Hungry City - Blue Ribbon Sushi Izakaya in the Lower East Side - NYTimes.com Rahav Segev for The New York Times The latest addition to the Blue Ribbon portfolio, ensconced since April on the second floor of the Thompson LES Hotel. YOU are on the Lower East Side, but it could be Times Square, or Terminal 5 at Kennedy Airport. The room is gaping; the music is that grim pop that weasels into your head, at once generic and unforgettable. When the original Blue Ribbon opened in SoHo two decades ago, it was a beacon of downtown hip. Now there are Blue Ribbons across the city and in Las Vegas, and a partnership with Renaissance Hotels that enables you to order "Blue Ribbon Classics" as easily in Arlington, Va., as at Sea World. The strains of empire are apparent at Blue Ribbon Sushi Izakaya, the latest addition to Eric and Bruce Bromberg's Blue Ribbon portfolio, ensconced since April on the second floor of the Thompson LES Hotel. To reach it, you must mount a double-height staircase, hung with paper lanterns and smelling oddly of unisex cologne, circa 1992. The restaurant rises above Orchard Street, but cannot be said to overlook it: the wall of windows has been blacked out with rough vertical planks. This may be the first case in New York real estate of a room with a view aspiring to be a basement. The shunning of natural light is meant to evoke the coziness of a subterranean izakaya, or Japanese pub. But the mood is more brooding lounge. Diners slump in half-moon booths, attempting to spin the lazy susan secreted in each glossy tabletop, or hunch on plush tuffets around communal tables, sneaking peeks at the neighbors. It helps to be eating with an entourage. The cluttered menu spans four pages and a sheet of specials. General rule: the smaller the dish, the better. Kushi yaki, or grilled skewers, are consummate drinking food, salty enough to tickle the throat but not parch it. They are diminutively priced and sized, the better to try more of them: juicy beef tenderloin, accompanied, needlessly, by a dab of wasabi ($10); scallops massaged with miso butter ($9); rock shrimp that burst hotly in the mouth, impaled with crispy bits of garlic and brushed with the faintest sheen of teriyaki ($5). Fried rice comes larded with tender oxtail and topped with a delicate omelet, which when torn disgorges glistening bone marrow ($24), or bombarded with sweetbreads and beef tongue under a poached egg as thick and fluffy as meringue ($28). But a version drenched with squid ink proved mostly slippery, unaided by inert clips of squid and a dollop of sea urchin too stingy to make a difference ($29). The most appealing dishes are the most traditional: a hallucinatory array of oshinko, pickled vegetables ($9); goma ae, a pouf of spinach given body by a crushed-sesame paste ($6); and leek sunomono in a ponzu bath, unexpectedly smoky beneath corkscrews of bonito ($7). A quivering quail-egg yolk makes a halo for a voluptuous patty of hamachi tataki ($16). But tempura ($9 to $24) fails to attain feathery lightness. And sushi ($3.50 to $18.50) tends in style more to party platter than jewel box, the fish a touch too warm, the slices too hefty. Blue Ribbon's signature fried chicken ($24, half; $47, whole), lauded in some publications as among the city's best, did not quite live up to its reputation. The thrill was skin deep: after the heat (from dashes of togarashi and cayenne) and the crunch (accentuated by matzo meal in the coating), all that was left was banal flesh. It was not the only "classic" to disappoint. One evening, a dining companion raved about the bread pudding she'd had at other Blue Ribbon restaurants, then fell silent after a spoonful of the oversweet rendition here ($13). Such are the pitfalls of nostalgia. You can still enjoy yourself here. Bring a crowd, lower your expectations and sip your sake, preferably the Blue Ribbon house junmai ginjo, brimming over in a cedar box, as velvety and lovely as it ever was. Blue Ribbon Sushi Izakaya 187 Orchard Street (Houston Street), (212) 466-0404, blueribbonrestaurants.com/rests_sushi_izakaya_main.htm. RECOMMENDED Oshinko (pickled vegetables); goma ae (spinach in sesame sauce); hamachi tataki (yellowtail tartare with quail egg); kushi yaki (grilled skewers); oxtail and bone-marrow fried rice; sweetbreads, tongue and poached-egg fried rice.PRICES $3 to $75. HOURS Daily, 7 to 11:30 a.m.; noon to 2 a.m. RESERVATIONS Accepted for breakfast and lunch; for dinner, accepted for parties of five or more. WHEELCHAIR ACCESS Dining room is on second floor, but accessible by elevator through the Thompson LES Hotel. Restroom is equipped with handrail.