Omakase for me is also sitting in front of the itamae, progression of the omakase, his interaction with you etc. In addition, the quality of the sashimi significantly drops if it is not eaten immediately but gets driven around. So sure, these sushi platters were necessary for some restaurants and they might continue as it an easy way for some restaurants to earn additional money but I doubt that many will now still see it as an omakase - since @uni raised the original question about omakase places I would be curious to know if he would consider this platter as an omakase worth visiting in NYC
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@anon6418899 (question is for both of you)
Just curious, I see your back and forth and I’m not trying to pick sides but my understanding was “Omakase” was simply: “Chef’s Choice”. You order it, give a “budget” and they make whatever they want for you?
I don’t see what the back and forth is about? If you have it there, have it to go, have it with green eggs and ham. Does it really change the fact it’s Omakase?
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Maybe we can settle this by saying you’re both right. That platter is definitely not what most people think of when they think “omakase”. But also, that platter definitely is omakase. The word means “I leave it up to you (chef)”. In this case, it is the chef, not the diner, who coined that platter “omakase”. It is, therefore, omakase.
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The literal translation of omakase doesn’t convey the full extent of “choice”. It extends to the sequence, timing, sometimes the total number of courses. There’s an interesting take in Vogue by Steingarten (2016, on their web site).
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Not to wade too deeply into this discussion of whether there’s one true omakase or multiple interpretations (although I lean to the “one true” interpretation), but there’s a parallel omakase thread on the NYC board:
This may have been mentioned above, or it may be obvious to all. When I’m not dabbling in food, I dabble in the obvious.
I am not saying anyone else’s ideas about what omakase is – are not valid because they are, even if you have an American centralized view of what omakase dinners are like. But once again, some one has issues with my viewpoint even if I did not ask for a cock fight. But if y’all want to know what I REALLY think…
Yea yea yea we could all read tea leaves and gastronomical pretenses of what omakase was, but is that the point? Especially in a Covid era?
All I am saying is that omakase is a rapidly changing format, like food itself. The food and formats are alive, and uh, mutating for lack of a better epidemiological pun. We all know that any dish we eat today didn’t exist 400 years ago. If Sushi West 35, with their credentials, say it’s omakase, it’s effing omakase, that’s all there is to it. There’s no more debate. We are done here. No one is allowed to declare some cultural moratorium on what is and what is no longer a thing, especially when it was fluid to begin with.
I say this despite the fact that I got one single thing wrong during Covid. (I had started prepping n95 masks and other preparedness as early as Jan 15, 2020 and pretty much predicted every single thing that happened ever since. Accurately. Very accurately.) I never in my wildest did I ever believe high end take out sushi would ever be a thing, ever. I thought it was barbaric, I thought even normal foodies would see this is heresy. I was dead wrong and I accept it. I say this as a Japanese national who is interested in preserving a lot of traditions of my country. Covid changed omakase and sushi into something I refused to imagine. But hey Covid did that to everyone we were all wrong about some things to small and large degrees, so I should not be too hard on myself I suppose. As long as we can re-calibrate and adjust, that’s what matters. Digging in heels, that’s pointless and counterproductive. Even effin’ Anthony Mangieri puts toppings on pizza. His younger self would have shot his older self. Things change, deal with it.
So it is unwise to impose your own narrow conceptions on phenomena that you do not control. You will always be wrong eventually.
I predict that Sushi West 35 will inspire many copycats and thus a very liberal widening of the meaning of omakase, whether we like it or not. The city is opening 2 new 12-18 piece for $85-$400 sushi counters every 3 weeks! I’m not exaggerating. Even me, with my background, appetite, and unlimited appreciation of things Japanese, I’m just bored out of my effin mind. There is a goddamn Sushi Counter Omakase Bubble goin on in NYC, and I just adore and love Sushi West 35’s 180 pivot. If some restaurant developer said I got the number one guy from Tokyo ready to start a counter in the city and asked me to invest, I’d hang up on him immediately, mark his email as spam, and unfriend him on LinkedIn like yesterday.
I think it’s genius what Sushi West 35 is doing. They are upending the cart, democratizing the market, and making it more inclusive not more exclusive. How about making quality food affordable instead of luxury? Has this not occurred to ANYBODY? I guess fucking not. Ok, you don’t get to chit chat with the chef and do your awkward kubuki dance with him/her, but come on it was a means to an end to begin with and your Japanese is never going to be great anyway so please just take this plastic tray of amazing sushi and stuff your face with it at home and anon6418899 won’t even make fun of you when you vigorously mix wasabi in soy sauce and rub your chopsticks against other like a caveman trying starting a fire. I mean unless you want to send me the video and then I’d be happy to roast you on TikTok, up to you
Finally, tbh the sushi doesn’t suffer en route, much to my chagrin, which turns to enthusiasm at home.
Omakase sushi is dead, long live omakase sushi.
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May I just say, Good Krishna!
(Not that he’s a particularly favorite god – he having, in the Mahabharata, advised Arjuna to unleash the great war on the grounds of duty – but, hey, all gods have so much blood on their hands that it’s hard to pick the worst. Which suggests a topic: The worst blood sausage of the worst gods.)
In any case, I mildly suggest that “original” omakase is still alive and I predict it will continue to flourish despite inexpensive round-tray wannabees. Really, this “Covid” thing is temporary. It will clearly, like the 'flu, never fully go away, and we’ll have to take precautions, but, really, no more “genuine” omakase ?
No, I did not say that, read carefully.
I said a new player has entered the chat room
You are welcome to do it up at Masa for $950, the next levels down at $400, salaryman level <$150 and so on, because that’s where the wannabes are. Sushi West 35 aren’t wannbes, they have more cred than just about anyone in the city coming from one of the top restaurants in North America never mind NYC. You don’t like the plastic tray no one cares, everyone is going to love this place and for good reason.
There’s only one civilized way to settle this: toro at dawn.
Just kidding. This is a family-friendly-site (as @GretchenS has warned me when she imagined I was crossing a line) and we want no suggestion of shooting fatty tuna at each other. If the impact doesn’t kill us, the fat will.
So let me just suggest that if in five years Masa still exists you’ll buy me omakase there, and if Sushi West 35 is still around I’ll do the same for you (to be clear, buy you their round tray to go). If they’re both around we’ll do one of each.
Game on?
Ha I am pro-fat, low-carb kind of guy, but I like the fictitious analogy
I would like to agree but I can’t, because it’s not a good deal. I’m a sporting kind of guy, I bet the world Trump would win in 2016 even if I didn’t vote for him and won “bigly”, however the bet you propose isn’t really fair. Masa would be $2070 to $2500 while a whole omakase at West 35 is $135, both with tax and optional/required tip. (Masa isn’t very Japanese I guess, we don’t do tip or “house service fees” in Japan.)
Additionally most new restaurants fail within two years and no one knows why, there’s not an easy metric for why. A Lee 88 was amazing and it lasted 4 months – I know that’s an anecdote but how many times have we heard something like this?
Instead I suggest that if a business model or sub-model like West 35’s exists in 5 years, very high quality sushi to go at 1/2 to 1/3rd the price of the next tier down from Masa, because the next level down is already less than 1/2 the price, you’ll just buy me beers from the bodega near the Sushi West 35 from the future and we’ll eat it together on the sidewalk. If I’m wrong, I’ll buy us 150 of 2027 dollars in 2027 from any place you like in the city.
Or we could see what $150 dollars buys us at a Whole Foods Sushi this year. I remember when Whole Foods Bowery opened, it was the Eataly of it’s day, and they had prototypes of sushi pushing it from sad supermarket stuff to you know, “Whole Foods quality”. We could just find the best WF sushi counter in the city. Might be fun
Agreed. (Former Chowhound and denizen of the Boston board there for over a generation.)
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Welcome.
