Photo: Tammie Teclemariam
Earlier this year, the seafood chain Red Lobster declared bankruptcy and its restaurants looked to be on the brink of extinction, owing at least in part to an ill-advised Ultimate Endless Shrimp promotion. Not everyone took this as a warning.
In July, a new sushi restaurant called SourAji opened on the Lower East Side with a 90-minute, all-you-can-eat menu. For $98, diners start with a 12-piece tasting of mostly nigiri — much like many of the quickie omakase spots that have popped up in recent years — before moving on to three rounds of unlimited ordering. Do you want 27 pieces of toro? Fifty individual bites of Wagyu nigiri? At SourAji, this is possible. Did I mention it offers all-you-can-drink sake, too?
When I first heard about it, I thought that it sounded as lawless as it did paradoxical to the term “omakase,” wherein diners put themselves in the hands of the chef. But something must be working because in August, a second SourAji location opened in Chelsea and the Resy pages for both outposts are frequently booked. Desperate to learn more, I was able to reserve a single 5:30 p.m. seat at the original downtown storefront.
The charred, grill-like aroma of blowtorch flame on fish hit me as soon as I walked in; a chef was crisping sea bream for our first course. After a cup of miso soup and selecting which of four sakes I wanted, we were off. I was still taking a picture of my sea bream when the chef began passing out the next round: bluefin from Boston. I ate both and followed them with buttery hamachi.
“Just want to make sure everyone’s comfortable with their sake,” our helpful server asked, ready to pour any necessary refills. We’d been seated for six minutes.
Speed was the theme of the meal — it only took 11 minutes to make it halfway through the initial tasting — while quality wavered. There was mackerel from North Carolina, smoked with applewood until the flesh firmed up slightly, and soy-marinated bluefin that offered depth the first unadulterated piece had not. For piece No. 7, the chefs placed small rolls of slightly mushy toro and sea urchin directly in our hands, followed by scored slices of branzino, and a firm, sweet sea scallop, seasoned with visible specks of charcoal salt. Next came lightly seared A5 Wagyu, in rather thin slices that matched some of the skimpy fish portions. Glazed eel was more generous, and the first act ended on a pretty piece of futomaki garnished with salmon roe. All in all, the first part took less than half an hour.
Then it was onto the real draw: AYCE omakase. “You guys can order as many pieces as you like, but you can only order one time,” announced a server over the increasingly noisy customers. (I’d blame the unlimited sake, but I noticed that this early crowd had been relatively tame with the free refills.)
The restaurant has devised a somewhat ingenious system to prevent overordering: Customers can, in fact, order as many pieces as they want, but they are charged $10 for every bite they don’t actually consume. How much are you willing to bet on yourself?
The sushi is served in three waves. First was lean tuna. I ordered four but heard people around me asking for ten or 12. I asked the chef how many pieces he makes during a shift. On a weekday, when there are three seatings, he estimated he assembled between 500 and 600 pieces; the number could reach 700 and beyond on Fridays and Saturdays when there is an extra service. “People order insane numbers,” he said. “Some people are here to break records.”
Toro was next, but order numbers didn’t top 20 per person. It wasn’t until the third round, Wagyu, that things started to pick up. I heard someone request ten pieces, then 20, then … 47. The server repeated the number for confirmation but didn’t seem surprised. “That’s almost a record,” a chef told the customer after the server had disappeared. “The Wagyu record is 55.” The customer asked if he could make his order 56, but the chef had to say no: “The order is already in.”
It turned out, the overall record had been set the night before: 122 total pieces. “It was a girl,” the chef told us. “She finished everything.” (I later learned it was the mukbang influencer babydumplingg.)
It took the chefs about ten minutes to assemble and torch everyone’s Wagyu nigiri before garnishing each piece with a bit of truffle salt. “Can I get a photo with you and that?,” the server asked the customer as his 47-piece mountain of beef arrived. Soon, he was shoveling the pieces into his mouth as quickly as they’d been formed. Seven minutes later, after I’d eaten my own eight-piece supplement, he had only about a dozen pieces left. He demolished them with ease.
