It did not take very long before we were escorted back upstairs to the dining room and the show was ready to begin.  I had read that 13 people could sit around the "counter" - in addition to those chairs there was a table off to the corner and back that had four people around it (we later took a look and it could have squeezed one more person).  There were two empty seats at the counter so we would be among fifteen lucky diners to share in this dinner...   

The rest of the story will have to be told in pictures.  I'm able to describe the dishes accurately because we were presented with exact menus of our dinner at the very end - but even so I took copious notes, and I was glad I did because the "tastes" - amuses but there were around ten of them - were not listed in the menu.  And since it was early on, I was still focused enough to make detailed notes.  After a while I lost all concentration as most of the time I was too busy moaning with pleasure or giggling with amusement to remember to take notes (at least I *mostly* remembered to take pictures).

I put the description of dishes and our reactions in the picture captions (you see them when you select each photo).  Even a few days later, I have very vivid recall of pretty much all of the courses - this is a sign of an exceptional meal for me - after a more ordinary meal I will usually remember only one or two stand-out courses.  Here just about every course was a stand-out, a revelation or a delight in one way or another. 

TL;DR if you are in NY you should make an effort to get to Atera.  

This was a "custom" chef's tasting menu.  Their process is that if you order "omakase" they ask you what you like/dislike, can't eat, love, etc. and based on that and the available fresh ingredients the chef "edits" a menu for you.  They return before starting and read off the proposed courses in case there is something you forgot to mention.  Because of my preference to eat no/less meat I had more seafood courses when Ben had meat courses.  

In the bathroom there was this gorgeous lion carved from wood.

We spent Wednesday in Kyoto and had a kaiseki meal, as one is supposed to there.  We picked a nice place on 11th floor of Isetan Department Store just north of Kyoto JR station called Shozankaku.

We were not disappointed.  

We had to sign in when we arrived (there was a wait of about 45 minutes).  That's Ben's name on the right on the line third from the bottom - he wrote that himself!

Ben got sake. We had simple place settings and some bowls with roasted rice kernels.  Tea or finger bowls? :)

Ben got the full "Kaiseki" meal, but because it had steak, I got the option with same number of courses but "no meat" according to the server.  I was impressed enough that Ben said in Japanese that I don't eat meat!  

We got some sort of tofu skin (with a little green wasabi stuff) for first course, an assortment of veggies and octopus :( for our second and sashimi for the third.

This was tofu skin in soy milk with delicious ponzu sauce.  Yuba was almost pasta textured, only finer!

My favorite: gindara.  Ben's had an addition - yuba with bamboo shoot and shrimp with some other things.

Now our courses diverged completely. I got fish collar, Ben got steak and bamboo shoots. A seasonal theme?

Next we both got tempura, followed by "fill up" course of soup, pickles and rice. That's shanso pepper leaf from the soup (and early also on my fish collar).

Tea and a light dessert to finish a wonderful meal!

Either we got lucky with our pick or all food in Japan is always good!  :)

Since I'm platinum with Starwood, we got free breakfast either at the lounge on 19th floor (just across from our room) or at the buffet restaurant on the first floor.  We opted for the restaurant on our first morning and I really enjoyed being able to use the typical multi-compartment Japanese plates to sample lots of options.

You can't tell in the picture but the mini-pancakes in the middle of the plate are green-tea flavored.  Yum!

Both of us had the same dessert - a wonderful fruit plate - the mango was one of the best I had ever tasted!

All in all, the food was great and the service was impeccable!

First was "lunch" which was really more like a dinner.  We had caviar, I skipped the soup which Ben had, we both had salad, then I had fish while he had the lobster. 

Everything was normal sized, until my dessert showed up.  The passion fruit creme brûlée was served in the same sized bowl that Ben's entree was served in!   And it was full!  Sadly it was probably the weakest item on the meal - maybe luckily, otherwise I might have eaten more of it than I could handle!  Ben had the chocolate dessert and we had some cheese and fruit as well.  Plus, of course, no meal is complete without mignardises.

I had noodles for my next meal/snack so when the supper came around I just had the yummy tuna salad appetizer and fruit.  Ben skipped the mid-flight snack so he had the chicken quesadillas with mango salsa.