Friday, November 21, 2008

NYC: Sachiko's

The best sushi ever. Why?
- Sachiko herself
- two sushi chefs: middle aged japanese men with huge heads and huge hands. Fingers like D-batteries. Makes a nice contrast as these apparent cro magnons in chef attire apply the most delicate cutting and shaping of primo sushi.
- Original David Hockney photo montage of monks at the rock garden of ryoanji (i think) made by David for Sachiko.
- Outstanding service.
- Really important: presentation. It's all about presentation. I'm all about presentation (not my own self presentation though; I haven't had a haircut in ages.) Note in the photo the added touch of a red maple leaf. A far cry from the fake green plastic grass that accompanies lower and even middle tier sushi presentations. Additionally, the entire space informs the design of internal objects: a narrow and long space contains low and long tables, elongated windows, and a super wide David Hockney (2 x 6?) It's not Frank Lloyd Wright, but I believe he would approve.
- Temperature: the sushi seems to always be at the ideal temperature for maximum flavorliciousness. None of the warm and dry "i've been sitting out for awhile" or the super cold flavorless crap.
- Sapporo on draft and frosted mugs. So much better than the bottle. Could they be slipping msg into the beer? Or is msg just dispersed in aerosol form via the air conditioning so that as soon as you enter the restaurant, every inhale says "Delicious!" But seriously, Sachiko's would never stoop (i think) to msg ... which usually gives me a pounding hammer headache.

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