It says something either about the vastness of NYC, or about myself, that even after actively keeping up on the restaurant scene for several months, I still regularly have moments like this: I find out from Eater that a restaurant has closed, and it's the first time I've heard of the restaurant, and it turns out it's a restaurant that I would have loved to eat at. The only consolation in this case is that I probably wouldn't have been able to afford more than a light lunch at said restaurant. The place was called Chikubu, and according to Eater and others, served extremely authentic Japanese fare, including ramen lunch on Fridays and Saturdays that turned the place into a madhouse of transplanted salarimen, and at dinner, "a wide and weird array of incredibly expensive seafood delicacies flown in from Japan." Check out some of their appetizers:

• Fresh sea urchin
• Marinated "Hotaru" squid
• Jellyfish with vinegar sauce
• Salted entrails of the trepang (aka sea cucumber)
• Sweet young bee with honey soy sauce

You can see the rest at Menupages, though it won't do you much good at this point. The rest of the menu is mostly more familiar selections, but it all sounds awesome. The lack of California rolls, or any other fancy-named ones, tells me that this must indeed have been one of the more authentic Japanese restaurants in the city. I'm very sad to see it go, particularly without having tried it. For now I'll have to set my sights on Rosanjin instead.