I can confidently say that Uogashi is the only mid-range (price-wise) that I wasn't disappointed with. For other ~$100 or under omasake, just skip it twice and save for a nicer meal at a place like Sushi Ikumi.
Had a great meal in Arlington Ma the other night for probably 1/2 the price and better quality. Thank God I don't live in NY.
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@Brett Lane. How can you possibly judge the quality, and with such conviction too?!
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The irony is that the tuna flown in from Tokyo may have been previously swimming off the coast of Massachusetts. We need to stop falling for the marketing hype and demand local seafood.
7
Takes me back to the 1960's when the Tuna boats came in with average 900 lb Tuna the size of a Volkswagon with dinner plate sized eyes.Tuna then was canned and also used for pet food.There was no such thing as sushi or Fukishima or the great trash gyre the size of Texas.
1
No matter how much one spends on a sushi dinner a slice of pizza one the way home is required in order to stave off a midnight trip to the fridge.
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@ RGB NYC
I wonder if a portion of take-home sushi, sashimi or shrimp tempura would not be a better replacement of a pizza?
I am interested in the connections between national food and national character, if there are any. Have sushi and flat noodles slurped from a bowl influenced the development of "Japanese character"? What may be the effect of the growing popularity of sushi in the US on "American character"?
I suggested a couple of times to Mr. Frank Bruni to analyse this subject, but there was no response.
"No matter how callous and unfeeling we restaurant critics may appear, none of us, as far as I know, has actually hoped for a restaurant to burn down. I may have to reconsider that, though, in light of how much good it seems to have done a sushi bar called Uogashi". -- This opening statement was criticized by one reader as being "insensitive". The case of Uogashi may be that of Phoenix rising from the ashes or forest renewing itself after a fire. Inveterate sushi lovers can only hope.
2
I find it hard to believe that people still eat sushi, when it is well known how destructive the methods are for getting fewer and fewer fish and in particular that even the finest sushi restaurants deliberately mislable the fish they serve because there just isn't any more of some species. What a shame that the NYT on one hand seems outraged at what Trump does to undermine efforts to combat climate change but on the other promotes species decimation and over fishing.
4
@Ericka / I'm sure any Sushi bar is sensitive to your suggestions Ericka. They will soon be required to declare their status of environmentally friedliness as soon as you have put DT in prison for his GW crimes and replaced him with Elisabeht Warren.
1
Stop flying fish in from Japan.
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In Orange County, there is a common thing around Fusion sushi, which is the unique combination a chef creates for individual nigori. It’s very subtle, yet has a lasting impression when done well. I have not seen anything like it in New York. We don’t have fancy here, we just have good quality. Fancy, pretentious and over priced comes from reviewers and restaurant critics that write very well, but their world is very small, contained on a little island called Manhattan.
4
@JLuv
The New York Times is two things. It is a national newspaper and it is a local New York paper.
It does many food and restaurant reviews of local foods and restaurants. Golly gee whiz, that local locality is New York. You can figure this this out because the name of this newspaper is The New York Times.
May I gently suggest that you reduce your angst by skipping the local foodie reviews and stick to your Orange county newspapers for such reviews.
It would be so much kinder to your delicate sensitive sensibilities.
Signed, a third generation New Yorker.
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Yes and the oceans are being strip mined of fish, particularly tuna or “meguro”. It’s tragic really.
3
So the middle ground is a place where an omakase meal can cost anywhere from 95 to 175 bucks? I'm sure it's a lot of sushi, of high quality. Sushi's not exactly the most filling food around though.
If that's the middle ground these days, the old NYC is dead and buried. More bank branches, more Duane Reades, and apparently more middle ground sushi places like this.
3
1) Rent in NYC tends to be higher per sw. ft. than elsewhere. That is reflected in the prices.
2) Hard to find (on sushi menus) fish may well have a premium wholesale price which is passed down to the customer.
3) The criteria of which places get reviewed and how they are related are clearly not dependent on the effect they have on the environment, although the review may include statements about such. Maybe it would be better if it did, but a restaurant review should not depend on environmentally friendliness. How you choose which places to eat at will.
If the review gives enough [accurate] information to let you decide if you want to visit the place, it is a good review. From my point of view, this was a good review.
9
I've had sushi in Tokyo and other cities in Japan. What a pleasure.
1
And if you don't need to be hip, not really expensive either.
1
I have an amazing sushi restaurant here in Potomac, Maryland that never lets me down and I can walk out of a lovely dinner with a large Sapporo beer under my belt for under 50 bucks.
Paying for a single dinner the same price as what could get me a ticket to Japan seems...well, fantastically idiotic. If you have that kind of money and want to burn it in your ego-mouth go for it.
6
Where are you getting plane tickets to Japan for under $200 dollars?
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If they don't have a dragon roll, I ain't going.
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@ James Brooklyn, NY
Dragon Roll is an Americanized sushi product, pronounced and written in Japanese do-ra-go-n ro-ru. But, judging by its description in Internet, an interesting variety of sushi.
4
The food writer who has never said the word sustainable.
7
I keep seeing $$$ figures for these specialties.
I can purchase the very best of seafood for a pittance,
In fact, red tuna and albacor as well as mahi-mahi and mackrel are all available on the Pacific coast of Guatemala from $2 to $3 a pound.
With these and the best of rice and wrappings these treats are beyond afordable; they are daily fair.
I think the big apple crowd have too much $$ to pay.
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@Discernie
It's cheaper than going to the west coast of Guatemala to buy the fish.
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@ Discernie Las Cruces, NM
If you are indeed located in N. Mex., but buying your fish in Guatemala, you must be an jnveterate gastrotourist, to whom travel costs mean nothing. One sees interesting ads of gastrotours of seafood in Japan, a country of seafood cuisine without equal. Perhaps I am a plebeian miser, but the benefit/cost ratio of such tours seems pretty low to me, given the after all unkown quality of the food.
1
The oceans are dying. As they go, so goes the planet.
Vegan can save the planet all by itself. If you care!
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OK, it was supposed to be amusing, but I still don't like that first paragraph.
2
Psst, that’s dead, raw, not freshly dead fish you’re justifying eating.
How that’s even dignified is mind blowing!
3
@ScottB Because it tastes good.
6
We have Sushi in Seattle. Eating Sushi in Kansas would be like playing Russian Roulette, with all chambers loaded. And strangely, Sushi in Florida is mediocre, at best. Great review and lick-worthy Photos.
10
Apart from the question of freshness, there is usually little difference in sushi to justify inordinately high price. Perhaps some ingredients flown live or on ice from Japan and other Pacific islands? Rice grown on holy/sacred land of monasteries?
I am inclined to a plebeian thought, you have tasted kne goid sushi, you have tasted them all.
2
Nice - sounds like my friendly neighborhood "kaiten sushi" dive... ;)
7
I have yet to find a sushi restaurant anywhere that serves better sushi for the money than any of the common neighbourhood sushi restaurants that blanket Vancouver. The sushi scene in New York is, by my findings, one restaurant after another charging way too much for too little quality. Don’t order shrimp cocktail in the desert. Don’t order sushi in New York.
8
Thanks for finding a unicorn. Can't wait to try it. Sushi in NYC drives me nuts. It's either low-end (cheap but not ALL that cheap) places where the sushi isn't even good or high-end $300+ meals that are amazing but leave you hungry and needing a Shake Shack burger after.
8
I was combing this site for the NYT's take on today's statement from 11,000 scientists that the people of the world face "untold suffering due to the climate crisis." I can't find it anywhere, but at least I've learned of new spot in the Theater District with very reasonable prices on fresh fish flown in on airplanes from Japan.
17
Well this certainly looks like it’s the real deal sushi and the price seems reasonable. I’m sick of seeing all these so call Japanese sushi that have rolls that been fried and swimming in sauce, me friends think those are awesome and Instagram picture worthy, yuck.
5
Pete Wells Doing A shout out to Tads Steak house!!!!! A man who knows the GRIT, History and non culinary Glamour of his city!! I still see its Marquee in my youthful dreams! KUDOS Mr. Wells fine writing and review!!
3
Looks like what I get at Wegmans for $15.
2
Californian here enjoying the witty reviews, showcase of quiet talent and more. “Forgotten who you are” is an apt mark of an masterful meal.
8
A. J. Liebling, can't imagine too many readers remember him, or have read him if they are under my age (67). A great writer. Thank you Mr. Wells, for the memory. When Liebling was a cub reporter for the Times he is alleged to have used the name of Ignoto for the referee, which as you know means Unknown, in Latin.
7
The dollar seems to be worth a lot less in New York than in other parts of the US.
21
It's just sliced raw fish. I get a great assortment for $25-30, and it all tastes the same after wasabi and soy sauce are applied. Plus, I have the satisfaction of knowing the carbon footprint is minimal with the lower priced sushi, and that no species used are endangered.
$100 sushi? C'mon. $100 is so much better spent on red Burgundy.
5
@Robert Hence why the items mentioned would not have both (or even either) soy sauce and wasabi applied. The variations in seasoning are numerous and very much enhance the flavour of the fish. Raw fish with wasabi and soy sauce can be very tasty, but the variation here is an entirely different meal.
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@Robert If you're using so much wasabi and soy sauce that you can't taste the different types of fish, you're eating sushi wrong.
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@Robert
You are certainly not tasting good nigiri which is matured and marinated by various method. So nigiri are more than wasabi and soy sauce.
16
My wife and I were just here today, probably 2 hours after this review came out. We had no idea and were just looking for a good Omaha’s meal after spending the morning at moma. Place was almost empty. We both got the $95 omakase and a tempura appetizer. Totally agree with the review. The highlight was the amaebi and the two pieces of toro sushi placed side by side in front of us towards the meal’s end. Dessert was a simple strawberry ice cream that felt out of place. We definitely left happy and are coming back...may be much more crowded next time!
34
Ben Kay in Portland, Maine has been around for at least 20 years, recently moved from India Street to Congress Street. They now describe themselves as a Yakitori grill.
For the quality and freshness of the fish, the sushi (or sashimi) will stand up to anything in New York at under 5 times the price. Once you're willing to pay over $150, I concede you might get better fish. But you couldn't spend $150 here if you if you were a combination of Alfred Hitchcock and Captain Ahab. And at those prices, it's all local.
Dan Kravitz
11
@Dan Kravitz It's not just the freshness.
There are over 30 different grades of fish used in Sushi. There's no way a yakitori place is going to be paying for any of those top 20 grades of sashimi.
The high quality fish goes directly to the Japanese market.
20
You are mixing up Benkay with Kushiya Benkay. The original Benkay moved around the corner to Middle Street and is a wonderful sushi restaurant. He imports his wide variety of fish from Japan. Kushiya is a yakitori restaurant.
5
And sushi (and my favorite: sashimi) is so incredibley cheap in Japan if you don't go to the snobby places.
1
Love this play on words:
he could write better than anyone faster and faster than anyone better. Uogashi, in its new theater district home, may be the equivalent in sushi terms: better than anyone cheaper and cheaper than anyone better.
Sushi & Mexican are the 2 of the most common foods along coastal SoCal - my home for the past 22 years. Poke has entered The Mainland as of late. My all-time fave is sashimi which is basically Haole version of Poke. My cheapest version (with good enough taste to enJOY!) of sashimi/Poke/raw sushi is fresh Salmon from Costco - just cut & eat it! Close as you get to fresh fish form the Sea!
3
So many NYT readers are concerned about the " carbon footprint " of people who travel internationally on planes.
What about the " carbon footprint " of food that is overfished, and then shipped in hours via airplanes across the globe?
Have a problem with the ethics of foie gras? Is it being outlawed in your community? What about veal--which some people claim should no longer be kosher because of the ethics of what happens to the calf?
If either bother you, why is it ok to over harvest choice sea life and ship it by jets to halfway across the world, just so people can experience a dining experience of Japan in NYC?
90
@Jean Good point.
I am also surprised to read a piece like this in the NYT, given that more or less every species of fish served in a sushi restaurant - above all, everyone's favorite, Blue Fin Tuna - is in danger of going extinct. Eating Blue Fin Tuna is no better at this point than eating Siberian Tigers or African Lions.
This from someone who LOVES to eat sushi. I stopped eating sushi a few years ago after my then 12-year old son explained the problem to me. First I thought he was, well, just a kid, but when I researched the issue I realized he was right. There is absolutely no excuse to eat sushi at this point.
Gotta listen more to your kids. ;-)
38
@Robert I like to make my own sushi of various varieties (not all sushi uses fish, some can be vegetarian or even vegan) and sometimes tuna when the fish store has high grade usually about $15 per lb. A couple of weeks ago I saw some tuna at Sams Club claiming to be blue fin from Viet Nam caught with long lines and selling for less than $7/lb. It looked ok so I bought some it was not bad. One can get sick from raw fish so I am careful. But you are correct about sustainability.
1
@Jean Park your car, eat sushi. Problem solved.
It's important, in the fight against emissions, to go after the big sources first. That would be cars, not airplanes.
Willie Sutton robbed banks, because that is where the money is. Mr. Sutton's wisdom is excellent guidance for the fight against global warming.
4
With the world's fish population so detrimentally impacted by overfishing and pollution, perhaps sushi should be expensive.
57
It is expensive
7
And at the new location on West 51st Street, will they serve red and black caviar in 1-ounce portions for the sushi, at reasonable prices, of course?
2
SushiDen was my go to place, so happy that a few of those chefs found new homes. That last line had me laughing out loud...after the overdue takedown of Luger last week, Pete Wells is fast becoming my favorite restaurant critic of all time.
39
@Roger
Read Seymour Britchky.
2
@Michael Slipp
I just started to read his reviews, hilarious! Thanks, for recommending.
1
"...omakase pauses halfway through for a cocktail glass nearly filled with chilled salmon roe and sea urchin. After a spoonful or two, it can be hard to remember where you are or who you came with."
This made me gaffaw then seriously consider the last time I ate a morsel that could be described as such.
Great review.
72
@Tracy That sentence was great. I have a Japanese market near me, with excellent seafood. I may have to try and recreate this dish.
6
Try a shot of Jägermeister followed by a shot of Aftershock and you might start speaking French.
2
The last sentence seems spot on. I have been to the East Village location several times and thoroughly enjoyed my meal each time. Glad to know they are back on their feet.
(May I add - I think Sushi Katsuei may be worth mentioning as another solid occupant in the same category, though I think the craft at Uogashi is slightly superior.)
24