Critic's Review of 'Sushi on Jones' at NYC

choi

Ligaya Mishan, This Sushi Waits for No One; Thirty minutes or less: Don't expect to linger here in the Bowery Market food court. New York Times, Oct 26, 2016 (in the weekly Food section).
www.nytimes.com/2016/10/26/dining/sushi-on-jones-review.html

Note:
(a) "It rained the first night I went to Sushi on Jones, a tiny open-air sushi bar on a NoHo [North of Houston Street] lot once home to an auto repair shop. Someone had rigged two umbrellas and a tarp over the four-seat counter."

rig (vt): "to furnish with special gear : EQUIP"
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/rig
(b) Bowery
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bowery
(a street; for name origin, see paragraph 1 of the text (not the introduction) )

(c) "The [30-minute] deadline may seem ruthless. But even customers at the celebrated Sukiyabashi Jiro in Tokyo are allotted only a half-hour to down 20 pieces of sushi, a privilege for which they pay 30,000 yen, around $290.  At Sushi on Jones, the price is $50 for 12 pieces, which gives you two and a half minutes to contemplate and devour each, a more leisurely pace than Jiro's."
(i) "Sukiyabashi Jirō すきやばし次郎 is a sushi restaurant in Ginza * * * It is owned and operated by sushi master Jirō ONO 小野 二郎."  en.wikipedia.org
(ii) すきやばし is 数寄屋橋
https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/数寄屋橋

Name of a bridge over outer moat of Tokyo, which was there until 1954 when the moat was filled up.  (The noun "hashi 橋" us softened to "bashi.")
(iii) Japanese-English dictionary:
* sukiya  数奇屋; 数寄屋 【すきや】 (n): "tea-ceremony arbor"  (数寄屋 is also known as 茶室 -- a stand-alone simple, wooden building in a garden to perform tea ceremony. The bridge -- and the area around it nowadays 00 was so named because a feudal lord named Nagamasu ODA 織田 長益 (1548 – 1622; also known as Urakusai 有楽斎; a younger of 織田信長) built a teahouse here.)  


(d) "First up is hamachi, reliably blushing and so buttery it’s almost louche. (It made me miss kanpachi, its leaner cousin, brighter and springier in texture.)"
(i) The hamachi is
Japanese amberjack
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_amberjack
(Seriola quinqueradiata)
(ii) The kanpachi is
greater amberjack (Seriola dumerili).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greater_amberjack

(e) "A few pieces (snow crab, botan shrimp) feel like placeholders. * * * The climax of the meal is washūgyū 和州牛, a crossbreed of wagyū 和牛 and Black Angus from the Japanese butcher shop across the stree * * * uni [sea urchin (roe)] over wagyū * * * It's a pity that the omakase [お任せ: up to the chef to decide] ends with unagi  鰻 in a sauce as cloying and perfunctory as at any middling sushi bar across America."
(i)
(A) The "botan" (kanji 牡丹) is Japanese pronunciation for "peony."
(B) An adult botan shrimp (Pandalus nipponensis) is about 20 cm long; 日本特産種; meat tastes sweet. ja.wikipedia.org.
(ii) placeholder
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Placeholder
(may refer to filler text)

(f) "Anointments are mostly familiar and restrained: daub of yuzu, gloss of ponzu, pulped daikon 大根 [萝卜 in Chinese], hyphen of ginger."
(i) This use of anointment is something I have not seen before, and suspect erroneous.
(ii) ponzu
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ponzu

(g) "Mr [David] Bouhadana[, the proprietor of Sushi on Jones] * * * put in time at Morimoto, Hatsuhana and 15 East; and briefly ran the kitchens at Sushi Uo and Sushi Dojo.
(i) Masaharu MORIMOTO  森本 正治 operates restaurants in Boca Raton (Florida), Disney Springs (a shopping center in Lake Buena Vista, Florida), Las Vegas, Maui, Mexico city, Mumbai, Napa, New Delhi, NYC, Philadelphia and Waikiki
(ii) Hatsuhana 初花 Sushi Restaurant (NYC)
(iii) Sushi Uo (was at NYC; permanently closed; "uo" is Japanese pronunciation, in Japan, for "fish")
(iv) Sushi Dōjō  道場寿司
(A) dōjō  道場
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dojo
(photo)
(B) 道場
https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E9%81%93%E5%A0%B4
(photo)