The Humm Dog

A couple of years ago, the East Village speakeasy bar Please Don’t Tell began to offer hot dogs inspired by local chefs, such as the Chang Dog and the Wylie Dog. (PDT’s adjoining sister joint, Crif Dogs, probably makes the city’s best hot dogs—the best we’ve tasted, at any rate.)

Last year, they added a Humm Dog, inspired by Eleven Madison Park chef Daniel Humm. It was dropped after a couple of months, as the $6 selling price wasn’t sufficient to recover the cost of the truffle mayo in the recipe. (A “daintier, pricer” version of it was briefly offered at EMP itself.)

The Humm Dog (pronounced whom dog) has returned, but only for the month of December. It’s still $6.

As before, it’s a bacon-wrapped deep-fried hot dog with celery relish, melted Gruyère cheese, and truffle mayo. I shot the best photo I could in PDT’s dim light; the websites I linked show it in much better light.

A bit messy to eat, it’s nevertheless fetchingly delicious, and really a bargain at $6. We saw more of those coming out than any other hot dog they sell.

Most of PDT’s cocktails, on the other hand, are $15, so the evening gets expensive before you know it.

Please Don’t Tell (113 St. Marks Pl. btwn 1st Ave. & Ave. A, East Village)

The Burger at Peels

Note: Peels closed in January 2014. As Taavo Somer botches project after project, the success of Freemans (which is still open) begins to look more and more like a fluke. Later in 2014, Andrew Carmellini and his team expect to open an Italian restaurant in the space called Bar Primi.

*

Peels is the lively second act of those downtown scene-builders Taavo Somer and William Tigertt, whose first place (Freemans) is so legendarily crowded that I won’t go near it.

I wouldn’t have gone near Peels either if I hadn’t walked by at 1:30 p.m. on a Wednesday, one of the few times you can walk in and not wait forever.

The vaguely Southern cuisine has received mixed reviews so far. Sam Sifton gave it one star, though he was more interested in guessing (and guessing wrong) which side of the tracks the clientele was from.

The two-story space is a magnet for sunlight. At off-hours, it’s a cheery main-street diner that you wish all neighborhoods would have. In the evenings, it fills up quickly with a party crowd, though the bartender allowed I might get seated promptly on a Monday a Tuesday evening, provided I arrived early enough.

The kitchen butchers its own steaks (a grass-fed ribeye steak is $45). The off-cuts and trimmed fat go into their burger blend. The hand-formed patty is thick and rich, a good foil to the twice-fried potatoes. At $13, it’s less than most of the city’s high-end burgers these days, and arguably better.

The staff were friendly; helpful; welcoming. They’re probably like that all the time, but on a Thursday evening there’s not much they can do for you, and forget about Saturday. Or even brunch. A late lunch is just fine.

Brindle Room

The Brindle Room opened last March on a sleepy stretch of East 10th Street that doesn’t get much foot traffic.

The nouveau-Korean Persimmon was once here, but it is hard to imagine a more thorough transformation. The look is comforting, with exposed brick, polished dark wood tables and banquettes, and a warm butterscotch glow on the upper walls and ceiling.

The obscure name—Brindle is a shade of brown and black-speckled dog fur—has nothing to do with the cuisine, vaguely Southern-influenced comfort food that strays well past the usual boundaries. A poutine, much admired by reviewers, was offered for a while, but it seems to be on summer hiatus.

The menu is focused, which is always a good sign. There are fewer than twenty items in three categories—Spreads ($6–9), Small ($8–15), and Large ($19–23)—which inspires confidence that Chef Jeremy Spector is serving what he knows he can make well, and not wasting time by trying to please everybody.

There are just five entrées, er, Large Plates, with an emphasis on sharing the smaller ones, but as I was there alone I went the conventional route, ordering one of each.

 

An ample salad of Salt Roasted Beets ($8) with stilton blue cheese may not win any award for originality, but it was one of the most luscious, vibrantly favored beet salads I’ve had this year, and amply portioned at the price.

The Parmesan Crusted Pork Chop ($23), featured on OzerskyTV a couple of months ago, deserves the accolades. It’s massive, and Spector cooks it perfectly on the pink side of medium. The parmesan crust was slightly too aggressive for my taste, but I am a shade more sensitive to salt than most diners, which probably means Spector is getting it right. The chop is served atop a tomato and green leaf salad that could be a proper appetizer.

The beverage list, like the rest of the menu, is focused and not expensive: who else serves $9 cocktails these days? I was in a beer mood; $12 buys an 18-ounce bottle of Samuel Smith’s Organic Cider. It’s nowhere near as sweet as most alcoholic ciders and paired well with the pork.

On weekends, the East Village starts late and ends late. At 7:00 p.m., I had the place to myself, but a late summer Saturday evening is probably atypical. It would be pointless to judge the service when the staff had only one customer, but I found the Brindle Room comfortable and relaxing, the food excellent for its ambition and its price point.

The Brindle Room (277 E. 10th St. between 1st Avenue & Avenue A, East Village)

Food: *
Service: *
Ambiance: *
Overall: *

Death & Co.

Death & Co. was the third stop on my speakeasy crawl—after Please Don’t Tell and Angel’s Share. As I write this, I see that their website is blocked at work, which is hilarious, given that there are dozens of other bars with websites that I can get to easily.

There’s no hidden door to get into Death & Co. The street entrance is in plain sight, but it’s a barely-marked wooden door with the name of the establishment written in such small print that you could easily miss it.

Like the other speakeasies, standees aren’t allowed, so you have to wait until a seat is available. The host is outside, so you don’t even get to look at the place until he lets you in. It was about 9:00 p.m., which is pretty early for a Friday night in the East Village; even so, I waited about five minutes, but I was alone. For couples, the host had a long waiting list.

The dark photo (above) is no exaggeration: there isn’t a lot of light. Like a casino, there are no open windows, and you could easily lose track of time. But I hadn’t lost track of my cocktail count, and I decided to have just one.

The cocktail menu is in categories organized by the main ingredient (gin, rum, tequila, brandy, etc.). They are every bit as inventive, and as well made, as at Please Don’t Tell. I settled on the Black Magic ($13; cognac, angostura, 5-year rum, white crème de menthe, fernet branca, and absinthe).

The food here is compelling, with a selection of bar snacks (most under $15) that go beyond the obvious—for a cocktail bar. I had an order of really well made barbecued pulled-pork sliders ($12): three plump helpings of pork on toasted mini-buns, and potato salad too. Most nights, that could be dinner for me.

I’m not quite sure when I’ll make it back—the line to get in is rather daunting (to me)—but I was impressed here.

Death & Co. (433 E. 6th Street between First Avenue & Avenue A, East Village)

Angel’s Share

After a visit to Crif Dogs & Please Don’t Tell, I continued my East Village speakeasy crawl at Angel’s Share. The name comes from the splash of wine in each wine bottle that sommeliers sometimes keep for themselves — the angel’s share, as it is called.

Like other speakeasies, this one is hard to find. The tiny number 6 above the door is the only hint of an address. It’s not even immediately apparent that you can eat here.

Go up the stairs, and you’re plunged into a Japanese restaurant called Village Yokocho. The entrance to Angel’s Share is behind an unmarked wooden door. A hostess escorts you to the bar or a table, and as at other speakeasies, they will not accommodate you unless there is a vacant seat.

In 2002, New York called Angel’s Share the city’s best date bar, but I found the space charmless, the lighting too bright and unkind, the servers unfriendly. Even the menu seemed a bit shopworn.

I later spoke to a beverage director who has no interest in any East Village bars. He said, “I have no idea why Angel’s Share is mentioned in the same breath as PDT or Death & Co.”

I ordered a Cousin Mary, a cousin to the Bloody Mary, with cucumber, black pepper & garlic infused vodka, olive juice, onion vinegar, celery salt, and a garnish of olive & pearl onions.

In less time than it took me to write all that in my iPhone, the drink appeared. Actually, I had no more than glanced away for a few second. Clearly, it was pre-made, and poured from a pitcher. Not bad, but you can get a Bloody Mary anywhere.

Angel’s Share (6 Stuyvesant Street, east of Third Avenue, East Village)

Crif Dogs & Please Don’t Tell

 

The faux speakeasy cocktail bar is the most prominent development in the Manhattan drinking scene over the last five years.

Historically, of course, speakeasies were establishments that sold alcohol illegally. The modern speakeasy is legit, but usually concealed—as if it had something to hide. There is often a hidden or unlabeled door, and many of these places won’t admit you unless there is an open seat. There is generally a host at the door, as opposed to the usual bar, where you just saunter in and fend for yourself.

Last week, I went on an East Village “pub crawl” of three speakeasy-style cocktail bars that I had long wanted to try: Please Don’t Tell, Angel’s Share, and Death & Co. (The latter two are covered in subsequent posts.) That’s probably not the best way to experience them, assuming a normal alcohol tolerance, but I wasn’t sure when I’d find another opportunity.

It’s hard to imagine two more incongruous establishments operating under one roof, and having common ownership, than Crif Dogs and Please Don’t Tell. From the outside, all you see is the sign for “Crif Dogs,” with a giant hot dog bearing its insoucient catch phrase, “eat me.”

Inside, Crif Dogs is as divey-looking as you can imagine. Dimly lit, with a low ceiling and plain aluminum tables, it is an indoor hotdog stand. The name, by the way, is an inside joke. One of the owners (Brian Shebairo) once tried to say the name of his business partner, Chris Anista, while he had a hot dog in his mouth. It came out “Crif”.

Despite the Spartan surroundings, the owners aspire to serve the city’s best hot dog, and they just might have managed it. They deep-fry the wieners in fat, locking in flavor and giving the skin a satifying crunch.

The menu (click on the image, above left, for a larger version) offers seventeen varieties of hot dogs ($2.50–5.00), along with numerous optional toppings and side dishes. Beers ($3 or less) are the only alcoholic beverages.

You can make up your own hot dog with à la carte toppings, but I decided to order the server’s recommendation, the Tsunami, a bacon-wrapped hot dog with teriyaki, pineapple, and green onions.

Such odd combinations are typical of the menu, but if the rest of their zany creations are as good as this, then consider me hooked. I didn’t taste much teriyaki, but I loved the pineapple-bacon contrast, as well as the hot dog’s crunchy casing.

Please Don’t Tell (PDT), the adjoining cocktail lounge, does not open until 6:00 p.m. I had arrived at 5:45, which was about all the time it took to order and consume my hot dog.

In the meantime, the people-watching made a fascinating study. If you didn’t know about PDT, you’d wonder about the people walking in, looking just a bit lost, dressed as if they were going to a three-star restaurant. (The PDT website doesn’t even supply an address.)

The entrance is behind a “false” unlabeled antique phone booth in a corner of Crif Dogs. Open the door, and you feel a bit foolish. There is a white phone inside. It was out of order when I visited, but when it’s working you pick up, and a hostess answers. If there is space for you, a steel door opens in the back of the booth, and you’re admitted.

Reservations at the tables notoriously sell out by mid-afternoon (they are taken same-day only), but the bar is first-come, first-served. As I was there early, I was seated immediately. Later on (or so I hear), you cool your heels with a hot dog while you wait for someone to leave, as standees aren’t admitted.

A more pronounced contrast to Crif Dogs could not be imagined. The bar is a gorgeous space. The booths and bar stools are plush and comfortable. The bartenders are solicitous, smartly dressed, and work with surgical precision. Cocktails are served with ice cubes the size of a fist—keeping the booze cold, without diluting it.

The menu lists a couple of dozen specialty cocktails, though you can also go off-book. But as this was my first visit, I stuck with the printed list.

The two cocktails I had are typical. A Benton’s Old Fashioned (bacon-infused bourbon, maple syrup, angostura bitters) had a deep smokey flavor. The Mariner (scotch whiskey, pineapple, citrus, and smoked cardamom syrup) offered a nice balance of citrus sweetness and the bitterness of the scotch.

The restroom has a long list of etiquette rules posted, which perhaps shows how hard it is to run a Serious Cocktail Bar in the East Village. For instance, “No PDA at PDT: hands on table, tongue inside your mouth.” Another warns customers not to try to hit on other patrons’ dates. I don’t recall any other bar that found it necessary to point these things out.

They serve food here too—mostly hot dogs, though different recipes than those offered on the Crif Dogs menu. One is named for David Chang (wrapped in bacon and smothered in a kimchee puree); another for WD~50 chef Wylie Dufresne. There’s also a cheeseburger, and what appeared to be the most popular offering, tater tots.

These offerings come from the Crif Dogs kitchen. When the food is ready, a low buzzer rings, and the bartender opens a small metal door, with a pass-through direct to the Crif Dogs side of the house.

In some ways, this minimal menu doesn’t seem equal to the surroundings , but I admit my curiosity to try any hot dog named after Wylie Dufresne. However, I’d already had one next door, so that will have to await another visit.

This is a relaxing place. Had I not been alone, I would probably have stayed longer. Since hitting on other guys’ dates is a no-no, I’ll have to bring my own next time.

Crif Dogs & Please Don’t Tell (113 St. Marks Place between First Avenue & Avenue A, East Village)

Taureau

One-dish restaurants are all the rage, so why not all-fondue, all-the-time? As of three months ago, you can have it at Taureau in the East Village.

When we say “all-fondue,” we’re not kidding. To paraphrase W. S. Gilbert: fondue for starter, fondue for entrée, fondue for dessert—to have it supposed that you care for nothing but fondue, and that you would consider yourself insulted if anything but fondue were offered to you—how would you like that?

Well, you might expect fondue’s charms to wane over the course of a meal, but chef Didier Pawlicki mines enough from the theme to keep it exciting—at least for one visit. I cannot imagine it becoming anyone’s neighborhood go-to place, but for occasions ranging from romantic twosomes to large parties, it is already a hit. There’s nothing like cooking raw meat in a shared pot of boiling oil to bring people closer.

Like the same chef’s La Sirène, it’s the barest slip of a space, seating only 38. Each table has a built-in convection burner, leaving very little room to spare.

It is also BYOB, and at least for now, cash-only. If you don’t know the policy or forget the wine at home (as I did), the liquor store and Citibank are only a few blocks away.

The most straightforward ordering strategy is to choose one of two prix fixes, at either $37 or $57 per person, with a minimum of two. (Practically everything served here requires at least two people.) Either way, you get cheese fondue to start, meat fondue as the main course, and chocolate fondue for dessert. There’s still a dizzying array of choices (more offered at the higher price)—which cheese? what kind of oil? what chocolate? You could certainly eat here half-a-dozen times without exhausting the menu.

All of this (and a lot more) is available à la carte, although if you order three courses it will cost you considerably more than the prix fixe. We ordered the $57 menu, which comes with enough food to sate almost anyone.

We started with Perigord Cheese & Truffle Mushroom fondue, which comes with a choice of four “sides” for dipping. We chose the white asparagus, hot chorizo, slab bacon, and fingerling potatoes. It also includes a forgettable green salad and croutons, also for dipping. (The lower-priced prix fixe offers only the salad and croutons.)

The melted cheese itself was rich and luscious. The bacon was the best side dish, and the potatoes also worked well. The asparagus didn’t really pair with the cheese, while the chorizo (cold and clammy) simply wasn’t that good.

For the main course, there’s a choice of oils—we chose peanut—plus four house-made dipping sauces. Our prix fixe came with two meats: we chose pork tenderloin and filet mignon. You can probably guess the drill: dip the meat into the oil, where it cooks in about twenty seconds. Dip in sauce, and repeat. Simple pleasures.

The main course comes once again with the same forgettable green salad, which the chef might want to consider omitting. We didn’t touch it the second time.

Dessert is similar: your choice of chocolate, with a tray of fruits for dipping, and on the side, bowls of shredded coconut, almonds, and walnuts. It’s a can’t-miss dish, but we especially liked the frozen bananas (above, foreground).

The service team consists of the chef himself and two very busy servers, who manage to keep things moving briskly. It helps that the kitchen has very little actual cooking to do. The whole production takes around two hours, though you might spend the first twenty minutes of that just puzzling over the unfamiliar menu.

Pawlicki’s mission here may not be complicated, but he does it very well, and in New York he has the idea all to himself. It’s not food you can eat every day—it’s too rich and too monotonic for that—but it’s loads of fun and thoroughly worthwhile.

Taureau (127 E. Seventh St., West of Avenue A, East Village)

Food: *½
Service: *
Ambiance: *
Overall: *½

Faustina

Note: Faustina closed in December 2010. The hotel changed hands, and the new owners wanted to install a new restaurant. Multiple operators have run the space since then. As of January 2014, it is Narcissa, a restaurant from Dovetail owner/chef John Fraser.

*

Most restaurants open around the husks of old ones, as it’s a lot cheaper to renovate a space that already has a commercial kitchen. The transformation that turned the failed Table 8 into Scott Conant’s Faustina was unusually speedy—taking only about a month. Perhaps that’s because its home, in the Cooper Square Hotel, couldn’t do without a restaurant for very long.

Conant has had the midas touch for years, from L’Impero to Alto (now run by Michael White), to Scarpetta. We found the latter wildly over-rated (three stars from Bruni), but perhaps it is more consistent now; we have never had the urge to re-visit.

I assumed that Faustina would be a lazy restaurant. Nothing against Conant, but it was obviously thrown together quickly. To our surprise, Faustina is actually very good, and certainly much more enjoyable than our first visit to Scarpetta.

The menu is evolving. The original concept made us shudder: “small plates”. Neither of the early reviewers, Steve Cuozzo nor Alan Richman, was happy about that. There’s now a section of the menu offering piatti grande, which I’m assuming is new, as no review mentioned it. Richman complained of a menu with nine sections. There are now seven, which is a step in the right direction.

Those menu categories—at least this week—are Bread & Olives ($4–6), Cheese & Salume ($6), Raw Bar ($12–23; selection $68), Piatti ($9–19), Pasta & Risotto ($14–21), Piatti Grande ($31–42), and Sides ($9). Nothing like mixing-and-matching English and Italian.

At the bar, there’s a different menu, mostly a subset of the dining room menu with a few extra items. I compared the two: for the dishes on both, the prices are the same. A La Freida burger (what else?) was introduced this week. Given the popularity of bar dining, they might as well have one menu.

As always at such places, one is unsure of how much to order, and doubtful of whether the server’s advice can be trusted. We ordered—all to share—a small plate, a pasta, and a large plate, and it was still more food than we could eat.

We liked the hefty Lardo-Wrapped Prawns with rosemary lentils ($16; above left), even if we couldn’t taste much lardo. Spaghetti with octopus ragu ($15; above right) justified Conant’s well deserved reputation as a pasta champion.

Oddly, both of these were served at once, after which we were advised that our entrée—er, large plate—would take 25 minutes. Apparently it had not occurred to them that the two appetizers—er, small plates—ought to be served as separate courses.

When they said “large plate,” they weren’t kidding. The Glazed Berkshire Pork Chop ($31; above left) was the largest pork entrée we’d ever seen. The photo doesn’t do it justice. With one more side dish, three people could have shared it. From the descriptions, all of the piatti grande seem to be like that—very large portions that a sane solo diner couldn’t order.

The server presented the double-chop table-side, then whisked it away to be cut into sections. We’re not sure how Italian it is, but it might be the best pork entrée in New York, blowing the Little Owl’s to smithereens. A side of herbed fries ($9; above right) was a greasy mess; the evening’s only disappointment.

The décor, as Richman noted, could be a hotel anywhere. We never visited Table 8, but we understand it is little changed. The trip to the rest room, as many reviewers have noted, is a trek so long you’ll be tempted to leave breadcrumbs to show you the path back home. That’s often the case with hotel restaurants.

Servers wear ties and work with brisk efficiency. A sommelier comes to your table unbidden, though the wine list is neither as long nor as varied as it ought to be. Like everything else at Faustina, that could change.

In sum, Faustina is promising indeed. We don’t know when we’ll get around to returning. Unlike Scarpetta, we’d very much like to.

Faustina (25 Cooper Square (Bowery between 5th & 6th Streets), East Village)

Food: **
Service: **
Ambiance: *
Overall: **

The Smith

The Smith never made it to the top of my must-visit list when it opened in 2007. The restaurant, as Frank Bruni noted, “didn’t make all that loud and persuasive a case for attention among all the other clamorers.”

But on Friday evening, when I was looking for a restaurant not too far from east Chelsea, where the food would suit my 15-year-old son, the Smith fit the bill perfectly. Better yet, the Smith is on OpenTable. These days, I hardly go anywhere unfamiliar if it is not on OpenTable. It’s simply not worth a trip, only to face an unknown wait.

The Smith actually didn’t have to be on OpenTable. On a Friday evening, it was packed—mostly with NYU students, or so it seemed to us. We appreciated that our reservation was honored fifteen minutes late, never a sure thing at a place so crowded. Fortunately, we got a corner table, which meant that the unsufferable din assaulted us on two sides, instead of all four. The Smith is as loud a restaurant as we’ve visited in quite some time.

The menu offers American brasserie food at recession-resistant prices, with starters and snacks, $10 or less, sandwiches, pastas and entrées $19 or less (except steaks, which are in the $20s). The by-the-glass wine list (most $10 or less) is longer than it has to be, and selections are also offered by the caraffe or the “big caraffe.” House cocktails are mostly $11, beers $6–8.

The kitchen did a respectable job with Caesar Salad ($9; above left). The pork chop ($19; above right) was decent, but the accompanying “sweet potato hash” (apples, bacon, cider glaze) tasted like it had simmered too long.

My son loved the lobster roll ($23; above left)—a special served only on Fridays. The burger ($15; above right) was respectable, but not as good as the one we had at Choptank a few weeks ago, at the same price.

I wouldn’t mind returning to the Smith if the dining room weren’t so loud. As it is…well, this is the East Village, an area not exactly starved for restaurants. I’d drop in again (outside of prime time) if I were, oh, within a three-block radius.

The Smith (55 Third Avenue south of 11th Street, East Village)

Rating: ★

Kajitsu

Among the many surprises in the latest Michelin Guide was a star given to Kajitsu, a tiny East Village Japanese restaurant that the mainstream critics practically ignored. Among major publications, four out of five stars from TONY was the only full review. The Times relegated it to Dining Briefs.

Some complain that the Michelin Guide fails to conform to “Received Wisdom” about what is good in New York, but I find it refreshing to find out about places the other critics overlooked. So we paid Kajitsu a visit on Saturday evening.

Without a strong recommendation, this is not a restaurant I would have visited. It’s what Americans would call vegan. There are no animal products on the menu at all.

In Japanese, it’s called Shojin, a Zen Buddhist practice based on respect for living things. Plates are artistically composed in the Kaiseki style, with an equal emphasis on taste and beauty.

As a confirmed carnivore, I must admit that I would not choose a steady diet of this kind of food. I was willing to try it once.

The only choices are the four-course menu for $50 or the eight-course menu for $70. (Click on the image to the right for a full-size copy.) Both change monthly. It seems silly not to spend $20 more for double the number of courses, and it appeared to us that most patrons felt the same.

The chef, Masato Mishihara, works quietly behind a blonde wood counter. He seems to do all of the cooking himself. There are several servers, all female, who tend to eight seats at the counter and eighteen more at the tables. The space was not full, and reservations had been timed to ensure that the chef could keep up without ever having to hurry.

The first course (above) was a slow braised Japanese turnip with black truffle and a bit of gold leaf. We were impressed by the sweet flavor of a vegetable not often served on its own. Like most of the courses, it came in a bowl that was as artistic as the food itself.

A Carrot and Shimeji Mushroom Soup (above left), with little flecks of mushroom tempura, was much better than I ever thought carrot soup could be.

The next course (below) included Fresh Diced Persimmon, Fig and Jicama with Creamy Sesame Sauce (basically a fruit salad) inside of a hollowed-out gourd. Alongside that was a hot House-made Tofu with Matcha Soy Glaze.

Just as impressive was the feat of hollowing out the gourds, which cannot have been easy.

Next came a House-made Soba Dumpling (above left) with a daub of wasabi. I appreciated the technical skill involved, but the taste was too monotonous for me.

The largest item (above right), which the servers described “the main course,” included a pumpkin wheat gluten called “fu” in a cranberry sauce, tempura vegetables, and salad greens. Like several other dishes, it illustrated the chef’s skill at combining local produce with Japanese technique.

The savory part of the menu ended with Matsutake Mushroom Rice and House-Made Pickled Vegetables (above left). We loved the vegetables, but the rice was merely adequate.

Dessert, described as a Chestnut “Yokan” Pastry (above right), was distinctly unpleasant. Just as perplexing was crumble of peanuts, resembling the leftovers of a snack served in coach.

Rakagun Candies (above left) weren’t impressive, even if they were imported from Kyoto, but I loved the intense fluffy green tea, mixed by hand with a whisk.

I respect and admire the chef’s skill. All of the courses were very good and beautifully presented, except for the desserts. But I am not eager to repeat the experience, especially at $70 per person before alcohol, tax, and tip. By the end, I was starting to pine for some animal fat. That shouldn’t necessarily dissuade you: remember, I am a carnivore.

You could easily miss the place. It’s on a non-descript block in the far East Village, not far from Tompkins Square Park, in the cellar of what appears to be a tenemant building. The rooms are the perfect picture of Buddhist austerity.

The servers are every bit as polished as the cuisine. There is a short list of sakes, wines, and beers, priced for any budget.

Kajitsu (414 E. 9th St. between First Ave. & Avenue A, East Village)

Food: **
Service: **
Ambiance: **
Overall: **