Morimoto has added an upscale cheesesteak to its menu in honor of the Phillies being in the World Series. It’s made with wagyu beef and topped with sweet soy sauteed onions, enoki mushrooms and grilled scallions on an Amoroso roll. The sandwich is served with house made made tonkatsu sauce (Japanese ketchup), pommes frites and a seasonal salad for $35.

Also added to the menu is Cracker Jack ice cream for a chilly $10.

Morimoto [Official Site]

Stephen Starr places two restaurants on Restaurants & Institutions 2009 top 100 grossing independent restaurants list. New York’s Buddakan is number 7 and Morimoto NY ranks 53rd. The Jersey shore places The Lobster House and Carmine’s on the list as well. No Philadelphia restaurant cracked the list. [R&I]

Alma de Cuba’s Douglas Rodriguez will compete on the Food Network’s Top Chef Masters a spinoff of the hugely popular Top Chef. This version will have actual chefs compete and prize money will be donated to charity.

Wegman’s has been named top supermarket in the US according to Consumer Reports. [Philadelphia Business Journal]

Morimoto was ranked in Playboy’s recent list of America’s 10 Best Sushi Spots. [Playboy] via MenuPages

If you were hanging on the edge of your seat wondering what would happen to Angiebrown and Samantha Johnson of Soul on The Chopping Block, worry not, the un-aired episodes are now on Hulu. [MenuPages]

“That’s why I’m turning Japanese.” And this week there’s plenty of help. Tonight, Japan’s Hitachino Nest will be featured at Jose Pistola’s. There will be some rarely seen Hitachino beers on draft as well as brewer, Mikio Kiuchi. [Meal Ticket]

Thursday night, Morimoto is hosting a Beer dinner with a specially designed 5-course dinner with pairings from Rogue Ales, including several from the Morimoto Signature Series. Dinner is $75 per person.

Check out the full menu after the jump and maybe you’ll be turning Japanese too.

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How about Morimoto’s Signature Hour. Available Sunday through Friday in the upstairs lounge you can enjoy specially priced food and beverages.

Don’t ever feel bad for Stephen Starr, he has two of the highest-grossing independent restaurants in America: Buddakan and Morimoto (the New York branches, of course) at numbers 12 and 84 respectively. Buddakan pulled in $20 million in ‘07 while Morimoto trailed at $11.7 mil. Think about that the next time you’re sucking down an overpriced SRO cocktail. No Philly restaurants on the list at all. [Restaurants & Institutions Mag]

The Delightful Dan Gross notes that Obama has not yet tried a cheesesteak. We think this is because he’s taking our advice and believing in the Audacity of Roast Pork. [PhillyGossip]

Why aren’t food writers dealing with rising food prices? Are we in denial? Do we not care? At Foobooz, we talk about them all the time and even provide some handy guides for dealing with the problem without having to revert to cooking. [Slate]

Grub Street, New York magazine’s food blog, has the exclusive story on Iron Chef Masaharu Morimoto’s big, big, BIG legal troubles with his business partner – the one that isn’t Stephen Starr.

Do we feel bad for Morimoto-san? Um, no. Not in the least.

Exclusive: Court Rules Morimoto Shafted Business Partner [Grub Street]

The Fieldhouse opened last night at the old Independence Brew Pub. The sports bar is run by the same people as Mission Grill and the Public House. [Food & Drinq]

Michael Klein has some more information on two new spots (Peppercorns, Ugly American) that have opened in the Pennsport neighborhood of South Philly. [Table Talk, Philadelphia Inquirer]

Iron Chef Masaharu Morimoto is scouting locations in Miami for his third restaurant. [Page Six, New York Post]

Patrick Mullin who has made the Drafting Room a suburban beer mecca over the last 9 plus years is leaving for Sierra Nevada. He won’t even be able to attend the Drafting Room’s debut of Baltic Thunder (Victory’s remake of Heavyweight’s Perkuno’s Hammer) set for January 5th. [Liquid Diet Online]

Masaharu Morimoto is on the book tour circuit and Michael Klein catches up with him at his New York Morimoto outpost.

Restaurateur, artist, warrior. That’s how Morimoto is known from TV’s Iron Chef.

He’s now also a cookbook author, with Morimoto: The New Art of Japanese Cooking (DK Books).

Japanese purists may snort at Morimoto’s interpretations, just as they sniff at his celebrity and his multiple endeavors. Besides Iron Chef, taped at the Food Network studios upstairs from the Manhattan Morimoto, the chef is never at rest. He shuttles among his four restaurants on two continents – in Philadelphia, New York, Tokyo and Mumbai, India – trying, he says, to work the line when he is in town. He said he had no plans for more restaurants. But there’s the food-festival circuit and now a book tour.

Lights, camera, Morimoto! [Philadelphia Inquirer]
Morimoto Restaurant [Official Site]
Morimoto: The New Art of Japanese Cooking [Amazon.com]

Morimoto’s has a new lunch box menu that offers items ranging in price from $15-$28, including soup and salad.

For a lunch time splurge try the Morimoto Lunch Omakase where guests put themselves in the chef’s hands with a 6-9 course tasting menu that begins at $40. As the price goes up, so does the luxuriousness of ingredients.

Lunch is available Monday through Friday from 11:30 AM to 2 PM.

Morimoto [Official Site]
Photo via What We Ate

Morimoto is now offering “Sushi School” for small classes of 2 to 8 people right in the kitchen.

Your $150 gets you the opportunity to eat your creations plus a chef’s coat, bamboo mat and rice paddle.

School’s in at Morimoto [Zagat Buzz]