The Chef Is Back in Town

As I said last week, I'm on a soba diet. (Although I can't say that I've been eating less pizza at Co.—it's just so good.) The reason I've been at Matsugen more is because chef Masa Matsushita is back in town. Of the three Matsushita brothers who founded the Matsugen restaurants, he's the only chef. He normally cooks at their Tokyo restaurant, but he came to New York to open our Matsugen, and now he's back for three months. (His chef de cuisine in New York, Choji Miyano, is fantastic; he's on paternity leave in Tokyo.)

Masa joins his brother Taka, who has settled in New York to run our restaurant. While he's cooking as he would in Tokyo, preparing authentic Japanese cuisine, Masa does so in a way that's uniquely American when he's here.

In Tokyo, soba and sushi aren't commonly served together. Here, we're offering both in a bento box lunch, along with black cod with miso, salad with a creamy carrot dressing, and vanilla caramel pudding for dessert. Also different from Tokyo? The $24 price tag for Restaurant Week (and, in fact, all of 2009).

When I'm craving my other Matsugen favorites, I'll get the $35 bento box. It includes yuba (homemade tofu), salad with a soy dressing, shrimp tempura, sushi, and soba. I love being able to have some of everything in one meal.Masa has also brought with him new dishes, which we're continually introducing. In addition to the crispy shrimp appetizer, this kampachi sashimi is great. It's topped with spicy oroshi and seasoned with ponzu. The subtle heat and crunch of the topping and sauce so perfectly offset the sweetness of the fish.

I realize this sounds like a lot of food, but it feels like the best"diet" possible. Everything at Matsugen tastes so refreshing and yet is so deeply satisfying. And those bento box lunches, as well as our $35 prix fixe dinner, do include a lot of dishes. It's just that true Japanese food has such clean, pure flavors, it leaves me feeling lighter than when I walked in.