tokyo pop

speaking of my birthday, after opening an AMAZING amount of presents from bo and co (all from kidrobot, and thus all much appreciated), my mom took us to tokyo pop, a new sushi place on broadway near 105th street.

this place just opened... and it definitely shows. no question, everyone was very friendly, and the overall vibe/decor of the place was ok, but the entire staff looked to be in their teens, in their first restaurant job, and so there were lots of rookie mistakes... forgotten orders, wrong orders, asking for water 1000 times, etc. the service was like this: my mom finally got her entree after we had all finished our dinners.

that said, if you are a forgiving type, the food was actually pretty good, especially the non-sushi items. the highlight was a "shrimp cocktail" appetizer, in which the meat of the shrimp was chopped up with green apple, and the swimmer's head and legs and tentacle things were all fried in batter and crunchy and delicious. also good were bo and co's entree, a soup/casserole dish of beef, fish cakes, egg, and an impressive variety of bizarre root vegetables. the sushi was fine, no great shakes, but certainly fresh and clean tasting.

all in all, we'll probably give tokyo pop another try, especially if some more experienced servers respond to the large, pleading, handmade help-wanted poster in the window!