Mon-Tues 11 am-midnight; Wed-Fri 11 am-2 am; Sat 4 pm-2 am; Sun 3-9 pm; naked sushi is Sat at midnight.

After a week of media coverage and orchestrated outrage, Bonzai was predictably packed on naked sushi night, mostly with people in their early 20s, a few (rather older) TV news reporters, and a DJ spinning dance music, all jammed together in the dark, bluish club. Making polite conversation with a woman I found myself pressed up against, I learned she was a Bonzai regular. "It was never very crowded here," she said, "until now."

Now I am very interested in all kinds of spectacle, but the only thing that concerned me was how good the sushi would be. Each drink you buy gets you a ticket good for four pieces of sushi, which you serve yourself from a line that snakes past the human sushi bar. She's not actually naked, but swathed in plastic wrap, wearing a rather modest thong and flowers taped to her boobs. I was expecting a slow reveal, a woman covered in fish, her body slowly emerging, but this was minimalist, a few pieces of this and that displayed around her belly. There is something rather surreal about trying to pick up sushi, with chopsticks, from a tray that heaves up and down. It is not, shall we say, usual.

And the sushi was quite good (not remotely body-warmed), although Bonzai is so dark I was almost never sure what I was eating. I had salmon and what I think was yellowtail, both very fresh and clean-tasting; a salty, spicy roll of something; and a tempura roll of something else that was crunchy--and I would have liked more.

There are easier ways to see a naked girl, and there are much easier ways to get sushi. But that's not the point, is it? Anyway, the crowds will eventually abate, when the spectacle becomes everyday, a happy hour that's simply happier than usual.