Takashi Japanese barbecue in NYC

I made a week long trip to NYC last week and had many amazing dining experiences. Pizza at Di Fara and Lucali, dinner at M. Wells diner, a kitchen tour at Eleven Madison Park and much more. However, the meal that really stood out was my dinner at Takashi in the West Village. Takashi is a yakiniku establishment, which is a Japanese restaurant specializing in grilled meats (much like Korean BBQ). For raw dishes, we started with chuck flap on shiso with nori topped with sea urchin. What an amazing combination of flavors and textures. We also had flashboiled achilles tendon, chuck eye tartare and chuck flap make your own hand roll sushi . For grilled items we had first and fourth stomach, belly, three different sections of tongue and a sukiyaki style beef. We also ordered some vegetables with addictive miso mayo These items were cooked at the table on an infrared grill. We ended our meal with vanilla soft serve ice cream with salty caramel. Everything was outstanding.

I know where I'm heading next time I'm in NYC.

The US Kobe chuck prime roll sukiyaki special is excellent, agreed. I also really enjoy the spicy Japanese cucumber salad appetizer as well as the grilled cheek, short ribs (kalbi), and sweetbreads. Try also the raw liver appetizer (Namagimo).

I was not similarly impressed with a recent meal at Takashi. Of the offal cuts we tried, I was most impressed by the sweetbreads. Grilled intestine and tripe fared much less favorably; each taking on an unpleasant chewy texture rather quickly. With the later, I could barely swallow the gumball-size chunks they had cut up for us. Not pleasant chewing for 2 minutes and then spitting out because no amount of chewing will masticate the damn thing.

Other cuts were fresh, but honestly no more flavorful than what you can get at an average Korean BBQ imho. Uni on top of raw kobe seemed like a gimmick to me and a waste of good uni.

The worst part: the "grill" is basically an overturned space heater (you know, the glowing electric filaments/rods). This is the best way to impart exactly zero flavor into the meats being grilled. Even a griddle works better, because at least the meats cook in their own fat. Give me Korean charcoal BBQ any day.

They had an interesting Japanese beer on hand that was literally a steal at $14 a pint. Delicious. Fucking expensive. Our tab for five people was about $500 dollars.