Sushi For A Song
New York Press
December, 7 2005
SUSHI FOR A SONG
"Sushi” pizza and other delectables.
By A.R. Brook Lynn
Having watched the rapid decline of MacDougal Street in my youth, it's hard for me to recommend anyone dine on the most nostalgic block in Greenwich Village, where Van Ronk lived and Hendrix played. MacDougal Street, once home to the Derby, a dollar-pizza place and one of the last good, reasonably priced Greek restaurants in Manhattan, was reinvented some time ago as a watered-down Bourbon Street, packed with drunken college students, would-be bohemians and, for some reason, lots of rowdy Israelis.
Accommodating NYU students and bridge-and-tunnel traffic has cheapened the once-bohemian street. There are perks to this new incarnation, however small they may be. Many of the street's hot spots have implemented customer-catching lures, which can be helpful to those unwilling to drop an entire week's paycheck or allowance on a "wicked" night in the Village. One such gimmick-loaded restaurant is Yummy Sushi Village.
The first thing that caught my eye about Yummy was its sushi-eating challenge. The second was a small, blonde college student stuffing her face full of salmon sushi like there was no tomorrow. What a girl won't do for a free meal, even if you have to shove the allotted amount of sushi into your gut in 20 minutes or less. Currently, the record stands at 31 pieces by a girl and 52 by a boy. Every time someone tops the total, the eating challenge increases by one piece. A wall in Yummy is dedicated to sushi-challenge participants. Each contestant is immortalized in little Polaroids tacked to a bulletin board. If you flop, you must pay for all the sushi.
What's more, until 8 p.m., sushi is two-for-one, as are large bottles of hot sake ($15). I have, on multiple occasions, needed to take a portion of the second bottle home, as finishing it would have been a mistake. Who wouldn't prefer that to $7 beers at the insufferable Fat Black Pussycat?
As sick as I am of cutesie names for Americanized maki (rolls), Yummy has created some creative maki fusion. My pick is the Mexican roll ($8), with a spicy-tuna-roll base topped by avocado, jalapeños and a zippy red-and-green tobiko garnish. Sushi snobbishness doesn't usually permit me to partake in such thing as sushi pizza ($6), but after two-for-one sake, a girl like me will try anything. I'm glad I did. Sushi pizza is good. I mean, really good. Fried bread topped with sashimi tuna, tobiko and scallions. Who can argue with that? Nobody sane. Not even argumentative, contradictory little me.
But sanity is not what guides the anonymous idiots who contribute to the Citysearch restaurant guide, on which Yummy was panned for not being authentic enough.Huh? Since when is authenticity a prerequisite for good city dining? I am by no means a champion of fusion, but every restaurant, from Gotham to your local gyro pushcart, fancies up the menu a bit. Primarily, this is accomplished by Americanizing some recipes. But I doubt if even the most heralded Thai restaurant tastes as it would in Thailand—or that it should. And I don't mean to shatter any illusions, but most of the Chinese food in Chinatown is cooked to please the palate of middle-American tourists. The Chinese invented pasta, after all, and are now taking their vengeance on those unauthentic Italians by eating up Little Italy.
Authentic food can be found if you want it. Crawl up a dilapidated stairway in Jackson Heights and get a vindaloo that actually burns, or go to Brooklyn's Chinatown and sample the pork buns. But if authenticity is all we, as city eaters, are looking to chase, we'll miss a lot.
Generally, Yummy Sushi Village is a tranquil place where one isn't bombarded with the usual Village crowd. I take comfort in sitting there with a couple of good friends and getting quietly hammered on hot sake while sampling countless house rolls and pontificating on contrition, absolution and death.
All the while, I take a break to bow my head in homage to the coveted "wasabi rush" that inevitably comes when one scoops a hero's amount of the green horseradish paste into their soy sauce dish. Avoid the existentialism and go where young Japanese girls will sit and drink with you if it's late enough, where the one old, half-blind chef will take an hour to prepare your dinner but inevitably make up for it with some on-the-house creation, and where you can be the only one garishly taking about the pros and cons of various sex positions without one guffaw from your dining neighbor. After every meal, the server will bring you a coupon good for one week to ensure 50 percent off any lunchtime meal (12 p.m.–3 p.m.), or 30 percent off all food during happy hour (3 p.m.–8 p.m.).
Yummy Sushi Village 95 MacDougal St. (betw. Minetta Lane & Bleecker St.), 212-673-8811
