Nyotaimori and late night sushi

Recently, I came across an article that while it made think about feminism, food, Japanese culture, and the culture of consuming, it also made me hungry for sushi. So this post is both about the dead or dying practice of Nyotaimori and the lovely deal that Feng Asian Bistro in downtown Hartford is offering. 

Nyotaimori is an underground practice of using a naked woman's body as a display platter for sushi. From all accounts that I have read, it is largely a dead practice, and one that used to take place in houses of ill repute in Japan for special events. However, in places outside of Asia, there has been coverage by news organizations of restaurants or other venues from Florida to London opening to offer this type of "Japanese food culture". In 2008, there was an article written about Temple restaurant in Minneapolis who was posed to begin offering naked sushi nights on models of both sexes...ah gotta love America. Some followers of the film, Sex and the City might also recognize the familiarity of the image as Samantha's attempts to cover her body in sushi for her boyfriend on Valentine's Day. The fact that the media has publicized this practice as something typical in Japanese culture, instead of an underground creation has caused considerable resentment. 

Naturally, resentment doesn't stand alone on this one. The practice of eating atop a female body is not exclusive to Nyotaimori, it has also been seen in Eastern European restaurants where a naked woman posed underneath glass, creating the effect of a human table. The live, submissive, unresponsive woman acts as a conduit for consumption of not just the food laden atop her, but she also presents herself as a commodity to be consumed.

Feeling intellectually charged with these ideas, my friend and I headed out to Feng's late night happy hour menu to continue our conversation. It only seemed fitting to have sushi as it was central to the discussion of the evening. We were very happy to see how far our money stretched for the late night menu. The menu is strikingly similar to the regular, early happy hour menu, in a good way. I did find it dissapointing that there were NO late night drink specials (which I had to point out to management), I mean what's a happy hour without drink specials? It was still exceptionally nice to be able to go somewhere in downtown Hartford and enjoy high quality sushi, after 10pm for two people and pay under $30. Especially favorites of mine were the duck spring rolls, and the sweet potato tempura rolls. 

Late night happy hour runs from:
Mon-Thursday 10-12pm
Friday and Saturday 11pm-1am
Sunday 10-11pm
Website: http://www.fengrestaurant.com/