I have written before in this space about the curious, creeping gigantism of Japanese restaurants in New York City. It used to be these restaurants were much like they are in Japan, which is to say small, neighborly, and terminally quaint. Not anymore. Now they are grand Godzilla-size dining palaces filled with dripping Buddha ice sculptures (Megu), paper lanterns as big as blimps (Matsuri), and multiple, garishly appointed cocktail bars (Ono, Matsuri, Nobu 57). The rooms are as big as your local Costco and cost ten times as much to build. The menus run for pages and hinge on gimmicks like “robata-style” grilling (Ono), artisanally made tofu (EN Japanese Brasserie), or ridiculously expensive Kobe-beef recipes from the kitchens of imperial Japan (Megu). You would think these monsters would eat each other alive after a while, but the opposite seems to be true. They keep coming, one after another, turning Manhattan’s restaurant landscape into a great Japanese battleground, with each new venue straining to be more garishly entertaining, more massively glitzy than the next.
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