any horoscope to tell me that I’ve been living a lifestyle I can’t afford, but it was right there on OK! Magazine, a copy I picked up after someone left it in the subway. I have been mooching off the Dr. the last couple of weeks, what with my unemployment insurance delayed and all, and feeling bad that he’s been spending for two. Last week, he wanted to eat soup and he invited me to come with him. How could I say no?

We sat at the bar and watched the place fill up. The kitchen in front of us went up in smokes whenever the guys grilled some yakitoris. We started with a few: bacon-wrapped asparagus, chicken knee bones (mmm, soft cartilage), some very livery riba and a plate of charred green peppers. A small bottle of a super dry sake helped us washed everything down.

But what we really came for is Soba Totto’s soba. I had the duck, kamo nanban, while the Dr. tried the mushroom. They were so different from each other: his broth had a subtle but earthy taste and mine was straight-up rich in flavor. The noodles easily gave, the duck melted in my mouth and the mushrooms provided some texture. Neither needed extra condiments–they were perfect the way they were served. Our bowls didn’t look like much, but sometimes soba is all you need even if someone else offers to pick up the tab.

Curry-Ya

214 East 10th Street between First and Second Avenues
866/602-8779
about $25 for two, with drinks, without tip
♥

Yohshoku, or Western dishes adapted to fit the Japanese taste, kept me alive when I was younger and wasn’t making a lot of or any money. In West L.A., I loved Curry House because I could get a hefty lunch for $5. When I was in Tokyo, I ate a lot of gyuudon and tonkatsu (beef bowls and deep-fried pork cutlets) because they were the most affordable for us kids with a tight budget. Believe it or not, back then I spent my money on design books instead of food.

So when Curry-Ya opened last year, I was excited to go even for the sake of reliving those days. True to form, my kareh raisu, the Japanese-style curry so far removed from its inspiration, tasted like how I remember them: rich, gooey, salty, and just super tasty. Unfortunately, I’m older now and I paid a higher price digesting it afterwards.

I still appreciate good design and Curry-Ya has that style I would like to adapt if ever I opened my own restaurant: marble bar, less than twenty stools up against it, open kitchen. I’m not any younger, but I’m back to having less money because of this economy and I can see more Curry-Ya in my future.

Matsugen

241 Church Street at Leonard
212/925.0202
$75 for tasting menu, without drinks, without tip
♥ ♥

66 was a long time ago but entering Matsugen reminded me of those long lunch hours I used to take to eat at an expensive restaurant and only pay lunch prices. I had a delicate dim sum meal back then, even before Chinatown Brasserie opened, and it cost triple what I would have paid at Jing Fong. No screaming waiters, though, and the white tablecloths remained white even after several dumplings and shumais.

Contrary to popular belief, Jean-Georges Vongerichten is not the chef at Matsugen. Put together the Matsushita brothers wanting their first U.S. mainland restaurant and Jean-Georges needing to replace 66 and you have a high-end Japanese restaurant in a beautifully-designed Richard Meier TriBeCa space. It’s more chic than Honmura An (ahh, more memories!) and it’s more serene than EN Brasserie.

Is it expensive? Definitely, especially if you’re used to Sobaya like me. But if you want to impress, it’s a good place to go, not just for the soba noodles made in-house, but also for sushi, sashimi and even shabu-shabu (also considerably more expensive than Shabu Tatsu’s). If you spend some time looking at the menu, you can get away with paying less than a hundred dollars for two. You won’t be achingly full, but you’ll get the idea why a big-time chef like Jean-Georges would be satisfied with only being behind the scenes on this one.

If you don’t want to be bothered with the several pages of Japanese food with detailed descriptions, the $75 tasting menu when we visited included uni with yuzu jelly–a beautifully assembled starter that’s as creamy as the freshest sea urchin around–a sushi plate, a lobster salad, a bowl of hot soba and a dessert. I highly recommend the hot soba in duck soup and the hot soba with Japanese yam. The noodles yield freely and the broth is so clean: refined Japanese food has never been better.

Hakata Tonton

61 Grove Street off Seventh Avenue South
212/242.3699
$30 each for four, with a bottle of sake, with tip
♥ ♥

I love pigs’ feet. There I said it. I’ve caramelized them before with a tart salad and I’ve grilled them to serve at a summer barbecue party. Hakata Tonton worships the tonsoku. Hakata Tonton and I were made for each other.

The grilled version is so gelatinous, succulent and generously fatty, you can’t help but suck every part until you’re just spitting out the small bones. The hot pot comes with tofu, dumplings and pork belly, as if the trotters weren’t enough to make the broth rich and tasty.

There were four of us, hungry after a few glasses of wine and beer, so we didn’t just stay with the pork but also ordered the chicken wings in sweet soy sauce and the beef short ribs. We threw in the yellowtail sashimi salad in there for a palate cleanser. The yuzu paste and ponzu sauce were just perfect for slathering and dipping because they provided the right amount of kick in each dish. (When I was in Vancouver, I bought a few jars of yuzu paste from the Japanese grocery store to take home with me.)

A few beer and sake bottles later, we left full and a little tipsy. Our wallets weren’t empty and we were happy to be escorted out with free Pez candies from the waitress.

Anthos

32 West 52nd Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues
212/582.6900
$200 for two, with wine, without tip
♥ ♥

By the fifth time someone asked us if everything was okay, I paused and looked into the waiter’s eyes and told him, Really. We’re okay. I like good service as much as anybody else but there’s a fine line between being attentive and annoying. Our waiter swung by a few times to see if we needed drink refills (our wine glasses were still more than a third full), a couple of busboys tried to clear our plates away while we were still working on them and two other waiters whom we’ve never seen before also came by to ask if we were okay. I looked around the restaurant to see if we were holding up our table for too long, but it was fairly empty at 8pm. Were the servers just bored?

When we had uninterrupted minutes to ourselves, we were able to enjoy the food. The kitchen started us off with a lamb sausage amuse which my dining companion didn’t eat because she is quasi-vegetarian. I thought it was odd that no one ever bothered to ask her. I figured that they probably assumed we both eat meat because we were at a Greek restaurant.

The smoked octopus with fennel and mushrooms in lemon confit was so fragrant while the salad of Brussels sprouts and beets was so beautifully presented. The mullet and sweetbreads combined with bitter greens were a good mix in terms of texture, although I wasn’t a fan of the bulghur wheat that came with the roasted mushrooms and hen’s egg. By the time the quail and the tuna tartare were served, I was already full. My friend, skipping the meaty dishes, had room for the cotton candy with petit fours and the rich chocolate tart with ice cream.

We were really more than okay.