For years now, a Japanese breakfast (fish, soup, sides) at Okonomi required most Manhattanites to brave the L train. Among the Sophie’s choices facing hungry/hangry gourmands, this was one of the tougher ones: Salt-roasted salmon collar or the Williamsburg commute? Despite a professional obligation to do so, and a long-standing fascination with Japanese breakfasts, I’ve never made it. Okonomi on Ainslie Street was a (Williamsburg) bridge too far. There were only 12 seats, besides.
As of this week, deliverance is here. There are surely other places in Manhattan to secure a Japanese breakfast, but there’s only one Okonomi, or there was — as of Monday, there are two. Through October 27, Okonomi (and its evening counterpart, Yuji Ramen) are popping up in a narrow, concrete-and-plywood space on lower Madison Avenue, unobtrusively wedged between luxury-furniture showrooms. Even with the address readily available, I walked by it twice before I saw it.
I seemed to be the only one with that issue. On its opening day this past Monday, Okonomi — both locations are run with the help of Hand Hospitality now — was bustling by late morning, about half-full even in a larger space: The Brooklyn location’s 12 seats have expanded to 50. Light jazz was playing softly, and diners were breakfasting on teishoku sets and ramen; unlike in Brooklyn, where Okonomi owns the morning and daytime, serving breakfast, and Yuji Ramen takes over, doing ramen only, in the evenings, here both are available all day. Yuji is now offering a bacon-and-egg mazemen, or brothless ramen, as a morning sop.
But I had come for the traditional breakfast, the yakizakana set. It is available sansai, with three vegetable sides ($23), or gosai, with five ($28), both of which come with a small bowl of briny, brackish, intensely flavored miso soup and natto-topped rice. The day’s kobashi, or vegetables, included crayon-colored carrot and radish pickles and thin, sesame-dotted strips of burdock, along with a glossy little square of omelet, soy-cured eggplant with bonito, and an avocado-green scoop of wasabi-dressed potato salad. That day, three fish were on option: a salt-roasted salmon, kombu-marinated tilefish, and miso-marinated swordfish. I chose tilefish — my waitress and I agreed that you can get salmon anywhere — which arrived crisp-skinned and mild-fleshed, golden in a little pool of dashi.
Compared with the typical American morning food, sugared, fried, and meaty, it’s a welcome change. Even my own usual breakfast, in this light, seemed bizarre: fermented milk (yogurt) with sugar-preserved fruit (jam). The most important meal of the day sorted, I bounced back home, feeling light, if unrepentant. That night, I had foie gras and quail for dinner.
