Yakitori Totto Review: Yakitori Totto
The only thing that I’ve eaten that was truly truly a party in my mouth was pop rocks. Those candies that give you little bursts of pop when you chugged those little cystals directly from the packet. Parties are loud and boisterous and lively. The older I get, the less of an appeal that as. And Sifton and Kanye might think much of mood rings, I simple have mood swings at parties. Such is the peril of social inadequacy. What I do crave however, is a vacation in my mouth, and not just any type of vacation. Not your Cancun bullshit where you’re surrounded by the likes of Snooki and Situation, but one more suited for AARP members. Relaxing, warming, and satisfying. A couple of weeks ago I slowly trotted my geriatic ass over to the west side of Midtown, and found lunch sactuary at Yakitori Totto.
This is just a random thought, but any time your NYC restaurant is up on a second level or a lower level or has a looooong entry way, then you have this opportunity to really transform the way your diners feel as they enter. Maybe it was just that I hadn’t been to a Japanese restaurant in a while, or it was the fact that Yakitori Totto was on the second floor, but the staircase to the restaurant was a wardrobe with teleporting capabilities. I took a seat at the bar, took off my thick winter coat, and gathered myself. My feeding plan was set before I even entered, because my budget was limited to the Midtown Lunch price point. Known that I wanted the chicken skewers lunch special, I spent some time looking around the dining room and noticed that Iron Chef Michael Symon was seated not more than ten feet behind my seat. Spotting a chef in the wild is more birdwatching than safari for me. I don’t really go up to them and ask to take a picture, instead preferring to sit back and observe quietly. Like a creep. All I can say is his table was quiet, and the dude really does laugh the way he does it on TV/internet videos.
It’s quite a lot for the dining experience to take you to a far away land, and for it to also offer a celebrity chef sighting. At the end of the day, you still gotta eat the food. Zach has already talked about some of the high points for this lunch special and you can read about it there. But basically for $10 you get salad, soup, and chicken thigh or chicken breast skewers over rice. Other meat options take this lunch special out of the ML range. You should however, get enough food to feel sated. Maybe it won’t leave you full, but the smokey skewers are grilled well. The meat stays moist and that’s very key when we talk about chicken. If there’s one tiny fault with the meal, it would the the sweet soy sauce they put on the rice. The sweetness is a little too obvious after a while. Even though they give you a soft egg to mix into the rice, you still notice the sauce.
Really though, I don’t have much to complain about for this meal. It’s nice and quiet for the most part, and the food is delicious. I find that a quiet dining setting will score big points in my book. The other day I was at a restaurant and couldn’t help but overhear this one douchebag talk to an Australian tourist about life in New York. The douche was yapping about how the Knicks suck and he couldn’t follow them now that they’re losing. I swear, there’s no bigger douchebags than bankers who follow sports only when the team is good. As of this writing, the Knicks are 6-4 in their last 10 games ok? Pretty respectable ball. And then the douche went on to tell the Australian that “If you live in New York city, and you make three hundred thousand ($300,000), then you’re in lower-middle class. But if you make that in Houston, you’re fucking rich.” No you stupid motherfucking asshole, if you make 300k, and you think you’re lower middle class, then my poverty ass will come cold clock you in the fucking mouth for saying something so stupid. Unlike most New Yorkers, I actually don’t know anyone in banking or private equity. So no one I know makes anything close to that. But if you do, and you don’t have any perspective? Jesus, just go off yourself ok? Do the world a favor. And that is how Sue C’s it.
Yakitori Totto251 W 55th Street.New York, NY 10019212-245-4555
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