Restaurant Guide 2006

There's a conveyor-belt sushi place around the corner from WW that serves perfectly decent fish for cheap in a casual, diner-like environment. Restaurant Murata is not that place. With traditionally clad servers, tatami-mat rooms and wide swaths of terra incognita on the menu, Murata is more like a Japanese immersion course (or rather, series of courses), with all the trust-falls into the unknown and the delights of discovery that go along with it. You can't go wrong with known quantities like the sublimely woodsy-yet-delicate matsutake mushroom broth, and barbecued-eel unagi. But you'll be rewarded for letting the chef pick the day's best cuts: butter-soft bonito, toothsome octopus legs straight out of Pirates of the Caribbean, a slab of cured mackerel whose in-your-face savor will slap that "I like fish if it's not fishy" wussiness out of you. Sure, the server might smirk if you try to enter the tatami room with your shoes on or pour soy sauce into your sake cup. But wear the good socks without the holes—and refrain from singing "Domo arigato, Mr. Roboto" when the check comes; and you'll be just fine. (IG)

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