Jewel Bako:For beautiful presentation and sensational sushi, thinking inside the box.

Food
Best Sushi Showcase
Jewel Bako
239 East 5th Street
212-979-1012

There are lots of fancy places to dine in Manhattan, but imagine, if you will, a room as big as a shoebox (it used to be a video store), lit from within in soothing, sylvan yellows and greens. A pair of curved bamboo arches run across the ceiling, under which sit two rows of blond-wood tables, set with chairs made of gold bamboo. There's a sushi bar in the far corner, cut from strips of ivory-colored bamboo. This bar seats only seven, and you can sip a glass of wine there, or an array of "artisan" sakes costing as much as $26 per glass, while waiting for your meal. Dinner might include crunchy live octopus or fatty pink tuna belly or silvery-green jack mackerel, flown in from Tokyo. The restaurant is Jewel Bako, in the East Village. Literal translation: jewel box. We rest our case.