Message: | And S. Irene Whatever got to it long after Eric Asimov. See the article pasted below.
Copyright 2000 The New York Times Company
The New York Times
May 17, 2000, Wednesday, Late Edition - Final
$250 AND OVER . . . And When $300 Would Feed a Crowd?
by Eric Asimov
BEVERLY HILLS, Calif.
AS I pulled my rental Pontiac into a parking garage under Rodeo Drive, I felt uncomfortable. A Ferrari was in front of me, a Bentley behind me, and a glowering specimen of Parkingattendus southerncalifornius awaited, ready to confirm my lowly status with a sneer.
Instead, the attendant held the door for me and greeted me politely. I stepped out, straightened my back and headed to the elevator for Ginza Sushiko.
The Zagat Survey for Los Angeles says Ginza may be the Most Expensive Restaurant in America -- $300 a person for dinner, I was told, not including wine, tax or tip -- but its site, on the second floor of Two Rodeo, a small shopping center with all the charm of an office building, is far more Pontiac than Bentley. As I stepped out of the elevator, though, I didn't see any restaurant. I turned left, passed a shoe store and headed down a shabby corridor with a peeling linoleum wall covering. I got to an emergency door propped open by a cinder block before deciding I'd better turn back. I walked past the men's and ladies' rooms this time, and there it was, behind a lattice wood door, Ginza Sushiko.
This was the most expensive restaurant in America? A modest sushi bar with nine seats and two tables on the second floor of a unprepossessing building? What's more, even though the restaurant is a favorite of the film and fashion industries, nobody else was there, other than the chef and an assistant. Admittedly, it was only 6:30 and shoppers in the plaza below still wore their Guccis in the sunshine, but I had a plane to catch and so was eating early.
I was beginning to feel odd again. I don't ordinarily spend a lot of money at restaurants, and when I had made a reservation several days before, the fellow on the phone made sure that I understood the $300 prix fixe. Even with the broader trend toward higher prices, this is an extreme example, and I got the sense that more than a few first-time customers had bugged out with sticker shock at Ginza. The restaurant took my credit card number and explained that if I canceled my reservation it would still cost me $100. I was dismissive, with the inner calm of one who has been blessed by the expense account gods.
Now, I wasn't so sure of myself. I took a seat at the sushi bar, a smooth wooden chair with a brass plate bearing the name S. Snukal on the backrest. All the chairs had names on them, in fact. The assistant told me the nameplates were for the members of a club. I silently apologized to S. Snukal for sitting in his or her chair (and to R. Snukal, whose chair was being used by my bag), and looked up at Masa Takayama, the chef and owner, who stood expectantly behind the bar. "Omakase," I said, indicating I was putting myself into Mr. Takayama's hands.
Not that I had any choice. Ginza does not offer a menu, which was fine by me. I prefer that the chef serve what he likes, depending on what's freshest and how he's inspired. As Mr. Takayama got to work, I looked around at the sleek counter of unadorned blond wood, at the slate floor and at a large triangular niche behind Mr. Takayama, where a half-moon pool of water was adorned with flowers. The work area held the usual assortment of knives and graters, along with a small charcoal brazier, a tub of rice and a bowl of fresh ginger, wasabi root, small limes and other flavorings and garnishes. No fish was visible.
Ginza has no wine list, but feeling bold, I asked for "your best sake," and the assistant returned with a ceramic carafe, which he placed in a lacquered bamboo bowl with ice and flowers. "Dry but a little sweet," he said as he poured a thimbleful of the clear, icy liquid into an etched glass.
By this time Mr. Takayama had placed a small bowl in front of me with okra, cooked in seaweed broth and topped with grated lime zest, a light, refreshing way of inaugurating the meal. "Anything you don't eat?" he asked me. I shook my head, and the procession of small dishes began.
Mr. Takayama pulled out a pink, well-marbled block of meat. "Toro," he said, the prized fatty part of the tuna belly. Cutting swiftly, he fanned out shreds of the toro in a small bowl, topping it with gray beads. "Caviar," he said as he maneuvered small rectangles of bread over the brazier with his chopsticks and placed it all in front of me. "Toro tartare," he said. With chopsticks, I made a neat hillock of tuna and caviar on the bread and ate, the salty, bracing flavor of the roe melding with the buttery toro and the smokiness of the soft grilled bread. Mr. Takayama seemed pleased by my sighs.
Then came a small bowl of Spanish mackerel blended with lime zest, scallions and tiny lavender shiso flowers, which have the anise flavor of the shiso green without any of the harshness. They were mild and pleasing, leaving a glow in the mouth.
Mr. Takayama worked smoothly and easily, as his assistant, unprompted, brought out precisely the ingredient or tool he required. As the assistant grated fresh wasabi, Mr. Takayama prepared freshwater eel, lightly broiling the fillet over the coals, then topping it with small green kinome leaves, an herb that gave the perfectly delicate eel the mildest scent of vanilla.
It is easy, when splurging, to be overly price-conscious, as if the mental abacus cannot help but continually reassess whether you're getting your money's worth. But all I could think about as I ate was how wonderfully fresh and clean everything tasted, and how graceful and imaginative Mr. Takayama's combinations were. The artistic bowls and plates, selected specifically to complement each course, were beautiful, but the ultimate appeal was the sublime purity of the ingredients, which I later found out are flown in from Japan several times a week. Freed from budgetary constraints, liberated from the assembly-line compromises of cooking for a crowd, Mr. Takayama has created a dream sushi bar where each ingredient is an ideal.
For the next course, Mr. Takayama withdrew from a cabinet a beige mass the size of a small cauliflower -- foie gras, I realized in a double take -- and sliced off several good-size pieces. Then he made fine slices in a piece of cream-colored fish resembling yellowtail and put both on a plate in front of me, as his assistant placed a dish of ponzu sauce and a bowl of bubbling hot seaweed broth beside it.
"Look," he said. He picked up a slice of foie gras with his chopsticks, swirled it in the broth and put it on my plate. As I dipped it in ponzu and ate, the liver seemed to melt in my mouth. Then Mr. Takayama picked up a slice of fish, dipped it ever so briefly in the broth, and magically, it seemed to blossom into a beautiful rose, its brininess playing counterpoint to the rich foie gras. I cooked the next slices myself and drank the broth.
Now, the preliminaries were over. The assistant replaced my chopsticks with a fresh pair, and it was time for sushi. Mr. Takayama began, again, with toro, supremely tender and luxurious, on perfectly prepared rice. Too often, rice is the ignored half of the sushi partnership, taken for granted, but Mr. Takayama's rice was soft and lightly vinegared, each grain independent, yet part of an indivisible unit.
Next came cool, clean aji, or horse mackerel, its shiny skin shimmering, and then ika, or squid. In front of me I had a dish of soy sauce, freshly grated wasabi and ginger, but Mr. Takayama looked pained as I picked up the ika with my fingers and moved toward the soy sauce. "No, don't dip," he interjected, and I pulled back just in time. He was right: the squid was perfect with no more than his signature lime zest and a pinch of salt over the top.
As the sushi dishes came one after the other, I was still the only diner there. Sweet clam, bright, delightful and a little chewy; red clam, with a lovely crosshatched design, tangy and a little sharper than the sweet clam; small, silvery gizzard shad, which tasted like pickled herring; and then wonderfully tender maguro tuna, broiled ever so briefly and painted with fresh wasabi.
Mr. Takayama placed each dish before me and announced the ingredient. He seemed unconcerned by the rituals of transference that can encumber a more formal sushi bar. He was fun to speak with.
The sushi kept coming: beautiful slices of shiitake tasting pleasantly of the forest; abalone that was both salty and crunchy; sea urchin, almost luridly unctuous, yet breathtakingly fresh; briny and sweet sea eel; a red clam roll; and then Kobe beef with lime and salt, as tender and rich as the toro, which it surprisingly resembled.
I asked Mr. Takayama whether it was a slow night, and he shrugged, saying two parties were coming the next night. The assistant asked me about my favorite sushi bars in New York.
Still more: maguro, which Mr. Takayama indicated was to be dipped, and a dried shrimp stuffed with sweetened egg. "I think I'm almost full," I said. "Good, because this is the last dish," Mr. Takayama replied, placing a toro-shiso leaf roll that was almost beefy in its rich intensity.
I leaned back, sipping the last of my sake, and the assistant put before me a small goblet with chilled, minced grapefruit sections, as sweet as sorbet, yet more refreshing. And I was done.
Except the check: $250, plus $20 for the sake. "Not $300?" I asked. "Only for blowfish season, November to March," Mr. Takayama said. With tax and tip, it was $352.28.
Was it worth it? I could have spent the money on a sport coat, round-trip airfare to London, a half-dozen New York parking citations, maybe two tickets to a Knicks game. Or, as a friend dourly suggested, "you could have fed a lot of hungry people with that money."
Later, I tracked down the Snukals, Robert and Sheila, whose chairs I had borrowed. They have been regulars since Ginza first opened, 16 years ago, at another site.
"It's probably one of the few places we go -- it kind of spoils you," said Ms. Snukal, who lives in Brentwood and is in the health care business with her husband. "It's so sublime that in terms of justifying it, I don't have a psychiatrist: this is our therapy. This replaces trips to France. It replaces 10 meals somewhere else. Masa is amongst the greats -- he really is."
I do know that the meal was superb, singular and memorable. And as I left, past the bathrooms, down the elevator and out to the garage, I had one more surprise before me: parking, the smiling attendant told me, was free.
Ginza Sushiko is at Two Rodeo, second floor, 218 North Rodeo Drive, Beverly Hills; (310) 247-8939. |