DARUMA-YA
“While I've never before tried the soba sets, the lunch sets are amazing.”
“It's just funny juxtaposition because you go downstairs to Sushi Azabu, and it's more casual than it is upstairs.”
“In one sentence, better than Shigure, which makes it the best Izakaya in Tribeca (the best in lower Manhattan champion remains with Yopparai, IMO).”
DARUMA-YA
Takes Reservations: Yes
Delivery: Yes
Take-out: Yes
Accepts Credit Cards: Yes
Bike Parking: Yes
Wheelchair Accessible: Yes
Good for Groups: Yes
Waiter Service: Yes
Caters: Yes
Price range.
$$$ Price range $31-60
8 reviews
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I'll be back and I'm bringing my friends.
If you're looking to try authentic Japanese food – come here.
1. Service was impeccable. Water glasses filled to the brim and our server was really kind and explained everything to us with her honest opinion instead of trying to upsell!
2. There wasn't a speck left on my lunch set – beef and pork. Truly one of the best Japanese meals I've had. The pork and beef were in patties served with a wasabi barbeque dip – AMAZING. My friend is addicted and is planning on coming back soon!
3. Usually Japanese food leaves me hungry after 2 hrs but I was full for a sold 6 before dinner.
I'll be back soon. I'm bringing all my friends here. This place is simply amazing.
True Japanese traditional dishes.
If you love uni this is the place for you.
The best deal is the Omakase.
His homemade soba is cooked all dente. The one I ordered has uni.
They serve it with fresh wasabi.
It's as authentic as you can get.
As a fan of Japanese small plates style restaurants, I was super intrigued after hearing about the recent opening of Daruma-Ya, which is now housed where Greenwich Grill used to be. Reservations were fairly easy to get on a Friday night, so I ended up coming at 8pm with three friends for dinner.
The interior of the restaurant is modern yet simple, and best suited for small groups or dates. Daruma-Ya markets itself as a "soba house and izakaya," so most of the dishes on the menu are meant to be shared. The exception is the soba, which our server described as the entree. My friends and I decided to get a few small dishes and then each get our own soba.
We ordered:
– Tori karaage – Came with about six pieces of chicken plus a side of miso mayonnaise. The chicken was really juicy and overall delicious!
– Agedashi tofu- Three pieces of deep-fried tofu in soba broth with nameko mushrooms. The tofu was just ok, and the mushrooms were really hard to pick up with chopsticks.
– Salmon tartare – Came with a quail egg, which we mixed into the tartare. It was served with chips on the side to eat it with, but there were only about eight chips so we had a bit of tartare left at the end. The salmon was pretty good, and had a slight wasabi flavor.
– Dashimaki tamago – Japanese omelette, six pieces served. Decent, but nothing special.
– Cold seiro soba – We're soba noobs so we had to ask the server for instructions on how to eat it (he told us to pour the dipping sauce into the empty cup, then put the soba in and add wasabi and scallions to our liking). Afterwards he gave us a teapot full of soba broth that we could mix into our leftover sauce and drink. The broth and soba were both good, but there weren't a whole lot of noodles so it wasn't very filling.
The dessert menu looked interesting too, so we decided to each get one. I chose the shiso granite, which was like a syrupy shaved ice mixed with tiny bits of shiso. I also tried a bit of my friend's daifuku, which came with four pieces total (two chestnut, two strawberry) and was pretty delicious.
Service, on the other hand, was incredibly SLOW. It took forever to take our orders, and our water wasn't refilled until we asked. The food itself didn't take a long time to come out, but everything else was just really slow. Dinner took about two and a half hours total. Our server was actually a really upbeat and friendly guy so I feel bad slamming the service, but it's one aspect Daruma-Ya could definitely improve on.
The lunch set is a good deal, I chose the Grilled Mackerel Lunch Set and it come with miso soup, shrimp and vegetable tempura, tofu, a vegetable side, a choice of sushi roll. I like that there's no rice in the set because it's plenty of food. Although I would like to have more vegetables.
Daruma-ya is a new, upscale izakaya where for the first time, I feel like I had interesting and surprising things to eat for almost every course that we ordered. It's not a place I would ever go to without a little somethin' somethin' — in this case, I had a BlackboardEats promotion granting me a 300ml of sake and an order of chicken kara-age. But, having been there, I can definitely think of situations where I might return. It's kind of like, "where do you take the izakaya fan who has seen it all?" It might very well be here.
The dishes here are really innovative:
– Fried scallop: breaded in crumbled senbei (rice crackers) was a bit greasy, and the batter didn't stick to the scallop, but really creative and cool idea.
– Lobster uni miso mayo: Exactly what it sounds like, and amazing. Could have used a little bed of rice to pick up all the delicious, uni-flavored sauce at the bottom of the shell. This was the runaway hit for me.
– Takowasa: unlike other takowasas i've paid as much for ($9), this is freshly prepared and reminds me more of a ceviche than something that's been sitting in the fridge for 2 weeks. Instead of a sludge texture you can distinguish each piece of octopus before you pick it up. It's an extremely small amount in the serving but every bite is flavorful, and it is paired with red shiso that I wish there were a little more of.
– Kara-age: Your typical high-quality kara-age. Save a couple bucks having it at B-Flat. Though it is the cheapest cooked item on their menu.
– Kitsune soba: We got this to fill up. The soba noodles are definitely very fresh, and perhaps because they were so fresh, they were fragile to a fault, easily breaking between the tapered chopsticks we were given. I personally like a little more toothiness to my soba, and honestly, for the money, I'd order the 'dipping soba' at my favorite Cocoron every time. The kitsune (tofu skin) was very tasty, but I've never had a lousy tofu skin even at stand-up noodle stalls in Japanese train stations.
I have two complaints about this place, pretty minor ones. First, the music is horrible. I felt like I was in an elevator or the waiting room at a doctor's office. Upscale Japanese places for Japanese people tend to play jazz. Which I love, so I would love if they did that!
And perhaps it was the music, or the way the service was performed, or the French GM, I felt like I had to be on my best behavior. I had my 'fine dining' face on. Usually when you find me at izakayas, I'm shouting and laughing with my friends and clinking my beer. I am totally relaxed. But because I felt compelled to have my game-face on here, I could not totally relax.
And isn't that what an izakaya is for?
Came here for lunch with a friend and had really good food. I really recommend the chicken wings, the flash-fried chicken wings was so so so crispy and the sauce was to-die-for. Friend said it was the best chicken wings she's ever had. The soba set came with cold soba, which we split, homemade tofu, which was super soft–definitely recommend this one, and standard miso soup. I also recommend the grilled lobster tail with uni miso mayo. I'm usually don't go crazy for lobster but this one was worth it and super easy to eat–already opened for you! The place wasn't as nice as I expected it to be, given that it is a traditional izakaya and it doesn't compare to places like Ootoya or Robataya, but would recommend it if you're in the Tribeca area.
This used to be where the old Greenwich Grill used to be. But now it's a fancy soba place. The space has not changed. The curved bar in the front is still just as gorgeous and sexy as it was the last time I came here and the space is still just as intimate and quiet.
It was a bit strange because on one hand, you're there for soba, so you kind of expect a more relaxed and casual environment. On the other hand, they also serve fancy things like grilled lobster with sea urchin mayo, and homemade silken tofu with with sea urchin and salmon roe, bluefin tuna with pine nuts and a raw quail egg on top, ( all of which we ordered…and were amazing…umm, yeah..), so I get why they decided to keep the decor the way it was.
It's just funny juxtaposition because you go downstairs to Sushi Azabu, and it's more casual than it is upstairs.
Yes, we ordered the soba to finish up the meal. My friend ordered the special I think, which was a cold soba with roe on top and dipping sauce on the side. I had the kamo seiro soba, which was served with a hot duck broth. Both were equally delicious, although I think in this case, because of the broth, the duck soba was a little bit better.
For dessert, I recommend skipping the molten lava cake, instead order the shaved ice with red bean and green tea. It's delicious and just the right amount of sweetness to balance out all that savory food.
I liked Daruma-Ya. I think the decor and the menu is a bit of a contradiction, but if I just isolate it to good food, and a nice, quiet place to have dinner with a friend and have a conversation, then it's a 4 in my book.
While service is always slow here whether it is this restaurant or the old Greenwich Grill, the food remains pretty good. I had scallops crudo which was good but probably should have been a little colder. The fried chicken was decent. My pickled plum and shiso leaf roll came with the uni soba. Both were delicious. Shiso leaf is so underrated. The soba broth was very good and I loved the thin soba noodles that were al dente. Uni quality was pretty good (not Soto level).