Awards
This isn’t your college food-co-op tofu, though, or some arbitrary marketing ploy. The owners were inspired by a Kyoto tofu manufacturer, Kyotofu-Fujino, and its affiliated cafés—in fact, the family of one of the partners owns it—but they tailored the concept for a Manhattan market. The menu falls within certain Far Eastern flavor parameters, but desserts fuse Eastern and Western techniques and presentations. They also have a dainty, delicate quality—a femininity, you might say—which makes the place a magnet most nights for dainty, delicate females and chirpy, dessert-nibbling aesthetes of the opposite sex. They’re probably also drawn by the clean, contemporary look of the space, which was conceived by Hiro Tsuruta (the designer of ChikaLicious too) as a home in Kyoto, with a long pathway leading to the entrance, or, in this case, the dining room. On the way, you pass the glass-walled kitchen, where the chef can be seen drizzling syrups and cocking tuiles at jaunty angles. — Robin Raisfeld and Rob Patronite |
“Proving that the ‘lowly soybean’ can be ‘truly delicious’, this ‘unusual’ Hell’s Kitchen Japanese dispenses ‘wonderful desserts’ and ‘fantastic soft-serve’, all made from tofu; the ‘candlelit’ setting and ‘seductive sakes’ conjure up ‘romance’ with a ‘touch of Zen’. |
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