‘IT’S an adventurous dish,” warns the waiter at Matsugen when I ask for the house special soba noodle dish. The dish includes 10-odd veggies and essences and is anchored by a gleaming, poached egg.
It’s actually not that daring – the egg is the only new riff on a traditional Japanese dish – but it is delicious. What’s truly daring is that Jean-Georges Vongerichten is lending his name and prestige to a restaurant that’s really someone else’s.
The great chef has known Matsushita brothers Taka, Yoshi and Masa for years and gave them the keys to the kitchen. “All the food is theirs – except the chocolate cake,” says Vongerichten with a laugh, referring to his molten-chocolate number.
Matsugen (241 Church St., 212-925-0202), located on the TriBeCa site of Vongerichten’s failed 66, is one-stop shopping for everything I can’t stomach. It’s got a hard-edged design devoid of color or accent; a menu harder to decipher than weekend subway service changes; and desserts liquid enough for soup.
But it’s also one-stop shopping for dishes rarely found under a single Japanese roof, and more than enough of them are fabulous enough to stifle my crankiness. This is a place right for its time, priced high and low to straddle the city’s fading boom – and perhaps darker days to come.
If there’s a classic case for why star ratings do diners a disservice, it’s Matsugen. The menu includes so many styles of Japanese cuisine, they deserve to be rated separately – but even that would be unfair.
If tempura shrimp are as ordinary as Matsugen’s, should it be allowed to diminish the joint’s sublime way with soba noodles, ground in the kitchen from imported buckwheat?
Or if shabu-shabu Wagyu beef ribeye is a waste of $160, should it count for more or less than shabu-shabu Kurobuta pork loin, an unexpectedly sweet, silken-textured animal (“a black pig,” Vongerichten says) imported from Japan and enough to fill two for a measly $52?
Matsugen offers pricey items you can finish off in seconds – like scallops topped with sea urchin and Petrossian caviar ($36) and seared fatty otoro ($65).
But it can also send you out happy for a pittance. Creamy but creamless Toyko clam chowder is an $8 masterpiece built from soy milk and sparked with roasted chili pepper; seawater from plump cherrystones seeps into the broth and imparts fervent oceanic essence.
The subtle pleasure of soba noodles has as much to do with tactility as with flavor that comes alive with a splash of soy-based daishi broth. The ones served up at Matsugen feel so good, they deserve to linger on the tongue. Noodles in three thicknesses ($12-$15) are offered cold or hot, but I prefer the latter, and without ebi tempura or sea urchin that double the cost.
Post colleagues who tried the “adventurous” house special ($16) before I did described a scary cauldron of bubbling fluids. But mine were annoyingly well-behaved.
The flavors took on more complexion as I stirred the egg into a fantasia of medium-husk (seiro) noodles, scallions, bonito, sesame, okra, wasabi and enough elements to preoccupy Godzilla. Alas, I take no more joy in sipping the “nutrient-rich” cooking liquid offered at meal’s end than I did in tasting the water in which my mother boiled spaghetti.
Sushi flown in from Tokyo’s fabled Tsujiji Market seemed indistinguishable from that dished up by a neighborhood joint. On the other hand, cooked dishes that might have been ordinary were grand – like miso black cod with the crispest skin and tenderest flesh since Nobu put the dish on the map.
Many Japanese customers order bracken warabi mochi – a cake made from ground soy nuts – for dessert. I’m truly happy for them, but I’ll stick with molten chocolate cake.
Vongerichten might have put his own spin on a cuisine he loves but which is not his – a fact he’s secure enough to accept. Instead, he’s happy to cheerlead for his partners – a rock-star chef truly using his noodle.
scuozzo@nypost.com