For all my fellow office drones in Midtown East.

I went to the opening of Mantao Chinese Sandwiches for lunch today. I just couldn't resist after receiving a "friends of Mantao" soft opening invite email with secret 20% discount password. I need to feel special.

But the line was out the door and after waiting 5 or so minutes to place my order, I waited another 25 for my food. So much for feeling special.

"We're a little backed up," the adorable girl working the register was telling everyone, "it'll be 15-20 minutes."

(Before eating anything, I was already utterly charmed by this operation, just because they seemed like a bunch of friends who decided to open a sandwich shop (you can make a lot of assumptions observations in 25 minutes). In another life, where my friends are not studying to become doctors, lawyers, teachers, curators, writers, professors, and rich finance dudes, I can see us doing something like this.)

I got the Original Mantao Pork Bun sandwich and the Short Rib and Kimchi sandwich, although everything on the menu looked yummy.


Short rib and kimchi. Think bulgogi rather than kalbi for the short rib here, but a lesser marination job than either.


Original pork bun. I should be a hand model.


I'm not saying I measured, but they are about 9cm in diameter.

Both were solid, although the pork bun was the clear winner for me. I especially like what they've done with the bun. Mantou bread is traditionally steamed and eaten whole, as an accompaniment to veggie and meat dishes. Northern Chinese sandwiches, on the other hand, are usually made with flat, sesame-adorned, pancake-type breads. This, a steamed mantou toasted with sesame, is a happy, wholesome marriage better than anything that bougie fusion places like Shang have come up with.

I also got the milky black tea, but that was weak - too much milk.

I'll be dragging my coworkers there tomorrow to order the fried egg with Chinese sausage, spicy pork, and spicy mackerel sandwiches. If you decide to go this week, I highly recommend placing a pickup order via telephone and adding 5 minutes to the wait time they quote you.

Noah@Sakagura

Any of my friends could tell you that I have something called "extreme menu anxiety" in which I am unable to go to a restaurant without first reading every published review, with a good smattering of Citysearch/Menupages/Chowhound/Yelp opinions to round out the picture. Even then, I try to drag as many people as I can with me, and once I'm there, will usually interrogate some poor server multiple times before I order.

I just don't want to order the wrong thing. You know, the thing that chefs throw on the menu to get suckers who don't know better to order, thereby boosting their profit margin and allowing them to afford the less cost-effective but truly passionate dishes on the menu. Examples? Seared ahi* tuna, goat cheese arugula salads, anything with salmon.

Which is why I love tasting menus and omakase. No dodging there; the chef decides what you eat and therefore stands behind everything you eat. And, coming to the point, it's also why I think this buddy search thing might be a really great idea.

Sakagura was Noah's recommendation, and it was a solid one. Here's a guy who is married to a Japanese woman, spent time in Japan, and is discernibly obsessed with Japanese food, and he led me - with all the confidence you could hope for in an eating companion - to an underground lair where all the Japanese nationals go. A place I'd never even heard of before.

Plenty has been written about Sakagura. I won't repeat them here. I'll show you some pretty pictures though:



This is the "Jewel" Oke Bento, which is charmingly described on the menu as "seasonal sashimi, fried tidbits, grilled tidbits." I fucking love that. It's like, "No, I won't tell you exactly what is going to be on your huge round plate, just trust me, it's going to be tasty because it'll be either grilled or fried." You can't say no. (Noah had the same.)

The sashimi was top quality, not too big and slabby. The purplish mounds toward the bottom are three individual rice cakes seasoned with pickled shiso. The grilled bits were tofu, a thin slice of steak, and eel. The fried bits were two fans of tempura'd julienned veggies. The little cup had pickled mountain yams, and in the top left was a melon-ball scoop of taro in what tasted like a sauce spiked with sake.

A word here about shiso. Food writers and Top Chef contestants seem to wank all over shiso, but I'd never encountered it before. One of the sashimi was squid rolled with shiso leaf, and it was a crazy flavor pairing - spicy, herby, oceany. I am now wanking over shiso.

I guess I should also say something about the decor here: it was cool. Honestly, I don't care much about that stuff, but if you do, you'd like it. Woodsy and clean and as Japanese as you can picture in that authenticity-seeking, culturally tokenizing head of yours.

On to dessert!

Noah and I discovered we are both into savory desserts. He ordered a scoop of sea salt chocolate ice cream, which was crazy good. I got this:



It's a black sesame creme brulee, and it was even better. My menu anxiety also stems from not wanting to ever get food envy, so this was a clutch win for the home team.

Definitely a great meal, and not even outrageous at $27 including dessert. For my first "meat up," I really couldn't have asked for better. Noah was engaging, interesting, not awkward, and definitely not sketchy. We talked about his time living in Qingdao, my time living in Oaxaca, our takes on fusion cuisine, law, finance, and eggs.

The takeaway of the day: cooking someone an egg, just the way they like it, is love. No other food is so versatile, yet so particular. My dad cooked eggs for me growing up, forever defining my idea of perfection as whites fried to a crisp brown on the edges, yolk gooey but never runny within. Just a little FYI.

We parted ways at 53rd and Lex with a handshake. Back at the office, I saw that Noah had sent me a link to a Picasa album of food pictures. I sent back an Amazon link to Jeffrey Steingarten, and a promise to update him on Shang, which is my next meat-up. Will I see him again? I hope so, he was fun.

*Which, the way, is just the common yellowfin. Bluefin or bust!