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“Bar Masa”

Occasion:	Cuisine:	Area:	Cost:	Rating:
Night Out	Asian	Midtown	Moderate	Good

sels. There are finger foods like oysters on the half shell (6 for $18), tofu with ginger sauce ($7), skewered Kobe beef ($15), a lovely lightly fried softshell crab ($15), and one really odd dish called “fried sweet corn croquette” ($9). These are really quite strange. They are quarter sized fritters made from mostly potato (not corn), crisped in panko, each containing one solitary corn kernel and one lone green pea. They were very TGI Fridays. Dull, and potatoey, and I don’t understand why they are on the menu. Are these Masa’s answer to the Latke? If so, I recommend he contact a Jewish grandmother for lessons because these were not tasty and came with some sort of ketchup and not applesauce or sour cream as we Jews serve them. I have no idea why they are on this menu. But perhaps this is a Japanese delicacy I am not aware of? Thoughts on this?

The rest of the food though, was quite delicious and not at all puzzling. We loved the sushi canapés—a selection that included salmon with chives, tuna with caviar, yellowtail with truffle, and scallops with shrimp ($28). Served on a long rectangular plate like little gifts from Tiffany’s, the toothsome rice canapés come topped with mounds of shimmering silky-soft fish that makes a decent argument for never eating meat (or anything else for that matter) again. This dish is a terrific illustration of Masa’s ability to make fish a deliciously sensual experience.

We also loved the salmon sashimi salad, thin slices of bright pink fish marbled with ribbons of pearly fat, wrapped around strands of julienned cucumber in a lively kaiware (ginger) sauce laced with mustard and soy. The fish almost comes alive in your mouth; it is quite miraculous. I preferred the delicate sashimi salad and the hamachi sashimi with shiso, daikon and yuzu (another spectacular dish) to the “Bar Roll” we ordered, which was giant, clumsy and difficult to eat, presented sliced in four large pieces, each the diameter of a hockey puck. Sure the tuna avocado and cucumber roll ($21) was very tasty—the avocado perfectly ripe, the tuna garnet red and full of flavor—why make a roll that you have to bite in two to eat? This is not a very graceful experience so do not try this on a date. You’ll have tuna, torn seaweed and cucumber threads hanging off your front lip. Just say no to the Bar Rolls. Claim you are no longer hungry and then order a pizza from the bathroom.

The menu also includes noodle dishes like a Kobe beef yak ... [more, click below]

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Posted: April 21, 2004

Other restaurants in Midtown :
+ Lever House   + Aquavit   + RM   + Joseph's (formerly Citarella The Restaurant)   + Town   + Artisanal   + The Oyster Bar   + Geisha   + David Burke and Donatella Restaurant   + Riingo   + Amma   + Cafe Sabarsky   + The Stone Rose Lounge   + BLT Steak   + V, The Steakhouse-- Closed   + Bar Masa   + Cafe Gray   + The Bar Room at The Modern   + The Cafe at Aquavit   + The Cafe at Aquavit   + Bistro du Vent-- Closed   + Shaburi   + Xing   + The Modern   + Bar Americain   + Alto   + Park Blue   + Mainland-- Closed   + Nobu 57   + Quality Meats   + Dona-- CLOSED   + Daisy May's   + 7Square-- CLOSED   + Amalia   + Fireside   + Anthos   + Patroon   + BLT Market   + Toloache   + Mia Dona   + Park Avenue Summer   + Convivio   + The Oak Room by guest reviewer Julie Besonen   + At Vermilion by guest reviewer Elaine Weiner   + Lunching at Inakaya, by guest reviewer Kathleen Squires   + Marea, by Guest Reviewer Susan Kane Walkush   + Le Bernardin   + New York Central -- A Reason To Eat at the Grand Hyatt Again   + Pampano Botaneria by Dara Pollak   

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