Happy Noms

Authors: Victor and Monty
Chef: Daisuke Nakazawa
Website: http://sushinakazawa.com/

Date: November 10, 2013

Victor’s Intro:

Sushi Nakazawa has been getting a lot of rave reviews lately, and it’s probably the most hyped sushi restaurant in NYC at the moment. Daisuke Nakazawa is famous for being “that tamago guy” in the Jiro Dreams of Sushi documentary, and you probably know more than I do about him!

We had to make our reservations a month in advance, so our anticipation of this meal just grew and grew as the weeks passed. A lot of people said it belonged up there with 15 East, Ichimura, and Yasuda, and I wanted to see just how accurate that was. They were similar in price tier, so I was hoping that Nakazawa would be another worthy rival to those places. (15 East and Ichimura are my favorite places outside of Masa, which is just ridiculously expensive, so I was looking forward to having another sushiya to eat at!)

Unfortunately, our experience wasn’t the best. We’ll go through our meal first before delving into what we liked or disliked. (Note: Most of you know, from Yelp and Chowhound reviews, that Chef Nakazawa is a cheerful and talkative guy. I can vouch that that’s correct, and I’ll mostly be talking about the food and meal itself.)

Monte’s Intro:

My initial thoughts coming into this place was holy frick frack this is going to be a fantastic meal. I had watched the Jiro documentary and thought it was a cool albeit self-indulgent movie, but I didn’t know who Nakazawa was. I gradually learned of him as Victor and a dozen other friends excitedly talked to me about how Jiro’s apprentice was opening up a shop in New York. “Omg!” they squealed, “Jiro’s apprentice in New York is going to be amazing! All these other critics confirm! You have to go, there’s no way it’s not going to blow your mind!” And so with a smile and wink they all encouraged me to go and so I went, with a sense of wonderment and curiosity.

Chef Nakazawa is preparing his famous tamago for us here.

Monte: It’s a very sleek and well-designed dining space. It’s very elegant and makes you feel like you’re in a classy sophisticated establishment. I thought it was a bit too quiet/stuffy, but I can’t say I wasn’t impressed.

Click here for actual fish on rice