Takahachi - Tribeca Visited 7/3/2013 4 Forks

Takahachi - Tribeca  45 Duane St (between Broadway & Church St), New York, NY 10013

I met up with Rene again one last time before she left to go back upstate and 2 nights before I had promised her that we would have some good sushi before she left.  When we lived in Park Slope together, we used to order sushi all the time and watch tv together, so even though we weren't in our old apt watching tv, it was still kind of a nice trip down memory lane to have sushi with her again.  Unfortunately, I had to work the day before the 4th, so she came downtown to meet up with me.  I wanted to take her somewhere good since she doesn't really get the opportunity to have good sushi in Germany but I rarely eat sushi for lunch during work.  I didn't really want to go to Wei West, even though it was the closest, but then I remembered that a few friends of mind had mentioned that Takahachi had opened a location in Tribeca.  The Takahachi in the East Village is a long standing favorite for me and several of my friends and even though I had heard that it's not the same as the one in the East Village, I was excited to try it out.

I should have known that anything in Tribeca is automatically going to be a different vibe than the East Village.  The reason why so many of us love the outpost in the East Village is because it's got fantastic sushi, lots of great variety and it's a no fuss kind of place.  It's very low key and casual but with high quality sushi.  The Tribeca location was a bit of the opposite.  It's a bit more high brow and formal but not super stuffy.  It just had a more sleek and modern feel to it and the menu reflects that.  The menu here, while still good, seemed to be a bit more trimmed down than the East Village one.  Regardless, we were still able to find tons of delicious sounding things to order.  Usually when I go out to a sushi place for lunch, I order something off their lunch special menu because it's such a great deal.  It was no different here.  Rene and I both ordered the sashimi lunch box special ($17.50) which came with 3 kinds of sashimi, soup, salad, and 2 sides of the day.  We were so tempted to order some rolls as well because they sounded great, but we figured we'd wait and see how the full we were before ordering more.

When we ordered the lunch box, the waitress asked if we wanted red or white miso soup.  Huh? In all my years of eating sushi, I've never been asked that.  Apparently the red one is made with fish sauce instead...so of course I had to try that one.   Honestly, it didn't taste all that different.  It was a bit more salty but it still tasted like miso soup at the end of the day.  Next came the salad and similar to my last sushi outing there was no ginger carrot dressing here.  Maybe they are phasing that out of that kind of dressing but that's what makes these boring green house salads so yummy.  Then came the sashimi (with rice) and the 2 sides of the day which were shumai and zucchini katsu.  The sashimi came with your standard fare of salmon, tuna, and white fish.  They were all fresh and solid pieces of raw fish.  I would have liked to have the cuts to have been a bit bigger as I was still a bit hungry after eating them.  But then you layer on the rice and sides and you can get yourself somewhat full.  The sides were great and different than your typical sides in a lunch box. The shumai was fairly large and didn't seem like the kind that you by frozen and just steam and serve.  I can't quite describe it but the skin wrapped around the entire dumpling so it didn't look like your usual shumai, but it still tasted great.  The zucchini katsu was lightly battered and fried pieces of green and yellow zucchini served with a thick dipping sauce and I loved it.  They were fried to perfection but you could still taste the vegetable inside.  Rene loved the food here as well and I was glad this place turned out to be great because I wouldn't want her last sushi experience in NYC to be a dud.  The lunch box turned out to be a great deal and we didn't even need to order any extra rolls later (although I would have totally eaten one if we got one).  It's a little bit of a walk from my office, but worth it to have something a bit more upscale.  Total bill: $49 for two with tax and tip

Photo Credit:  Yelp