Thursday, November 13, 2003
Nobu
Visiting the world of Japanese cooking in downtown Manhattan
The world of celebrity was once encompassed by stars of stage, screen and television, the sports and politics, plus some notorious criminals. Now a new breed has joined –the chefs and restaurateurs of note, whose exploits and adventures rank way up there in the media attention. Recently one of them was noted accompanied by a body guard My annual exposure to the haute cuisine world is anchored by two events, the James Beard Foundation Journalism Award Dinner in the Spring, and the 14th Street-Union Square LCD/BID Harvest Festival. I attend the former courtesy of a member of the family, who is a judge, and that is where one rubs shoulders with the notables who gain fame by writing about the cuisine and its celebs. There one meets the legendary Ruth Reichl, a person who exudes energy not camouflaged by the exotic and overflowing hair styles she used to affect when hiding herself while visiting restaurants on behalf of the readers of the Paper of Record. She has toned the secrecy down and become more accessible since leaving the NYT and assuming editorship of Gourmet magazine At the Beard event one also sees Gael Greene of the New York Mag, Jean Anderson, the prolific writer of cookbooks and Portugal, who once resided at 7 Lex, AH of GQ who consistently carries away the top journalistic awards, and xx the charming revealer of Indian cooking secrets for the home chefs.
The Union Square event is more for bumping into our domestic lions – Danny Meyers of the US Café and GT , Eric Petterson of US Coffee Shop and Luna, Todd English, the peripatetic head of Olives. It was therefore with great pleasure that we accepted an invitation to go to a different taste adventure, Japanese style. It was the opening show of dinnerware designed by Nobu Matsuhisa, the chief of the eponymous upscale Japanese restaurants. There are only three, two in NY, at the opposite ends of the same building at 105 Hudson Street, and one in London.
The event was held in the cozy showroom of Korin Trading Company, the wholesale distributor on Japanese dinner ware to the Occidental world (now open for retail trade), at 57 Warren Street, way west of City Hall, past Church Street, It is run by soft-spoken but voluble Saori Kawano, the tiny president of the company, who keeps expressing her regrets that people do not know where Warren Street is and cannot come to view her exquisite dinner plates and Oriental art. Her largely silent partner Chiharu Sugai, titled Master Knife Sharpener, rules over racks and racks of special purpose cutlery, 400 varieties that may thrill the connoisseurs of sharp objects. This industry stems form the Japanese art of making katana, the samurai swords, banned by Gen. MacArthur after WWII. Restaurants and butcher shops are known to turn in their knives to professional sharpeners, to restore their razor edges, and the sushi shops are no exception.
Speaking of sushi, the visitors to the show were treated to an unceasing stream of hors d’oeuvres from Nobu, starting with lamb anticuccho, black cod in miso, washu beef in jalapeno sauce, scallops with yuzu and creamy crab in truffle sauce. Nobu has been serving New Yorkers for nine years, a respectable age in the fashion driven NY restaurant world. Their rice sushi hors d’oeuvres extended well beyond salmon and tuna, to include also pike, yellowtail and farl, the belly of tuna, and some rolls of unknown content but uniformly good-tasting. Nobu rates a 28, “sheer bliss,” in the Zagat’s guide, I’m told.
This class series of treats was accompanied by sparkling water, sparkling wine from Italy, and three types of tasting saki, not sold in stores, from Japan Prestige Sake in LA. Ordinarily I’m not fond of this wine, California type, but these varieties – cloudy, fruity and hot – were pleasant to sip, and easy on the palate, at 14 ½ % alcoholic content Regular sake is best served hot, to meld and subdue the unpleasant taste sensations, according to the importer.
Now to the main event’s interest, the aristocratic pure white bone china, shiny or matte, by Nobu, best suited for Japanese service (the large plates are flat-bottomed, to accommodate small tasting portions). There is also a white on white bamboo pattern, and a clock pattern, the latter particularly suited for restaurant service; since now the chef can build the presentation toward the 6 o’clock edge, with the assurance that the serving person will put it properly, facing the customer. There are plates, bowls and teacups, round, oval and square, classic in their simplicity, and also thumb-print and food residue resistant. .
Nobu restaurants are part of the empire of Drew Nieporent, of Montrachet, Tribeca Grill and ten more venues, the second most famous grad of Stuyvesant High. When he asked me who is the firs, I had no name of the worthiest of the Nobel Prize graduates, there are so many. Matsuhisa, who has been a restaurateur on several continents, started a restaurant by that name in Beverly Hills in 1987, met Nieporent two years later, and opened the first NYC Nobu in 1994.
The world of celebrity was once encompassed by stars of stage, screen and television, the sports and politics, plus some notorious criminals. Now a new breed has joined –the chefs and restaurateurs of note, whose exploits and adventures rank way up there in the media attention. Recently one of them was noted accompanied by a body guard My annual exposure to the haute cuisine world is anchored by two events, the James Beard Foundation Journalism Award Dinner in the Spring, and the 14th Street-Union Square LCD/BID Harvest Festival. I attend the former courtesy of a member of the family, who is a judge, and that is where one rubs shoulders with the notables who gain fame by writing about the cuisine and its celebs. There one meets the legendary Ruth Reichl, a person who exudes energy not camouflaged by the exotic and overflowing hair styles she used to affect when hiding herself while visiting restaurants on behalf of the readers of the Paper of Record. She has toned the secrecy down and become more accessible since leaving the NYT and assuming editorship of Gourmet magazine At the Beard event one also sees Gael Greene of the New York Mag, Jean Anderson, the prolific writer of cookbooks and Portugal, who once resided at 7 Lex, AH of GQ who consistently carries away the top journalistic awards, and xx the charming revealer of Indian cooking secrets for the home chefs.
The Union Square event is more for bumping into our domestic lions – Danny Meyers of the US Café and GT , Eric Petterson of US Coffee Shop and Luna, Todd English, the peripatetic head of Olives. It was therefore with great pleasure that we accepted an invitation to go to a different taste adventure, Japanese style. It was the opening show of dinnerware designed by Nobu Matsuhisa, the chief of the eponymous upscale Japanese restaurants. There are only three, two in NY, at the opposite ends of the same building at 105 Hudson Street, and one in London.
The event was held in the cozy showroom of Korin Trading Company, the wholesale distributor on Japanese dinner ware to the Occidental world (now open for retail trade), at 57 Warren Street, way west of City Hall, past Church Street, It is run by soft-spoken but voluble Saori Kawano, the tiny president of the company, who keeps expressing her regrets that people do not know where Warren Street is and cannot come to view her exquisite dinner plates and Oriental art. Her largely silent partner Chiharu Sugai, titled Master Knife Sharpener, rules over racks and racks of special purpose cutlery, 400 varieties that may thrill the connoisseurs of sharp objects. This industry stems form the Japanese art of making katana, the samurai swords, banned by Gen. MacArthur after WWII. Restaurants and butcher shops are known to turn in their knives to professional sharpeners, to restore their razor edges, and the sushi shops are no exception.
Speaking of sushi, the visitors to the show were treated to an unceasing stream of hors d’oeuvres from Nobu, starting with lamb anticuccho, black cod in miso, washu beef in jalapeno sauce, scallops with yuzu and creamy crab in truffle sauce. Nobu has been serving New Yorkers for nine years, a respectable age in the fashion driven NY restaurant world. Their rice sushi hors d’oeuvres extended well beyond salmon and tuna, to include also pike, yellowtail and farl, the belly of tuna, and some rolls of unknown content but uniformly good-tasting. Nobu rates a 28, “sheer bliss,” in the Zagat’s guide, I’m told.
This class series of treats was accompanied by sparkling water, sparkling wine from Italy, and three types of tasting saki, not sold in stores, from Japan Prestige Sake in LA. Ordinarily I’m not fond of this wine, California type, but these varieties – cloudy, fruity and hot – were pleasant to sip, and easy on the palate, at 14 ½ % alcoholic content Regular sake is best served hot, to meld and subdue the unpleasant taste sensations, according to the importer.
Now to the main event’s interest, the aristocratic pure white bone china, shiny or matte, by Nobu, best suited for Japanese service (the large plates are flat-bottomed, to accommodate small tasting portions). There is also a white on white bamboo pattern, and a clock pattern, the latter particularly suited for restaurant service; since now the chef can build the presentation toward the 6 o’clock edge, with the assurance that the serving person will put it properly, facing the customer. There are plates, bowls and teacups, round, oval and square, classic in their simplicity, and also thumb-print and food residue resistant. .
Nobu restaurants are part of the empire of Drew Nieporent, of Montrachet, Tribeca Grill and ten more venues, the second most famous grad of Stuyvesant High. When he asked me who is the firs, I had no name of the worthiest of the Nobel Prize graduates, there are so many. Matsuhisa, who has been a restaurateur on several continents, started a restaurant by that name in Beverly Hills in 1987, met Nieporent two years later, and opened the first NYC Nobu in 1994.
# posted by Wally Dobelis @ 5:40 PM 
