Making sense of Williamsburg's New Sushi Scene

Tuesday night we got sidetracked by the Koolman fire en route to reporting on what promises to be the flashiest debut along the North Sixth bar/restaurant/club corridor since Mikey's Hookup moved to its new digs a few months back.

We snapped the above photo during mock service last evening, and when we stopped in Wednesday to ask questions, everyone seemed to be either a harried owner/manager or a contractor, so our information is limited for now. But here's what we DO know:

The address is 106 North Sixth Street. The building is a gorgeous little brownstone commercial space that dates to the late 1800s and housed a meatpacking concern called the Pacific Beef Company. Appropriately, the keystone of the grand first-floor arch is the carved head of a steer.

The building's last tenant was a steakhouse called Bull's Eye. According to locals, the restaurant closed under suspicious legal circumstances (table settings remained in place for several years) and "the place always had a funny smell".

The new tenants held a "grand opening" party called Electrovibes on New Years Eve, while interior renovations were still in full swing. The promoters' - ku-deta, World Clique, and Glide Dance - taste in DJ-performed club music appears to have strongly influenced the interior decor, as well as the dinner soundtrack. This place is very much in the vein of neighboring Thai scene/restaurant Sea. Hopefully the quality and value of their food approaches that of Sea as well.

Oh, did we mention, the new joint is called sense? We'll assume no caps; any place cool enough to not put their name on the sign probably knows enough to not capitalize either. And we believe its pronounced "sensay", though we could have been hallucinating from the all the purple zebra-striped velvet wallcover. Sensei - pronounced "sensay" in good ol Yankee phonetics - is Japanese for 'teacher', which could be the play here, or we could just be making shit up again...

Interestingly, the restaurant/club/scene's business card boasts the improbable domain name "www.sense.com". A quick spin through WHOIS confirms our suspicion that's just wishful thinking: the url is parked by a Norwegian "chess communication" company.

The folks inside say they'll be rehearsing a for couple more evenings, and open f'r real real real sometime this weekend.