http://www.saltshaker.net/20050626/irashimase Casting a little flavor (and a few aspersions) on the world of food, drink, and life Fri, 04 Jul 2008 22:56:09 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.5.1 http://www.saltshaker.net/20050626/irashimase#comment-122 SaltShaker » Blog Archive » And Another Happy Sushi Face! Tue, 10 Jan 2006 16:21:53 +0000 http://www.saltshaker.net/20050626/irashimase#comment-122 [...] To a certain extent, I’m going to compare and contrast my Osaka experience with Dashi. I like them both quite a bit, and they’re an interesting study in differences. First, Dashi is pretty much strictly Japanese cuisine; Osaka bills itself as Japanese with influences from Thailand, China, and Peru. Dashi is, as I mentioned when I reviewed it, very sleek and modern feeling; Osaka in many ways feels much more traditional in style - yes, it’s got a modern look to it, but there are no boldly colored walls - it’s very minimalist, off-white walls with black tables and chairs, the apricot colored seats of which, along with flower arrangements, provide the only real color in the room. There’s a very tranquil feel to the whole setting, broken only by the cries of irasshai (Welcome!) taken up by the entire staff as one enters (I mentioned the more formal version of this cry, irashimase many moons ago in a not so flattering review of a New York eatery). Here, given the calmness of everything else, and that the cry isn’t literally screamed out from every corner of the room, it’s indeed quite welcoming. [...] [...] To a certain extent, I’m going to compare and contrast my Osaka experience with Dashi. I like them both quite a bit, and they’re an interesting study in differences. First, Dashi is pretty much strictly Japanese cuisine; Osaka bills itself as Japanese with influences from Thailand, China, and Peru. Dashi is, as I mentioned when I reviewed it, very sleek and modern feeling; Osaka in many ways feels much more traditional in style - yes, it’s got a modern look to it, but there are no boldly colored walls - it’s very minimalist, off-white walls with black tables and chairs, the apricot colored seats of which, along with flower arrangements, provide the only real color in the room. There’s a very tranquil feel to the whole setting, broken only by the cries of irasshai (Welcome!) taken up by the entire staff as one enters (I mentioned the more formal version of this cry, irashimase many moons ago in a not so flattering review of a New York eatery). Here, given the calmness of everything else, and that the cry isn’t literally screamed out from every corner of the room, it’s indeed quite welcoming. [...]

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