May 9, 2008
by Christine Yeres
By the time Takayama opened twelve years ago in downtown Chappaqua, sushi-dependent New Yorkers newly transplanted to the suburbs were relieved to find a sushi source already in place here. As a cuisine wave, sushi has since settled from Pacific-size to Atlantic-size, but Takayama remains a culinary staple of the town, plunk in the middle of the downtown’s “restaurant row”—OK, “triangle”—along with destination restaurants like Le Jardin du Roi and Grappolo and the remade Lyla’s. Weekdays, Takayama draws adults at lunch, students after school, and carrys on a brisk take-out trade weekday evenings, mainly of sushi.
Shabu-shabu
Weekends bring more eat-in patrons, and if you only live the carry-out life you might not know that besides its traditional menu items, the restaurant offers shabu-shabu, a highly interactive dining experience that requires you (as Bill Murray exclaimed to Scarlett Johansen in Lost in Translation) “to cook your own food!” From platters of thin sliced sirloin beef, vegetables, mushrooms, tofu and cellophane noodles, diners choose raw materials, take them up with chop sticks, and dip them into the pot of sea-weed flavored boiling water in the center of the table, swish to cook, then retrieve them from the pot, with stopovers at dipping sauces on their way to your plate. By the time everyone’s finished cooking and eating, the boiling water has become broth. Then in go the sides of rice, and everyone eats the soup, too.
Omakase
A few customers with real experience of Japan know they can ask for a traditional Japanese dish at Takayama that doesn’t appear on the menu, omakase [“oh-mah-KA-say”], an entire meal made from the best seasonal materials chosen by the chef and cooked on a stone grill at the diners’ table. When you reserve (well in advance) to have an omakase meal, you’re not the decider. The chef chooses, and the foodstuffs and treatments can be nothing like the offerings on the regular menu. Because of its experimental nature, to be comfortable ordering omakase it takes some knowledge of the customer on the part of the chef, and, on the customer’s side, some faith in the judgment of the chef. It’s there when you’re ready to try it.
On Mother’s Day, moms dine for free
On Sunday, Mothers Day, Takayama invites any mother in your party to dine free of charge, 4:30 to 9:30 p.m. (though the offer doesn’t apply to omakase) and you must make reservations (238-5700). Sunday hours are 4:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. From Monday to Thursday, hours are 11:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m., then 4:30 to 10:00 p.m., Friday and Saturday 11:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m., then 4:30 to 11:00 p.m. Takayama has always served between 30 and 100 varieties of sake, but recently it has added a full bar as well. The menu is online at: Takayama
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