julie & julia and a celebratory meal at takahachi

i finally read julie & julia sometime last winter, shortly after i had started my blog. the comparisons seemed obvious: she and her husband lived in a not-so-perfect apartment in long island city with a "challenging" kitchen, she had an unsatisfying corporate job, and learned to gain satisfaction through cooking.

the two on screen stories of julia child and julie powell finding their culinary paths are sweet and gratifying. i dragged two friends to a showing on opening day, purchased the tickets a couple of weeks in advance, and made them show up to the theater with plenty of time to spare (so we could get good seats!) it was all worth it. and i'm pretty sure we all cried at parts. if you like food at all, go see this movie. if you like julia child at all, go see this movie. if you've ever lived in new york or paris, go see this movie. and finally, if you don't qualify for any of the statements above, go see this movie.

i must say that i was relieved that i enjoyed the movie so much. i mean, who doesn't like julia child? and after such a good reading experience of julie's book, i was worried that the movie would come up short. but it didn't, which is why it deserved a celebratory dinner at one of my favorite restaurants: takahachi.


we started our meal with red miso duck (to julia!). i'm not much of a duck fan since i feel it's usually too fatty and gamy but this was the perfect occasion for it. it was good but the sauce was better: a thick rich and sweet miso. we continued with our always-ordered tried and true favorites: hamachi jalapeno and tako sunomono. the hamachi (yellowtail) slices were thick and fresh, and the sweetness of the fish went so well with the spicy, vinegary jalapeno topping. tako sunomono, also called tako su, is a vinegared salad of octopus, seaweed and cucumber slices. i have a total thing for vinegar which makes this dish so tasty to me; last supper component for sure.


we continued the meal with the amazing sushi special which consisted of three pieces of sushi: slightly seasoned tuna, briefly smoked salmon with avoacado and a smokey spicy mayo, and yellowtail with a spicy topping (more like habanero than jalapeno...) we rounded it all out with some salmon sashimi and a spicy scallop roll. i don't often go for the spicy rolls but the spicy scallop is a somewhat recent discovery for me. scallop is so smooth and sweet that again, so goes perfectly with the spiciness. even better, the spicy sauce was not overly mayo-ey here; just a slight layer of heat.

i absolutely consider takahachi one of the absolute best sushi places i've been to in manhattan (and i do my fair share of sushi eating). the prices are also totally reasonable for the high quality food that you'll find and eat.

this isn't the old country buffet

I have very few buffet memories. Most of them consist of some sort of elementary school event at a Souplantation, my mom vehemently opposing this idea and openly expressing her hatred for anything involving the word buffet. Until rather recently, I shared this sentiment. A whole lot of people running around chaotically to stuff their faces? No thanks. Unlimited salad bar, pasta and pizza? Again, no thanks.

That was all until recently, when the idea of a sushi and seafood buffet was presented to me. If you're a buffet skeptic (hi mom), you may be thinking, "don't do it--you'll get sick!" I would encourage the choice to be reputable at the very least. Good thing that's exactly what Todai is.

The restaurant is huge but perfectly pleasant to be in. Even better, the masses were well-behaved. Friday at lunchtime, there was just a few minute wait and the place didn't feel overcrowded. The waitress was very friendly and no one was giving anyone a hard time or enforcing any scary buffet rules, although there were signs that warned of a 35% wasted food fee.




Round 1: Plate 1, cold food
Sushi galore! Nigiri, rolls, sashimi salad, raw clams and oysters, silken tofu, various salads... The sushi was surprisingly good. All of the fish I tasted was of perfectly acceptable quality and considering this was buffet sushi, the fish slices were small but not completely overwhelmed by a huge hunk of rice. Notice the giant oyster which I did eat (somewhat skeptically). Again, surprisingly good.

Round 2: Plate 2, hot food
Fried tofu, more salads, soft shell crabs, noodles, yakitori, soup... I was much more interested in the cold food since I am a sushi lover but also because the hot foods were heavy on the wheat and meat. The yakitori looked good but was running low by the time I got to it and I couldn't tell the difference between the pork and chicken.

Not-so-Round 3: Dessert.
There are no dessert pictures because I didn't have it. This was disappointing. All I wanted was some green tea ice cream, maybe some mochi. Almost anything would have sufficed. There was some fruit, a few cute little cake pastry things, and some strawberry mousse. I'm curious about the different choices that might be available during dinner.