January 15, 2016 Restaurant/Bar News
Inexpensive restaurants continue to find Tribeca rough going: The latest victim is the sushi hole-in-the-wall at 63 Reade. The second time I wrote about restaurant fraud on Seamless, in October of 2014, I pointed out that Hamachi Sushi and Anago Sushi were both at 63 Reade. Because the awning was folded over (as seen in the photo below), I didn’t notice that the establishment was also calling itself Okami Sushi. The multiple-name ploy is aggravating, but I find it harder and harder to blame restaurants for doing whatever they can to survive.
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It may seem churlish to speak ill of the demised, but I have to say that it was an unforgettable experience to watch my wife’s face (she’s Japanese) when we walked past this place and I pointed it out to her for the first time. We’re used to non-Japanese “Japanese restaurants” and their attendant weirdness. But as she took in the various aspects of this place, from the name(s) to the signage and decor, to the menu, I watched her normally very alert face go from slack to slacker, to a sort of opacity. When she’d recovered enough to utter words they were in halting Japanese: “So… much… so… wrong…”. I lament the loss of inexpensive dining in the neighborhood, but it’s really hard, for me at least, to muster anything like sorrow over this.
Dumb it down for us, David. Since brevity is the soul of wit. And tediousness the limbs and outward flourishes, I will be brief…Smithers out.