NINJA! of New York

By: Greg B.

The Ninja. The name conjures up images of a remote island nation, people living in feudal society with warring samurai lords, engaged in constant battle for both supremacy and honor, but all the while, being assassinated in the dark by mysterious martial arts masters, cloaked in black. The Ninja. Master of Ninja physics, can do the Ninja double jump, a jump in the air, then, at the apex of height, perform another jump and propel himself forward. Running on water, scaling vertical walls seemingly with just their hands. The Ninja.

Now, in our time, Ninja are relegated to such things as Halloween costumes, bad movies involving pirates (I swear to you, in college we watched a movie that was Ninjas vs pirates.) and characters in video games. However, there is a restaurant in Tokyo called Ninja, a recreation of a feudal Japanese ninja castle, with excellent food and ninjas appearing from no where. The idea was to build a replica in NY city. The idea anyway. I expected Ninjas to fall from the ceiling, tumble through the hallways, surprise people from cracks in the wall, assassinate you while using the urinoirs, throw ninjas stars just past you head when you didn’t pay enough tip. Unfortunately, these were the crushed hopes and dreams of a man.

Ninja of New York (http://www.ninjanewyork.com/) was an attempt to both entertain people and bring them some high class, Japanese food. I have to say now, that despite Ninja having no Japanese Ninjas (unless maybe the cook who lit me lamb on fire was one?) the food was pretty good. There were six of us, Jessica, Asa, myself and three of Asa’s friends, Matt, Mike and Maria. We were seated in the dungeon area, no doubt to keep us away from the children and other, more civilized individuals. Upon sitting, we ordered a round of beer (Which I think was Asahi) and three large bottles of Sake (believe it was a Junmai, Hanzo, something apparently produced by NINJA). The beer was good and refreshing, as per usual for Japanese beers and the sake was plentiful.

For appetizers, we ordered for the table. Jessica ordered the Batto Jutsu, a very delicious sweet pepper, orangy duck combo, which came served on top of a yellow pepper with a short Katana through it. Upon removing the Katana, dry ice fell into the water on the bottom of the pepper, giving off vapor. Lots of dry ice was used on the dishes, no doubt to give everything a mysterious Ninja feeling. We also ordered the Floating Sashimi, sashimi suspended over a mixture of, dry ice and water. The presentation was very beautiful of all of these dishes and the taste was pretty good too. I ordered a Jalapeno star, sushi presented like a Ninja star. It was not as spicy as I had hoped….. or, perhaps all the sake was numbing me by this point, but it definitely tasted delicious and the fish was very fresh. There was one more appetizer, but I don’tsee it on the online menu. It was a very delicious beef, wrapped in rice just like a sushi roll. Very large too, each section should probably be split with another individual. Just as we were finishing up our appetizers, the main courses arrived.

I had ordered the Ninja Bonfire, which was a herb encrusted lamb. It was excellent, and when they served it, they put the ribs together, lit them on fire after chanting a Ninja saying and informing us that these were in fact, the bones of the Ninja server’s enemies. Little known fact is that Ninja hate Lamb. Matt and Mike split the Smokin Fluke, two large rolls of cabbage, fluke and other assorted goodies, which came under a thin glass cover, into which they had pumped smoke, so as to litterally smoke the food. Jessica and Asa ordered a series of sushi, which came beautifully arranged and once again, was very delicious (though, honestly, I still think Yamato sushi was the best. you were right, Mike!).

After dinner, I ordered the lone dessert to share with the table. Most people were pretty full by this point. I ordered the Ninja star, which the menu reads “the NINJA ultimate weapon”. It was indeed, pretty ultimate. a chocolate, almost tiramisu style cake with thin black chocolate ninja star shaped wafers on top. It was very delicious.

Before receiving the check, a ‘Ninja’ came downstairs to perform card and magic tricks, involving the “pick a card, any card” and handed people at the table and had them pick out page numbers and he would tell us what was on the page and page next to it. He performed a longer trick with me, continuously calling me “Craig”, where I cut a deck, picked up 9 cards (he said between 5 and 15) and he would tell me which cards I had. It was rather ‘impressive’. The check arrived next, and I have to take this point to thank Asa again, as he paid for myself and Jessica, both knowing that we make little income, and also knowing that the following day we were helping him move his lead weight collection down 5 flights of NYC loft stairs. Ninja, it turns out, also has take out. Whether actual Ninjas scale your building and surprise you in your home with your food, is unknown to me, I like to imagine they do. But it was a good deal, and I would recommend Ninja of New York to anyone who has a bunch of cool friends and is looking for a good time one night in NYC. However, you probably should be embarrassed if you’re a regular.