So...I finally made it to Masa. No pictures here because there are explicitly no pictures allowed during the meal. My takeaway - the food is excellent on balance, but it's not worth the price to go back again. I enjoyed my cocktails a lot (imported over from Bar Masa, I'm sure), and the pre-sushi dishes in the omakase are arguably better. Toro topped with an ungodly amount of caviar? Love it. A roasted papaya served with a miso custard and uni baked into a slice? Very unique and also quite good. But objectively, I have had better sushi at many other places in the city. The rice here is the best that I have had, but the fish doesn't even come close, IMO. The best piece was a golden eye snapper that was seared with a hot iron rod - much more concentrated flavor than the usual blowtorching that happens at other places. Another ding - Masa served only one party - the folks who came in at 6 PM and were seated directly in front of him. He did not prepare or serve anyone else, and in fact left the sushi bar about halfway through our meal, not to be seen again. While the guy who prepared our fish was very good, almost every other omakase I have been to - whether in NYC or in Japan - means that you are having the main chef serve all of your sushi; the other chefs are plating and serving for the folks sitting at the tables. That might be extremely nitpicky, but I don't really get it.

In short - I'm glad I visited once, but the totality of the meal simply doesn't match the extraordinarily high price ($595/person before tax and drinks).