Sushi rolls over chow mein in New York
(AFP)
Updated: 2005-10-18 16:18

Japanese has firmly supplanted Chinese as the most popular Asian cuisine in New York, according to the annual Zagat survey, which hailed the best year for the city's restaurant industry since the September 11, 2001 attacks.

Sushi rules in the Big Apple. Japanese has firmly supplanted Chinese as the most popular Asian cuisine in New York, according to the annual Zagat survey, which hailed the best year for the city's restaurant industry since the September 11, 2001 attacks. [AFP/file]

The populist, best-selling survey, released Monday, faces a major ratings challenge of its own this year with the Michelin guide, the French bible to gastronomic dining, putting out its first-ever red edition of New York eateries next month.

Five of the 10 Top Food restaurants in the 2006 Zagat were French, led in the number one spot by Eric Ripert's seafood spot, "Le Bernadin".

And five of the top 20 were Japanese, including "Masa" which is the most expensive restaurant in the United States with a raw fish 'prix fixe' menu that starts at 350 dollars per person -- excluding drinks or tip.

An average meal price of 38 dollars across the 2,000 restaurants reviewed by Zagat makes New York the most costly restaurant city in the United States, with the average bill in the 20 most expensive eateries standing at 113 dollars per head -- a sharp increase of 25 percent from last year.

After several years in the doldrums, the restaurant industry overall appeard to be making a strong comeback, with Zagat reporting 247 noteworthy openings compared to only 83 closings.

"That's the largest differential in years and the strongest showing since before the September 11 attack," said the survey's co-founder Tim Zagat.

The 2006 guide underlined the dominance of Japanese food over other major Asian cuisines, with 22 Japanese restaurants rated higher than the top-ranked Chinese.

"Japanese food has been going up like a rocket, while Chinese, which was overwhelmingly the most prominent Asian cuisine in the States in 1990, has stalled in the past 15 years," Zagat said.

"It's not just in New York but every city we cover ... Japanese easily exceeds Chinese," he said.

On the challenge presented by the arrival on the market of the Michelin guide in November, Zagat was cautiously diplomatic.

"I'm not spending any time thinking about Michelin until they arrive and then I'll see what it is they are doing," he said.

"I think that competition is always good. Michelin is a great guide. But it has a totally different approach from ours. We have 30,000 reviewers, they have about five," he added.