🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <34r3lm$ld4@cville-srv.wam.umd.edu> deannah@wam.umd.edu (Deanna L. Ham) writes:
>A few weeks ago, another individual posted, asking about Benkay's 
>all-you-can-eat sushi buffet.  What's the verdict?

    I am that "another individual" who posted the inquiry about Benkay.
Having received no response unfortunately, my wife and I decided to do a
small investigative work at our own expense.

>No one I've talked to 
>has even heard of the place.  

    No wonder. That place turned out to be VERY difficult to find.

    On Saturday, September 10, I drove down from Frederick to DC with my
wife. Our mission: Find Benkay and have dinner there. Traffic was quite
smooth until we hit Constitution Ave. As a block of the avenue was closed for
some festival, we had to make a detour to get to 15th Street on which Benkay
was supposed to be located, the only information we had in our hands.
We drove up and down on !5th St. several times. However, nowhere could we
find Benkay. Confusing crossing of 15th St. with Vermont Ave. made our
investigation even more frustrating. Then, we decided to walk along 15th,
looking for what we might have been missing. Nearly one hour of walk
simply helped us feel hungry, thirsty, and exhausted. WHERE IS BENKAY?!
Finally, my wife needed an oasis, and we decided to walk in Holiday Inn
at the corner of 15th and L St. (?) to find something to drink. While she
was drinking orange juice, I went to look up Yellow Page only to find 
that Benkay is not listed. When I started to suspect that this Benkay
place might be made up out of someone's illusion, a receptionist at the
front desk talked to me. "May I help you, sir?" I hesitatingly asked, "Have 
you heard of a Japanese restaurant Benkay? I heard that it should be 
somewhere around here." He said, "Uh, no, I don't know that one, but I know
there is another good Japanese restaurant." Me: "Well, actually, I'm 
interested in that particular restaurant." He: "Do you need the address of
the restaurant? Let's see if I can find it out." Then, he called the phone  
directory service to find Benkay's phone number and called Benkay for the
location. He was kind enough to even try to make a reservation for us, but
appeared to be told that reservation was unnecessary. After going through
all this, we obtained a new piece of precious information:

BENKAY JAPANESE RESTAURANT
727 15th Street, NW
(202) 737-1515

   727? It's between H and New York, where we drove through at the 
beginning! I stepped out of Holiday Inn, wondering why we missed it.
My wife, filled with energy just enough to walk several more blocks, was
with me.

   When we got there, we knew why we had missed it. The place is in the lower 
level of the building and there was only a small sign board saying, "BENKAY"
at the stairway. If you drive up on 15th from Constitution, you'd never find
the sign unless you are a professional rubber-necker. Anyway, we got there. 

   Although I'm not sure if any more waste of the bandwidth could be
tolerated after spending a few doznes of lines, I'd like to take a liberty
to make a few comments on their food. Apparently, they have only all-you-can-
eat buffet menu ($10.50 for lunch and $13.50 for dinner). They had a pretty
good variety of sushi including tuna, salmon, eel, egg, California roll,
and cucumber roll. The quality of fish was better than I expected, though
they were very thin-sliced. Relative size of fish and rice beneath it
made me suspect that the manager was trying to fill our stomach with rice
rather than other items which cost them more. Other than sushi, they had
tempura (shrimp, carrot, onion), tonkatsu (pork cutlet), yaki-soba (fried
noodle seasoned with Japanese sauce), Japanese-style curry, salad with
Japanese dressing (which I don't remember seeing in Japan), somen (cold
noodle with dip sauce), and various fruits. There were some other items
which I don't know how to translate into English. What I appreciated most was
grilled fish, which is hard to find at other Japanese places in this area. 
A cup of miso soup comes with buffet, and hot tea is free. Our verdict was
that this place was worth the price although we can not strongly recommend
it to those diners who expect "good" Japanese food by the West Coast or
Japanese standard. My wife liked their crispy tempura, but also said that
they tasted rather like home-made tempura than professionally prepared
tempura. I guess her comment is applied to other food as well. If you want
to experience Japanese home-style cooking for a reasonable price, this is 
a place to go. Service is OK (Waitresses speak Japanese. What a surprise! B-)),
and atmosphere is contemporary and clean.

    They seem to have Karaoke after 10:00 PM. Maybe, next time...

--Michiaki

P.S. I'm not affiliated with the restaurant mentioned above. However, I guess
they should offer me a free beer or two. 8-)

P.P.S. I'd like to thank the gentleman at Holiday Inn who helped us. Sorry
if I put you a wrong impression that we were staying there. 8-) 

===============================================================================
Michiaki Masuda
Visiting Associate
Laboratory of Molecular Oncology
National Cancer Institute
Frederick, MD 21702-1201
E-mail: Masuda@ncifcrf.gov