Food Rating: 4.5/5
Service Level: 3.5/5
Attire: Casual
Cuisine: Japanese
Review: Based on Dinner Menu.
Price Range: $- $$$
Location: 251, W 55th Street
Do you know that taste buds
detect chemicals dissolved in saliva from food in the mouth and send sensory signals
to the gustatory center of the brain? An average person has around 10,000 taste
buds in their mouth and I promise you that being a native of the original curry
land and being rather average as a person, all my 10,000 buds signal to my
brain that “things on a grill have no thrill”. I am usually not so high about barbecue genre of
food coz why would I have my chicken dry if it can be dipped in a curry &
converted to a chicken tikka masala? The answer to this perennial question came
in the form of Yakitori Totto (Y.T), a Japanese restaurant in NYC.
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| On the grill |
I was introduced to Y.T by a
husband-wife duo- M&P who are not
only my trusted friends but also allies in testing the NYC food bazar. My first
dinner at Y.T was on a lovely mayday.
No, that was not a typo. It was indeed a lovely day in May and I had not
selected a birthday dinner place for Dear husband (DH) so mayday situation it
totally was, till M&P rescued me.
Perched atop another Japanese
restaurant on 55th street between Broadway and 8th, Y.T
is one of those rare restaurants I have been to in NYC that make its customers
do a pre-dinner walkup workout. Now be
careful and don’t walk into the ground floor restaurant which is almost always
empty and the staff looks rather disappointed every time a customer gives a
promising glance towards it before walking up to the 2nd floor where Y.T is located.
Once on the 2nd floor, the buzz and ring to the atmosphere is a
rather happy one.
The place is super tight on
space, super popular and super-fast moving, so don’t complain about (i) someone
rubbing their ass against your food while trying to get into their seat, (ii)
sitting for an hour staring directly into the back of those eating at the ‘open
kitchen area’ (yes, you are literally sitting behind those eating so try not to
fall into their plate while you wait) and (iii) the servers are not rude but
they are in a hurry. They have quick feet and are sympathetic towards those
waiting.
The best seats in the restaurant
are facing the open kitchen and it’s totally fun to see the solo chef at work.
He works on the food he is making like an artist playing Jal-Tarang (Don’t look so blank- just google the damn
word).
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| Chef at work |
If you have been reading my posts
then you would know that my food reviews are incomplete without a bit of
history and background.
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| Fushima Inari Taisha |
Let me back up a little bit. Upon
being told about the magic of Yakitori Totto by M&P, my first dilemma was -
“what in the world is Yakitori?” I had
never ever heard of the word before. I turned to Professor Google for help and
quickly figured that Yakitori is Japanese version of skewered grilled food.
What’s now a Japanese street style cuisine originated in and around 1604 when farmers
suffering from ruined rice crops were visiting the shrine of ‘Fushima Inari
Taisha’ in Kyoto to pray for prosperous harvest. While on the road they cooked
and ate small birds which the farmers considered as a nuisance as they blamed
the birds for ruining their crops. Eating roasted birds on the go, was quick
and easy and provided much happiness to their vengeful hearts. The wave picked
soon after and in the modern day Japan, Yakitori is available in most informal
settings in small restaurants and on food stands. The equivalent of this style is
called “thelle-walla food” in India.
Yakitori consists of juicy bite
sized pieces of chicken (equal honor is given to all parts of the chicken) and other meats including pork, beef, seafood and vegetables neatly mounted on thin
bamboo sticks and cooked either with salt or sauce as per request. I prefer – "with sauce". I am told on enquiring that the special sauce is known as the Tare
sauce and is a concoction of sake, soy sauce and sugar. While I am not 100%
familiar with what goes inside that sauce, what I can confirm more than 100% is
that it adds and invokes a mouth dripping heavenly taste to the otherwise
boring piece of chicken’s tasteless body.
Now that you know a bit of
history, geography and stylography of Yakitori, the way I always like to think
of food, let me familiarize you with the menu.
Without wasting your time on the salads
and appetizers (I will touch upon this later), skip very quickly to the page
which enlists Yakitori items. Now don’t start
at the top. Start at the bottom of the page where it talks about the Specials. Before your server disappears,
enquire quickly about the items which are no longer available from the specials.
Chances are 4 out of 5 will not be available. Specials go out quickly. Pray, notice
the small black board right behind where the makers of this lip-smacking food
are preparing your meal. Yes, something is written in Japanese on the board and
most of it is crossed out. – meaning?
Those specials are over and out. The
only way to grab one of those items is to arrive early and buy them out before
anyone else does.
Out of the regular Yakitori menu,
you absolutely have to try the Tsukune (chicken
meatballs) with sauce. It’s my most favorite. (Mashed chicken is shaped into dumplings and
covered with an outer layering of bread crumbs/ rice, seasoned with ground
ginger root, salt and soy sauce.) I also highly recommend Chicken Oysters, these are soft and tender and melt in your mouth
on arrival; Enoki Bacon is another favorite of mine, mushroom wrapped in a
bacon with an outer layer of perfect crunch. Your tongue and teeth pierce through
the soft outer crunch to reach the tender mushroom which explodes drenched in
the flavor it picks from bacon and the tare sauce.
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| Enoki Bacon |
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| Tsukune |
I liked the seafood yakitori
lesser. I got the scallops and the shrimp and they both tasted bland. I
recommend starting with chicken and vegetable items and graduate to red
meat if you are a red meat eater. I personally think the chicken items are the
best on the menu.
Two favorite recommendations from my
DH are the Lamb Chops and Negi Pon
(pork loin with scallion & ponzu).
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| Lamb Chops |
Out of the non-yakitori items
(rice and noodle section), I recommend the Rice
Ball which comes with choice of Japanese plum, salmon, spicy roe or dried
salted kelp. I like it with spicy roe and dried salted kelp.
From the appetizer section, the Croquet's filled with beef and
vegetables are worth a try and Tori
Dongo i.e. chicken meatballs wrapped in sticky rice is very interesting too, but I surprised myself most when I absolutely loved the Steamed Vegetable Salad on the menu. Remember we talked above tongue to brain signals, above? Salad usually emits numbing signals to my brain but at Yakitori the vegetables while steamed, retain a fresh crispy taste in them and the bagna cauda sauce (concoction of olive oil, garlic and anchovies) adds a superb flavor to it.
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| Tori Dongo |
The miso
soup is absolutely great here as well. I asked the server what made it so delicious and
was told that they put the real stuff in it- i.e. the red miso paste.
Price is
$ but because because the items come in singular form to your table, you can
safely eat in multiples and the bill can quickly turn to $$$.
Dress
code is casual but I recommend dressing up, for Yakitori Totto is going to
serve you one of the best meals of your life
