Masa Takayama

The two highest-profile restaurants to open in New York in years are both from California chefs: Per Se from the French Laundry's Thomas Keller and Masa from Ginza Sushiko's Masa Takayama. They opened within two weeks of each other under the same roof, the Time Warner Center at Columbus Circle, a monolithic new building that's part mall, part office building and luxe Mandarin Oriental hotel. Its two towers punch right through the Manhattan sky.

Michelin three-star chef Masayoshi "Masa" Takayama, who owned Ginza Sushi-ko in Los Angeles until he moved to New York to open Masa and Bar Masa in 2004, is set to debut his first Las Vegas ventures on Dec. 17: another Bar Masa and Shaboo, a shabu-shabu restaurant. He joins fellow three-star chef Pierre Gagnaire of Paris (who has opened Twist, his first restaurant in the U.S.) as well as Jean-Georges Vongerichten and Michael Mina, in the $8.5-billion CityCenter on the Vegas Strip.

Michelin three-star chef Masayoshi "Masa" Takayama, who owned Ginza Sushi-ko in Los Angeles until he moved to New York to open Masa and Bar Masa in 2004, is set to debut his first Las Vegas ventures on Dec. 17: another Bar Masa and Shaboo, a shabu-shabu restaurant. He joins fellow three-star chef Pierre Gagnaire of Paris (who has opened Twist, his first restaurant in the U.S.) as well as Jean-Georges Vongerichten and Michael Mina, in the $8.5-billion CityCenter on the Vegas Strip.

The two highest-profile restaurants to open in New York in years are both from California chefs: Per Se from the French Laundry's Thomas Keller and Masa from Ginza Sushiko's Masa Takayama. They opened within two weeks of each other under the same roof, the Time Warner Center at Columbus Circle, a monolithic new building that's part mall, part office building and luxe Mandarin Oriental hotel. Its two towers punch right through the Manhattan sky.

Ginza Sushi-Ko in Beverly Hills, the only restaurant besides Bastide to be awarded four stars by the Los Angeles Times, will close at the end of March, chef and owner Masa Takayama said. Last year, Takayama announced plans to transplant his exclusive, reservation-only restaurant to the new AOL Time Warner tower on Columbus Circle in New York, but he had not given a closing date for Beverly Hills. The restaurant is still taking reservations.

I was shocked when I saw S. Irene Virbila's four-star review of Ginza Sushi-Ko ("Essence of Excellence," Restaurants, Nov. 11). Early on, she wrote, "Every time I've eaten at Ginza Sushi-Ko, [sushi master Masa Takayama] has come up with something new and startling." Imagine going to a place where there is no menu, you eat what is put before you and pay $300 or more for the privilege. And Virbila apparently has done this frequently. What does the initial "S" stand for? "Snob"? Norman McCracken Northridge I respect Virbila's technical skills as a restaurant critic, but I think there is a thin line between a fine dining experience and being taken as someone's patsy.

Hotel-casino Aria, the Cesar Pelli-designed centerpiece of Las Vegas' $8.5-billion CityCenter, has opened, along with restaurants from chefs such as Masa Takayama, Shawn McClain, Michael Mina and Jean-Georges Vongerichten. Directly off Aria's lobby is Takayama's Japanese restaurant Bar Masa, designed by Richard Bloch, with a three-story high entrance and seating for 256. (Shaboo, the more intimate shabu-shabu restaurant located inside Bar Masa, is set to open this weekend.

We dutifully order sake at Japanese restaurants, but we order it generically, as if there were just one giant sake bottle in the world. The so-called rice wine is more accurately a still beer made from the fermented grain, and it can be traced back nearly 1,500 years. It's a mildly herb-flavored beverage, with a wide range, from sweet to dry, with varying degrees of fruitiness, that goes particularly well with seafood.

Ginza Sushi-Go? Masa Takayama, owner and sushi maof Ginza Sushi-Ko, is considering leaving Beverly Hills. His small, reservation-only restaurant is the most expensive in L.A. (and possibly the country), with prices starting at $300 a head. Takayama has been at his Rodeo Drive location for eight years. His reason for leaving? "I'd like to try a new place," he tells us. "I like to try new things."

There are thousands of mom-and-pop and ethnic restaurants in L.A. strip malls, many quite ambitious. Even Masa Takayama, whose Ginza Sushiko garnered four stars when it was in Beverly Hills, started out in a mid-Wilshire mini-mall. Still, it's a surprise to find Tamarin, a new contemporary Indian restaurant, tucked into a nondescript mall on Olympic Boulevard just west of Doheny Drive.

Raising the ante in the battle for business, online travel seller Orbitz says it will offer $50 coupons, good for travel purchases from that site, to customers who find a published online airfare at least $5 lower than the one posted on www.orbitz.com. The "Low Fare Promise" comes with a long list of conditions. Among them: To claim the $50, you must complete an online claim form by midnight Central Time on the day you buy the ticket on Orbitz.

Where's our waiter? Is that him? Or is it that guy? My husband looks confused. I guess he failed to notice what was immediately obvious to we three women: the male servers at the new Bond Street in Beverly Hills all look alike, so much so we're wondering if they're part of an Orlando Bloom cloning program.