A couple of weeks ago, I attended a press preview night for Yakiniku Great, a Tokyo-based restaurant where meat is cooked on a grill at each table setting (yakiniku). There are a lot of yakiniku spots around New York City now, and this one aims to distinguish itself in a couple of ways: first, by assigning a chef to each party to grill everything, rather than letting the customers grill, and secondly, by specializing in lesser-known lean cuts of A5 wagyu steak.

Now, “lean cuts” and “A5 wagyu” might sound contradictory, given that A5 is the grading given only to the butteriest, fat-marbliest Japanese beef. But this place prides itself on making use of what you might call the off-cuts of this coveted specimen (or “rare cuts” as they call them). And they do this usually by slicing them very thinly and grilling each side for a count of three seconds before rolling up the piece and placing it in a little dish of sauce, like a smoke-kissed cigar of silk (except for one course where the beef is ground and spread inside the cap of a mushroom, which is grilled on both sides). A map of the cow’s muscle sections is provided on the back of the menu, and the server explains which one you’re receiving before preparing each. 

Had I been paying for this experience, any night after this special pre-opening preview where I hobnobbed with other food writers, I would have had a choice between a tasting menu based around six cuts of steak for $130, or eight cuts of steak for $170 — and with either those, the option to add a $70 supplement of Chateaubriand topped with uni. (Of course, they gave us the whole whammy, so I ate $240 worth of meat and was quite full.) But forgoing the Chateaubriand, which is the upsell that’s not even in the brand’s lean-cut wheelhouse, either menu gives you a chef-led omakase experience for under $200.

Consider the average between those two price tiers: $150. This seems to be the sweet spot when it comes to set-menu prices among an eclectic slew of newer restaurants. It’s about the price of the prix-fixe dinner at Kabawa ($145), and the tasting-menu dinner at Corima ($140). It’s precisely the prix-fixe dinner price at Oiji Mi, the tasting menu price at Jua and Yingtao, and nearly that of the $149 omakase at Sushi Ouiji. A $150 (or thereabouts) set-menu dinner means you’re buying into a curated, thoughtful, and immersive dining experience but not about to take on credit card debt as a result. 

There are a lot of food critics who have voiced the opinion that tasting-menu and omakase experiences as a whole have gotten exhaustingly long and prone to clichés and predictable upsells (truffle, caviar and uni!), which I have no reason to doubt but don’t have enough experience to judge myself. I also don’t doubt that they’ve become a trendy, conspicuous consumption habit among those who can best afford them, namely (who else?) finance bros. “Bromakase” is a portmanteau born of this spite, directed at both this certain faction of obnoxious fans of them (bros) as well as the proliferation of tasting menus (omakase) that may cater to them. The cynics may have a point, let’s check ourselves: I’m not sure anyone but jaded food writers knows the term “bromakase.” 

The reality is a lot of people, not just bros, enjoy this dining format — because why wouldn’t anyone want to eat an expertly sourced, artfully plated parade of bites presented to you with storytelling, pomp and circumstance? So why not have more options that are within reach? I think that’s why we’re seeing lots of omakase for less than $100¹, like Sendo, which offers three sushi sets ranging from $34 to $48, or the newly opened Iki Sekai, which offers a 14-course omakase for $85.

Similar to off-cuts of A5 wagyu, I’d like to see more downmarket versions of upscale brands or concepts. Like the $82 “Butcher’s Feast” at Cote Steakhouse. Or Atoboy’s $75 prix-fixe dinner. I went to the latter a couple months ago with three friends and it felt like a good bargain, especially since we all ordered different options from each menu section so we got to try everything together. We also chose a $55 bottle of orange wine from the vast list, so each glass cost only $11, about half the price of the average wine by the glass around the city. Sure, it’s not the same as staying in, but here we got to chat up an experienced sommelier who demonstrated a deep knowledge of the Slovakian winery and grapes in question, and we got to eat some of the food attributed to a chef who’s been lauded as among the country’s best, Junyun Park. I might never dine at his flagship restaurant, Atomix, for a $385 tasting menu, but I’ll happily try his earlier, more casual restaurant for a $75 prix-fixe. Call it a downsell. 

Enough about what I ate. Here are some recent favorite bites from the rest of our Shut Up ‘n Eat team:

From California, Peter reports:

Back in NYC, Matt loved:

We gave our Shut Up ‘n Eat podcast episode #1 guests, chefs Sohui Kim and Yong Shin of Insa, the challenge of verbally creating a dish on the fly using shrimp, soy milk, and kiwi. Listeners weighed in, and we have a winner.

🟨🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ Cantonese fried (soy) milk with kiwi-mango salsa, by Sohui Kim
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 Soy leche de tigre with shrimp, fried shrimp oil, and diced kiwi, by Yong Shin
🟨🟨🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️ Kiwi coconut shrimp, curry style, by ChatGPT

It’s not the Robot! Voters named Yong Shin’s soy leche de tigre with shrimp, fried shrimp oil, and diced kiwi the ultimate victor. Which means that humankind has staved off the eventual takeover of our AI creations for at least one good meal.

What is leche de tigre, by the way? For those less familiar (cough, me) it’s a Peruvian marinade with citrus and spice (and in Yong’s version, soy milk). This is a great adaption, however, because the term translates to “tiger’s milk” and tigers and soybeans are practically the same thing.

So thanks for playing along and don’t forget to vote for a dish in Chef vs. Robot, Kabawa edition!