458 West 17th Street off Tenth Avenue
212/929.8544
about $400 for six plus room fee, with a few drinks, with tip
When you get slow service in a restaurant you’re usually ticked off, but for some reason, I always excuse it when it comes to Japanese places. Do you do this? They’re so polite even when they make mistakes that I always feel bad if I ask for a glass of water a second time.
Shooting the tatami room from outside
The menu at Naka Naka is limited, mostly familiar rolls like spicy tuna, salmon and tuna with avocado, unagi and tempura. For the sashimi pieces, the uni comes in both the light and the dark yellow colors and the hamachi is excellent. But without their daily specials, written on a whiteboard presented by the waitress, you’ll end up with less than five choices. Some of the appetizer dishes are also tasty: lotus root, deep fried fish, Japanese pickles and tofu. They also serve hot and cold soba and udon.
The tatami room
I’d return to Naka Naka if all I wanted was a simple Japanese experience around the neighborhood. (Morimoto is around the corner.) We waited for a while to order drinks. We waited a few more minutes to order our food. We had to remind the waitress that the lotus root and the fried fish were never served. And with six people, why give us only one bowl for the tofu and the soba? I wished they gave us small Japanese trays if they weren’t going to change our plates for every dish that came in. We had to use our small plates for everything we ordered, but then again their dishes are not meant to be shared. For an extra $10 per person to reserve the tatami room, maybe I’ll skip it and do the dining room next time so I can stretch my legs.
The uni and the hamachi
Naka Naka is a very small restaurant in Meatpacking District standards. We reserved the tatami room for six to be separated from the main dining room a few steps up. The waitresses daintily walk in their kimonos and socks that for a couple of hours, it becomes a refuge from the zoo outside. But that’s all there is to Naka Naka.
