Yet Another Haru Opens, Appropriately on Wall StreetWhether Haru’s reputation as the Dos Caminos of the sushi trade is deserved, the chain keeps growing: This week the latest sushi megastore opens up, with all its ridiculous (and surprisingly good) specialty cocktails intact. This one is in the Beaver Building downtown and will likely mint money as fast as the other Harus. Like its parent, Benihana, Haru has found the perfect formula: good sushi, big menu, big bar, and lively atmosphere. Even though the food is better at Chanto, the dull atmosphere keeps people away (in a bad-for-business cycle). Successful Japanese restaurateurs know that Americans prefer big cocktails to kaiseki or soba noodles. All you have to do is ask Rocky Aoki, if you can find him behind his mountains of yen.
*Correction: Haru does not yet have a liquor license. The restaurant’s reps say it should come “any day now.”
The New York Diet
Musician Andrew W.K. Eats Pretty Much Everything With a Side of Nuts
What does a party animal eat? Well, peanuts, for one, and not just at parties. Andrew W.K., who has parlayed his rock anthems such as “It’s Time to Party” into a career as a performance artist and motivational speaker of sorts, tells us he eats them with everything from his breakfast cereal to junk food. “Once I started teaming Cheetos up with peanuts, I was really hitting them hard,” he says. Though he confesses to the occasional post-peanut queasiness, it hasn’t bogged him down much: In addition to kicking off the Bamboozle music festival tomorrow morning with a rousing speech, he’s currently at work on a freeform TV show, a solo piano album (and others), and a multipurpose venue to open in lower Manhattan by summer. To get an idea of what sorts of bar snacks he might just be serving at the latter, we asked him what he’s eaten this week.
